Light, colour, texture

At Otari Wilton's Bush on a sunny late winter's morning, the side lighting emphasised the textures and shapes of the grasses, divaricating shrubs, a cordyline and a treefern with the bush (the use of "bush" to describe NZ mixed forest is probably a bit confusing for non-NZers) in the background.

This is a Botanic Garden in Wellington dedicated to New Zealand native plants, with areas of really interesting plant collections and extensive reserves of bush for people to explore, learn and have fun.  The path here leads to a nature trail and other walks.  I love the colours, the gold and reddish browns and all the different greens, and the foaming textures of the shrubs contrasting with the strap-like leaves of grasses and cordyline. 

Colour schemers

Sighted while photographing a Needle-leaved totara, Podocarpus acutifolius, which is a shrubby native plant with a lovely range of colours and, as named, very sharp leaves, was a stick insect.  It was sitting very quietly - part of its protection plan.  They move around and eat at night, when the birds can't see them.  Then there is the cover of the colour - the green doesn't blend with the browns and golds so well, but there is green in the plant too. 

And it does look like a stick, a wee branch of the shrub, when it holds itself in position.

Can it see me?

It stays so very still, its front legs held in front to make it even longer and more stick-like.

This led to another discovery.  I had been wondering what had been eating my plant of Ugni molinae, previously known as Myrtus ugni, sold here as NZ cranberry - only it isn't from NZ and it isn't a cranberry.  It's a small tough bush with tasty little pinkish red fruit, and is from South America.  A more accurate name is Chilean guava. 

Something was enjoying not just the fruit but the leaves...

Stick insect alert!  They may look skinny, but they sure can get through the food.

Close-up of a culprit.  It was really hard to find - a very good colour and shape match. 

Precocious signs of spring

Winter is hanging on - grey skies, rain, wind - and we don't seem to be getting as many of the clear bright still days that usually occur between wind changes.  But spring will soon be here.  One of the earliest signs that winter is coming to an end is the glorious display of pinkness that is the flowering of a grand Magnolia campbellii in the Wellington Botanic Garden.  This majestic tree is over seventy years old and impressively tall, but surrounded - this photo shows how it is framed by evergreen trees and treeferns which sit on hills around it.

Such a welcome sight, but difficult to convey.  This challenges me - I crane my neck and perch my camera against my face...looking up against the bright grey sky, trying to avoid having the flowers in dark silhouette.

Upper branches of the magnolia, bare except for the gorgeous pink blooms (and a sprinkling of lichen).  Oh to see them better...

A closer view of the pink flowers, the large buds and the tangle of branches of Magnolia campbellii.

Dancing branches

I love the patterns made by the bare branches of a line of magnolias in the Wellington Botanic Garden - their only clothing a frosting of pale grey-green lichen.  Soon there will be large buds covered with soft hairs, and shapely globular flowers, then the green foliage obscuring the curious shapes of the branches.  But, exposed by winter, they twist and writhe together busily, as if dancing an exotic dance.

The bare branches of a line of deciduous magnolias (probably Magnolia soulangeana).

Weather as predicted

"Red in the morning shepherd's warning, red at night shepherd's delight" is the simple weather forecasting system that I learned from my grandparents.  I understand that the colour results from the scattering of light by water vapour and dust particles in the atmosphere, and the prediction works best when the weather comes from the west.  I'm not sure if this old saying applies to the northern hemisphere only, but it does seem to have some predictive power here in the southern hemisphere.     So - looking across to the Orongorongos from Island Bay this is what I saw this morning:

(Actually to me it looks more orange-y than red - reddish I guess is what I'd call it.) 

But it was right...rain today.  What a colourful harbinger of grey skies!

Smelling of roses

The sweet scent of old-fashioned roses is one of my favourites.  In winter, when rose bushes are bare, I could feel deprived.  But at my front door I have growing a little shrub with bright green leaves that always look healthy, and pretty but small pink flowers.  The stems, and to a lesser extent the leaves, are covered by soft hairs - very discreet, but they pack a punch.  Apparently glands within the hairs are the source of a richly beautiful rose perfume.  The flowers, even though they look somehow as if they should be the scent-bearers, actually lack perfume.  So even if there are no flowers I can pick a leaf and be transported by the rose scent.  Even more wonderful - this is an incredibly easy plant to care for.  It is easy to grow from cuttings, and despite moves and neglect this plant is the offspring of one I first got decades ago - tolerant of my haphazard care, a treasured old friend.   

The small pink flowers and soft green leaves of my rose-scented pelargonium, called 'Attar of Roses', probably a form of Pelargonium capitatum.

Karo - crass?

Botanical names convey a lot of information to those in the know - but even if we aren't taxonomists we can still get an idea of what they are referring to.  Karo, one of our tough native coastal plants pictured on the edge of Houghton Bay (see previous post) has the name Pittosporum crassifolium.  Pittosporum (the genus name) is the group it belongs to of plants with similar characteristics, and refers to their sticky seeds.  These shrubs and trees are thought to have originated from the ancient continent of Gondwana.  Wow.  I enjoy these reminders of connections, life's patterns and changes. 

