A special south coast sight - Kelvin Helmholtz waves

Wellington's slogan is "Absolutely Positively Wellington."  Another commonly applied adjective is "windy."  Some days it can be hard to find anything positive about our wind, but a big advantage of living in a very windy place is the constantly changing vista of clouds and dramatic skies.  And we get to see some rare cloud formations - like these Kelvin Helmholtz waves.

Looking like large breakers in the sea these waves in the sky are named for the phenomenon - the Kelvin Helmholtz instability - which causes their formation.  As I understand it this cloud pattern arises when there is interaction at the junction of a layer of cold air below and warm air above, moving at different speeds, plus vertical wind shear and the right conditions of moisture.  They are generally short-lived and these ones were forming and breaking as I tried to get a photo. 

While these waves are not perfectly formed like some examples on the Cloud Appreciation Society website  https://cloudappreciationsociety.org/?s=kelvin+helmholtz+waves they are a rare sight, and I was delighted to catch them while coming home along the south coast.

Apple blossom - on my brave little Autento

I have learned not to get too upset by Wellington's ferocious equinoxial winds - what's the point, the wind isn't going to respond!  And I live in a very exposed spot.  We get gales (defined as an average wind speed of 62-74km/h) regularly both from the north and the south.  But this is where I am and I want to be able to grow happy plants - what to do?  The first step is to notice what actually grows in your location.  Here in Island Bay I saw apple trees that seemed to be doing quite well.  So apples were worth a try - on dwarfing stock so the plants don't get too tall and thus more exposed to wind. 

I have two modern apples - Autento (Delcoros) and Tentation (Delblush) from Delbard, a French nursery that was already of interest to me because of beautiful roses they have bred.  Like roses, modern apples are bred with disease resistance in mind - the use of pesticides and fungicides is being limited as we become more aware of the problems they cause.  And plants in my garden have to manage without being sprayed - I prefer organic practices if at all possible, and it is just being realistic about my way of doing things - I am not particularly interventionist.  Using older varieties which have proven their disease resistance over time is another way of ensuring we can have safe gardening practices, and there are really great people who have collected heritage varieties so that they are not lost to us. 

Autento has been a great success despite inauspicious beginnings - scaffolding fell on the plant breaking off branches on one side.  And the wind hasn't let up just because it had a hard start.

But spring brings blossom -

the pretty pink buds and blush flowers of Autento blossom framed by the soft fresh green new leaves -

with the promise of delicious apples - crisp and tangy, a good strong apple flavour, and they store well.

It is still a small crop from this tree, but there are many layers of pleasure from growing it.  A suprise is that it reminds me of how lucky we are to get such generous supplies of tasty apples from local growers.  I enjoy the particular flavour and quality of the Autento apples.  And  I am able to enjoy many different aspects of the life of this plant including its beauty and resilience - not least the amazing capacity of trees to heal themselves when branches are lost. 

I love my brave little tree!

A fresh crown - unfurling fronds of Blechnum discolor

Who cares about the weather if you are sheltered on the forest floor?  Blechnum discolor is a native fern found there in a number of different plant communities and locations within New Zealand.

Different Maori names are cited by different sources - kiokio, piupiu or petipeti, and it is also called the crown fern.  The pale fronds that are unfolding, fresh spring growth, are sterile.  Spore bearing fertile fronds are very dark and look spindly and shrivelled. The old ones here are not easy to see. 

This fern can be the dominant plant on the forest floor, making a rather enchanting covering of crown-shaped clumps.  At Otari Native Botanic garden where I took this photo there are several areas where they are growing in this way.  As they mature the plants can develop woody trunks up to 30 cm tall, like little tree ferns.  It may sound strange, but to me they have a perky quality, little characters holding their own amidst the big trees.

And then shine -

Relief - after the rain there is light...

A dramatic glow over Island Bay -  bright light breaking through the mist and creating a double rainbow.  The rainclouds were still so dense you couldn't see the Orongorongos across the water from Island Bay.  A tiny white dot in the sky is an airplane taking off contrasting with the dark of the clouds.  

Less than an hour later, as evening falls, a different light.

The pink of sunset colours the sea and the soft cumulus clouds.  The dark rainclouds and mist recede over the Orongorongos, now visible.  Shadows are muting the beach and hillside, but a ferry leaving Wellington is brightly lit in the much more focused and fading light.

Rain!

It's been raining...

The sparkle of raindrops on rose leaves,

and on the delicate leaves of fennel - drooping gracefully under the weight of tiny droplets lined along each leaflet.

Storm stripped Phormium leaves - muka revealed - and when is a flax a flax

Equinoxial winds continue to blow.  People can feel besieged by the weather, irritable, restless.  Tender spring growth suffers, plants are bruised and battered.  But some of the damage is curiously attractive.  The long strappy leaves of Phormium (harakeke, New Zealand flax) growing along the waterfront near Te Papa have been stripped by the pummelling of severe gales.  Long pale strands of fibre hang from the leaves like a cascade of silver.  This fibre, revealed when the fleshy part of the leaves is scraped away, is called muka in Maori.

The muka is strong and flexible.  It is the reason for Phormium being called New Zealand flax, even though the plant Linum usitatissimum which is traditionally called flax and used to make linen is very very different - it is an annual with slender stems, pretty blue flowers and little grey-green leaves, and grows about a metre high.  The strong fibres come from the stems and it is also the source of linseed oil. 

