Short Holiday/A lesson in Northern Horticulture

[Maggi Young]

Thanks, Lesley. It's appreciated
M

[annew]

Crikey, Lesley, you wouldn't want to climb that Colissa trunk, would you?

[Maggi Young]

I was thinking that about the Colissa, Anne.  I don't know it, Lesley, Is it a fruiting tree? If it has lots of tasty fruits at the top, I can see it would need all the protection from climbing hungry critters it can get. Won't stop the flying ones though. Hmm. This is an interesting one!
Drooling over lovely house, too, hard to believe it was MOVED, but there was a TV programme here a little while ago about how houses, railway stations, you name it, are routinely moved in USA... fascinating stuff.

[Lesley Cox]

Houses are frequently moved here too, on very long trucks and with police etc in attendance, power lines occasionally cut then joined up again etc etc. My late husband and I moved one in the last 70s so I know it can be a bit traumatic, wondering if the darned truck will slide down a bank or the house topple off. Usually it's a case of old, often decrepit house bought cheaply, then moved, renovated and renewed into something much better. Many turn out beautifully, as the one above. Ours was a single storied version.

The Colissa looked very ordinary above the trunk and I doubt if its fruit/seeds would be edible. They looked like nothing much that I could see.

[Maggi Young]

Hi, Lesley, you are the first person I've known to have moved house so literally!
Not quite so easy for us in my area, with houses made of granite stones that can weigh hundreds of kilos each ! 
I can't find anything about Colissa yet, either... I'm intrigued, though, so will have another rootle about to see what I can learn!
I take it you got your Market day and its newsletter safely out of the way?

[Lesley Cox]

I did indeed thanks Maggi but my site Co-ordinator had a day off (she's American and needed to cook a turkey for a Thanksgiving party. Thanksgiving for what? Freedom from the Brits?) so I filled in which meant getting up at 4.30am. I'd got out of the habit recently and was shattered by the time I was home again. Sore feet, back and head (I really must stop going out late and drinking on a Friday night!) so I didn't make the party.

I've successfully managed to modify that early post with the pics in the right order at last. To start with, the bottom pic had moved to the top which meant the captions were out of order. Got those sorted OK then because it happened with that post, assumed it would again with the next post of which I modified the text, but it didn't so had to modify that as well, then found the Cordyline pic appeared (twice!) under the line as a separate post so had to remove that one. Hopefully I've learned something with all that but I'm not sure what.

Now, the last group of pics from my northern holiday. These turned out to be my favourite plants of all in Ray's garden. And I don't even like bamboo! My chums grow about 30 different species from very small to whopping great things, some clumping and others running. Ray tried to persuade me to try some but I resisted.

I like this one because of its wonky stems


I think it is an edible species but I didn't get to try it as it's a young plant and being nurtured for now. This below was very tall, perhaps 10 metres or more and in fact I never did see the top as it was growing among trees which crowded around.




These plates are, I suppose, bracts and they peel off the stems as the stems mature. I was tempted to bring a few home as they'd make marvellous platters for outdoor finger food or to serve barbecue food on. I didn't though as they's have to be flattened to pack them They were around 40cms long


I was able to climb into the centre of the clump and looking up I saw something wonderful. The photo's not great because I couldn't get far enough under to look through the screen, just had to hold it in front of me, pointing straight up



This little guy is a morepork, a native owl whose cry is, surprisingly, "more pork." He's only about 20-25 cms tall and was sitting perhaps 8 metres above me. I'd often heard a morepork in the night but never seen one before, so a great thrill.

This is a small section of the tall boundry fence bamboo. It is some 25 metres in height. Ray measured a fallen stem at 24.6m. I lay awake on windy nights - and have done several times before - fascinated by the sounds it makes: clicks, grunts, whistles, whines, hoots, howls, and many different singing sounds, truly an orchestral plant. I think someone, Tan Dun perhaps, should write a concerto for bamboo and orchestra. It could be premiered in the garden during NZ's next International Arts Festival and enjoyed by a large audience, all drinking much rice wine.
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Thankyou for your patience with all my stops and starts and for persevering with this long thread.

Lesley

[Maggi Young]

Thank YOU, Lesley, we've been enjoying our trip!
I'm very taken with the little "more pork". These diminutive owls are so cute.
 (remember Rafa's Otus scopus?  see this page in old forum: http://www.srgc.org.uk/discus/messages/1078/38358.html?1159628825 ) 

 I don't think you've got the identity of the bamboo "bracts" quite right, though... I nkow that growing on the stems they LOOK like bracts but, it is quite obvious when you see them on the ground that they are, in fact, organic false fingernails for giantesses. They'e all the rage at the top of the beanstalk for well groomed giantesses and lady ogres! They'd be even more popular if it were not for the frightful expense of buying enough nail polish to paint them!

[SueG]

Hi Lesley
Thanks for the pictures of a morepork - I'd never realised they were real, only knowing about them through the Terry Pratchett Discworld books - and I thought he'd made them up!
Sue

[Lesley Cox]

Sue, I don't know Terry Pratchett but no, they're definitely real, and cute, as Maggi says.

I think you're right Maggi about the false fingernails. I suspect some people see me as an orgress (?) but these are still a bit big for me. Just as well as I doubt if they'd stand the weed pulling and general gardening.