And down by the coast at Island Bay there are some karo braving the conditions, and sure enough, the seeds from last year's flowering are pretty sticky:

A tangle of old seed pods of Pittosporum crassifolium, or karo.  To me they have a certain beauty - the leathery texture of the rusty coloured pods contrasts with the sticky shiny black seeds.  The tangle of twisted stems reflects the way the flowers grow in dangling umbels.  

This close-up of the end of a branch shows the new year's growth developing alongside the seedpods from last year - the new buds are tomentose (hairy) as are the stems and the undersides of the leaves.  These buds will develop and flower in spring.

The leaves are tough and weather resistant - thick and leathery with a dense coat of pale hairs protecting the undersides - altogether making them weather resistant, able to withstand wind damage and drying.  But they don't always look that pretty - the yellowing and dimpling of some of the leaves is damage caused by a wee pest, the Pittosporum psyllid. 

So back to the naming - Pittosporum covers the sticky seeds, but what about crassifolium?

Folium is the Latin for leaf - no surprise that leaves are featured in naming a plant that can hold on to them despite all kinds of weather - but crass??

Definitions of crass include insensitive, dull, boring, ill-mannered...but this time it means thick or tough.  And the leaves really are.  Some people might think this plant is also ill-mannered - the sticky seeds stick to the feathers and feet of birds and spread the plant around - it can be a weed in some places, and as a survivor it can displace other plants in an insensitive manner.  It might be seen as dull, because from a distance it can seem a dull green and you don't see the seeds, flowers or new growth very clearly...but look close, and there is much to admire. 

The three stages:   in bud, flower, and fruit.   

And a close-up of those pretty flowers and baby leaves:                  

While the close-ups are of dense-growing relatively sheltered plants in low light, karo plants can also look quite sparse and delicate - here's one right by the water's edge on Island Bay beach:

Windscaping

A rainy grey day - very misty and not very inspiring - but the light is bright.  Even though this means that there are no strong shadows, I hope that my pictures convey the quite striking wind-sculpturing of the shrubs along the south coast.  Houghton Bay is a small enclosed bay subject to strong southerly winds which funnel in and batter the plants which fringe it.  This view is looking south, and the hedge-like formation of the shrubs at the edge of the road almost obscures the cars driving along. The shrubs, pittosporums and brighter green Coprosma repens, are moulded and shaped in ridges by the southerly wind.  Looking in the other direction, the sculptured ridges are even more evident:

It is interesting to contrast these weather-made hedges with some human-made ones which are a very determined wind shelter strategy - staggered blocks of shrubs clipped in straight lines disrupt the blast of the wind and create a sheltered space for a garden and chicken coop, and a cyclindrical hedge encloses what I think is a studio. 

These hedges, human and wind-made, are tough and functional. 

To my eye they are also living sculptures - less decorative than topiary and not needing artistic validation through deeper meaning, but being a dramatic illustration of the impact of the energy that is manifest in the wind and the weather.

A tiny treasure

Manuka or tea tree, Leptospermum scoparium, is a New Zealand plant which has pretty and conspicuous flowers  - most of our plants have rather subtle and inconspicuous flowers.  I have seen hillsides of white-flowered manuka plants flowering so profusely it looked like snow had fallen, and this was in the subtropical north where snow is never seen!  Manuka honey is another happy result - it tastes great and has considerable medicinal value, helping healing of skin and gastric ulcers.  Pretty and practical - could it get better?  Well, yes - gardeners are always looking for "improved" plants, and many Leptospermum cultivars have been developed with differences in flower and plant forms which satisfy this plant-acquisition itch.  Alas, some cultivars are not readily available.  As I understand it, Warwick Harris crossed a small prostrate form of the Tasmanian subalpine species Leptospermum rupestre with 'Huia' a dwarf cultivar of the NZ species L. scoparium.  One result was this dwarf prostrate form Leptospermum 'Lilliput', but it was not taken up for commercial release.

Leptospermum 'Lilliput' - a tiny treasure, perfect for a rockery or pot culture.  My plant is barely 10cm tall, generous in production of pretty pink flowers.  I was lucky to get it from Hokonui Alpines, another treasure - Peter Salmond's specialist nursery that helps to maintain the diversity of plants available for gardeners and plant-lovers to tend and enjoy. 

Purplish haze

Sunny still days again, and the phenomenon of misty mornings - it is still cold, but the air is warmer.  I wasn't up early with my camera yesterday but a year ago I was up at sunrise.  And this is what I saw:

The colour in the dawn sky gave the water a purple tint, while the rolling mist shrouded the contours of the lower hills of the Orongorongos.  This view is looking over the waters of Island Bay.  There is a lone fishing boat, one of the fleet that moor in the shelter of the island Taputeranga.   The times like this when the sea seems an improbable colour make sense for me of Homer's description of the "wine dark sea."