I have recently started reflecting on where plants in our garden are originally from, because people often ask me the same question about myself. Most of our flowers, fruits, veggies and herbs in the garden are from other countries. I have started writing a series of blog posts to explore some of our favourite flowers and edibles we have grown over the years which are from overseas. In this post, I would like to cover plants we have grown in our garden that originate from North America. Sunflowers Every summer, I look forward to growing sunflowers in our garden. When I first started gardening a decade ago, I grew the very tall ornamental branching varieties which attract bees and help to pollinate veggies. In the past few years, I have become increasingly interested in flower farming, so I started growing sunflowers which are bred for the cut flower industry. These flowers produce only a single stem with one head. They are also pollenless. Usually, varieties suitable for picking tend to be hybrids. If you save seeds from your plants, they might not necessarily come true to type. The seeds also tend to be a lot more expensive than ornamental sunflowers. You can usually pick up a packet of these seeds for a few dollars from garden centres. Here are some cutting varieties I grew last summer. Rudbeckia Two years ago, I discovered rudbeckia, which are a rather charming flower in the same family as sunflowers. I purchased a packet of seeds on special from a large NZ mail order supplier called Kings Seeds. Every month, they have discounted seeds on their website, reduced by 40%. At $2.37 for a packet of seeds, I felt that I didn’t have anything to lose by giving it a try. I scattered the seeds in some punnets filled with seed raising mix and covered them with a light layer of the same product. I did this in mid-December. I left the seeds to germinate inside our greenhouse, but placed the punnets inside a plastic Sistema crate. I left the crate open during the day but covered it with a lid at night for extra warmth, as it can still be quite temperamental even at the start of summer. I kept the punnets moist by spraying them with the hose on the mist setting. Once the seedlings germinated and grew a bit, I moved them into our patio to grow a bit more before transplanting them into seedling trays, which you can see in the picture below. Once the plants were large enough, I planted them in plastic troughs outside once our marigolds finished flowering. By that time, it was late summer and the plants flowered in autumn. Blueberries When I set up our mini orchard in 2017, I planted quite a few different blueberry varieties in large containers. Prior to that, when I first started gardening, I did pick up a couple of blueberry plants on clearance at the garden centre and planted them in the ground, but they ended up dying. My theory is that the soil was too alkaline for their liking. Blueberries thrive in acidic soil. There are certainly things you can do to change the soil conditions where they are planted, such as adding pine needles. But this is of course an on-going task as any matter added to the ground will gradually decompose and fresh material will need to be added. For that reason, I wanted an alternative. In the past, Mitre 10 (a NZ hardware store with a garden centre) held a garden club evening around October. On one occasion, a sales rep from Tui, a large gardening company which makes a range of products, attended and gave a talk. He said that blueberries can be grown in containers filled with an acidic mixture called Pot Power, which is made by Tui. After having a chat to him after his talk, I decided to plant our blueberries this way and they have all done really well. The plants are much smaller and less productive than if grown in the ground under the right conditions, but are well-suited to an urban homestead like ours, where space is limited and the soil conditions are not naturally ideal. Pumpkins Every summer, I enjoy growing pumpkins. Here is a picture of the pumpkin Atlantic Giant, which I grew one year. It is an ornamental pumpkin that is used for entering pumpkin growing competitions. They are not as common here as in the US, which is a shame because I think they are fun and a great thing for young people to get involved in. There are so many temptations for youth, including recreational drugs and binge drinking, which aren’t good for your health. Pumpkin growing competitions are an example of good, wholesome fun that the whole family can be involved in. Contests bring together all the growers as part of a community, which is also nice. Modern society can be very individualistic. People can sometimes feel a bit isolated and lonely. I have recently written a blog post containing some tips for growing pumpkins, which you can read here.
Miners lettuce Every spring, I sow miners lettuce. As the name suggests, it was consumed by miners to prevent scurvy. It has a lovely flavour. You can pick the leaves as they become ready. As the weather warms up towards the beginning of summer, the plants start going to seed.
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Sunflowers are my all-time favourite flower and always feature prominently in our summer garden. They are very easy to grow and are a great way to attract bees and butterflies to the garden.
I normally sow sunflower seeds from mid-October onwards, when the risk of frosts has well and truly passed but the ground is at the same time sufficiently moist to aid germination. In saying that, it does depend on where you live. New Zealand’s climate varies dramatically from region to region and I do have to remember that not all of my audience lives in Auckland or even New Zealand for that matter. My personal gardening experiences are limited to our urban homestead in the Auckland region, so please take this into account when considering my advice. On the same token, what grows well in my environment may not necessarily thrive in your own microclimate. So please don’t blame me if things go wrong and varieties I’ve recommended don’t grow well in your garden! Sowing sunflowers from seed It’s really easy to grow sunflowers from seed and it allows you to grow unusual varieties which aren’t found in garden centres. It takes about 90 days until maturity, usually around 60 or so days in the case of dwarf varieties. For the best results, sow sunflower seeds directly where you want to grow them. Over the years, I have tried raising sunflowers in punnets for transplanting later, but I found that germination rates were very low. If you’ve left it too late or don’t want to start them from seed, look out for sunflower plants in garden centres from October onwards. You can try your local Palmers store. Sunflower varieties If you’re planning to grow sunflowers from seed, you’ll find that they come in an impressive array of colours, sizes and heights. Traditionally, sunflowers are bright yellow, but they also come in pale yellow, red, bronze and orange. Sunflowers are either dwarf, medium or tall in height. The sunflower seeds I’m sowing this year were saved from last year’s plants. However there are some fantastic varieties of sunflower seeds on the market. Popular dwarf varieties include Pacino Cola (Egmont Seeds) and Dwarf Ballad F1 Hybrid (Egmont Seeds). A lovely medium sized variety I have grown in the past is Musicbox Mix (Egmont Seeds), which contains a lovely variety of shades. For tall traditional yellow sunflowers, you can’t go past Russian Giant (Egmont Seeds). The best red variety I have grown is Moulin Rouge F1 Hybrid (Egmont Seeds), which produces tall red and bronze flowers on branching stems. The best sunflower for picking is by far Sunrich Irish Gold (Egmont Seeds). I have grown this variety in previous years and it produces excellent cut flowers on long stems. To order seeds from the very extensive Egmont Seeds range, visit http://www.egmontseeds.co.nz/. How to care for sunflower plants Sunflowers need at least 6 hours of sunshine per day, so be sure to plant seedlings in the sunniest spot in your garden. Before sowing sunflower seeds, take the time to prepare the bed properly so plants receive adequate nutrition. Dig the area over that you wish to plant your seedlings in. Mix plenty of compost and some sheep pellets into the ground. I highly recommend Gardn Gro’s Wonder Nuggets, which are 100% organic and function as an excellent fertiliser. Rake the ground so that it is nice and level. Be sure to water plants every day, preferably early in the morning or in the evening. Liquid feed sunflowers weekly to encourage the growth of healthy leaves and the formation of flowers. Sunflowers are an annual which means that they will grow, set seed and die after one growing season. If you are growing heirloom varieties, you can save seeds from your plants so you will be able to sow those varieties next season, as I have done. |
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