Just to complicate things, we have a native Linum too, Linum monogynum.  I have never seen Linum usitatissimum in the flesh, but the similarity is clear from the descriptions.  Our Linum is a little delicate looking thing compared to Phormium.  As far as I am aware it has not been used as a source of fibre, but confusingly, I have seen it called flax too. 

Described as a subshrub or a short-lived herbaceous perennial it grows about half a metre high.  The white flowers continue from spring to summer and it seeds a lot - I always have little seedlings popping up to replace the ageing plants.  Despite its rather fragile appearance it grows well in poor coastal conditions and can be used in sand dune restoration. 

And despite all the battering, this year along the south coast there are so many flowering spikes on the Phormium plants they are looking like a little forest.  Impressive!

Xeronema callistemon - from volcanic islands to a Wellington traffic island

Xeronema callistemon - Raupo Taranga or the Poor Knights Lily - is a dramatic plant endemic to a group of small islands off the east coast of Northland - the Poor Knights islands and Taranga (also known as Hen island).  Rising steeply from the water, the Poor Knights are remnants of a large volcano that erupted 10 to 11 million years ago.  They have been isolated from the mainland for thousands of years, and lie in an area of converging warm water currents.  This makes for a rich diversity of plant and animal life on land and in the water, and some unique species - like Xeronema callistemon. 

At home, Xeronema callistemon grows on the volcanic rock - plants are seen perching on sea cliffs and rocky outcrops as well as on rubble in forests or as epiphytes on pohutukawa trees.  Here in Wellington, Xeronema plants can be seen in rather different territory...

Contrasts and textures of a group of New Zealand native plants - the bright red flowering spikes of Xeronema callistemon, pale spikes of spiny Aciphylla, golden brown carex and coprosmas, fresh green kowhai leaves, rich green Scleranthus mounds, strappy leaves of a cordyline - all on a large traffic island by Courtenay Place in central Wellington (I wrote about it last year too - see "Midwinter glow"). 

Xeronema's clumps of yellow-green upright sword shaped leaves are impressive in their own right.  Just as well - these plants can be very slow (years!) to flower.

The rich red flowers appear in spring - large bristly bottlebrush shapes on a long (about a metre) stalk which bends at the top so that the flowers sit in a horizontal position - a good perch for nectar feeders.  They mature progressively - in the picture above you can see the orange pollen develop and become pale as the flower ages from front to back. 

The leaves grow into a thick clump, and one with lots of flowers is a delight to see.

The bees agree.  Mostly they are partially hidden as they burrow deep in the flowers to find the nectar (I presume) and get a bit tangled up in the process.  There are a number of bees at work on this plant.

But I caught this bumblebee as it came out, apparently for a quick breather, before diving back in.

"Surely an acquisition for the most discerning person" - Hebe diosmifolia

Hebe diosmifolia is a lovely New Zealand native evergreen shrub that flowers early and profusely in spring.  The leaves are narrow and dark, with paler undersides and tiny notches in the leaf edges.  Despite the name they don't look much like diosma leaves to me.  The small lavender flowers grow in dense clusters near the end of the branches.  They start opening in early spring and the flowers can cover the neat little shrubs through October and November - good for bees and butterflies. 

Muriel E. Fisher was a most inspiring and enthusiastic advocate for the use of native plants in our gardens, and her book "Gardening with New Zealand plants shrubs and trees" co-authored with Janet Watkins and E. Satchell (1975 edition) is an old friend - it has been very well-used, and was very precious when there was much less information around. 

While the quote in the title was her comment about Hebe diosmifolia, she was quite generous in bestowing such an affirmation on a number of native plants.  And I can't disagree with her.

Very big and tiny

On my way home along the south coast last night warm evening light was colouring the clearing clouds.  In the distance bright light was breaking through.  It was a welcome sight - it had been a dull grey day after a dramatic and intense storm.  Then I saw a white spot on the horizon. 

Lit up by the evening sun and looking as tiny as a child's toy was a cruise liner leaving Wellington.  These huge vessels dwarf the wharf where they berth and thousands of visitors check out the city for a day before they head on to their next destination.  This one, the Sea Princess, is number two of the 76 of these liners which will visit us before the end of the season in mid-May.  They might be huge in the human scale, but in the scale of the natural world we humans and our constructions are tiny.  Our impact is, unfortunately, not to scale.  

Not a vine, it's a bine! Wisteria unfurling

Here spring is a wonderful unfurling of fresh new plant growth repeatedly disturbed by stormy weather.  Sigh.  Recently, on a reasonably still and fine day, I saw this lovely wisteria beginning to flower.  A lot of the racemes (flower stalks) are still just in bud, but the light lavender flowers give the plant a soft appearance, like the foam on waves.  It could be Wisteria 'Caroline' which is an early flowering hybrid.   

It is growing on a picket fence in an older suburb, but flowering so profusely you can't see the fence or the long stems of the plant.  Wisteria is a climbing plant but not a vine.  It is a bine.  A vine climbs by sending out long stems or runners which grab hold of some kind of support using tendrils or suckers.  But a bine climbs by winding itself around a support.  Apparently most bines spiral in a counterclockwise direction.  And while it is said that Japanese wisterias grow in a clockwise direction, distinguishing them from Chinese wisterias, most wisterias grown in gardens are hybrids.  This one looked as if it was growing counterclockwise, but I am not sure.  Who cares - it is another delight of spring. 

I can't really say that is so for this sight...

Today's southerly front approaching off Wellington's south coast.  The sea is still but the foaming rather lavender coloured clouds are to me a bit reminiscent of the wisteria.  And the storms do have their own, if much more dramatic, beauty.