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| Header image: Beautiful copper-coloured Cryptic skink, Oligosoma inconspicuum, found during ecological survey in the Springburn/Annie catchment. Photo by conservation scientist and critter expert Samuel Purdie |
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| News from the nursery and autumn outlook |
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| Following a fairly cool summer with frequent light rains, autumn started with temperatures in central Otago well above average in the month of March, with rainfall well below normal. While record 1-day rainfall totals were recorded in the northern parts of the country, soil moisture conditions here remained somewhat dry in early autumn. While some much needed autumn rains have finally arrived, this climate pattern for central Otago is broadly likely to continue for the next 3 months, with temperatures forecast to likely be near average or above average, with rainfall totals likely to be below normal or near normal. |
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| Above: Some large plants delivered to site last month, from left: Griselinia, Pittosporum, Kunzea, Olearia lineata, Cordyline and Austroderia |
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| It’s been very busy for us in the nursery so far this year (hence this newsletter being rather late). Good planting conditions holding right through summer gave us little break, and left us constantly filling orders on top of our regular watering and plant maintenance, while still carrying on our potting and propagation programs at top speed.
Huge thanks to all our customers this year, we will continue bringing our signature quality and value plants to the people, and keep watching this space as the best is yet to come. |
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| Above: We’ve just completed our first season using our new potting machine full time - mechanically elevating potting mix reduces physical strain on our hands and arms, while helping to increase throughput. |
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| Above: No matter how busy, a plant propagator must always make time for seed collection, as plant reproduction follows its own calender. The few humble tablespoons of processed C. rubra seed above represents many hours of work - but also has the potential to become thousands of plants. |
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| | Having a large nursery inevitably results in some plants losing condition, becoming overgrown, not making grade, or otherwise being below our standards for sale. Normally we use these sub-grade plants for our own reveg and planting projects, but due to a lack of time this season, we’d like to offer these for sale to you, our loyal customers, at significant discounts.
Despite being sub-grade, all these discount plants are healthy and will grow well, and at these prices, will be amazing value for the right situation.
We’ve photographed all the plant batches for sale at discount and you can see them at their own page on our website here.
When you’ve chosen, you can place an order at our discount sale form here.
Feel free to combine orders of discount plants with our regular stock - as always, we will combine deliveries wherever possible to keep costs down. |
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| | | | When planting for native birds, the standard advice is to plant flowering and fruiting natives, which benefit the planter and wildlife alike: you get to admire beautiful flowers, while the birds get to feed. However, plants do not flower and fruit all year round. Most flowers will peak in late spring or summer, with plants usually stripped of fruit by the end of autumn. If these are the only steps we take to encourage native birds then we are leaving our feathered friends to fend for themselves through harsh winter.
There are some native plants that will fruit into winter like Corokia cotoneaster, Pseudopanax colensoi and conifers like Prumnopitys taxifolia. Here in Central Otago there aren't many more plants than those being offered to native birds. The local landscape is full of berries in winter, notably hawthorn and briar, but it has been found that native birds consume few of these non-native fruits. It is exotic birds like blackbirds and thrushes that consume these landscape invaders, causing them to spread even further (Williams & Karl, 1996).
To help out our feathered friends, many of us put out nectar feeders during winter and find them inundated with hungry birds. Though delicious, sugar water is a poor diet compared to a natural diet of nectar, fruit and insects. Sugar water does not contain the minerals and vitamins found in nectar, and unless you clean your feeders judiciously every day then feeders can become vectors for spreading disease, possibly even doing more harm than good.
Naturally, diets would be very low in nectar/sugar during winter due to lack of availability. A few studies have shown that the diets of honeyeaters such as tui and bellbirds significantly shift to insectivory during winter months, reflecting the absence of flowers and fruit. (Spurr et al., 2011). They hunt their prey by methods of hawking and gleaning. Hawking is catching insects in the air, hovering around bushes or flying erratically in the air chasing prey - fantails are masters of hawking. Gleaning is scanning leaves, stems and trunks for insects and cleaning them off. Whether tui will glean or hawk depends on what type of insects are present (Bergquist, 1987) and that will depend on what habitat is present for those insects.
To encourage insects is to encourage birds, and insects need what all animals require. A source of water, food during their active life, a place to rest, and support for breeding. Bird baths or a saucer filled with gravel and water provide a water source without taking up much space. Creating multiple types of habitats will go far to encourage insects, as grasses, shrubs, climbers, trees, ferns, etc., all have their associated arthropods. Most insects in New Zealand are native and have co-evolved close relationships with native plants.
Most natives, being evergreen, provide overwintering sites (‘habitat refugia’) in their leaves. Insect activity declines over winter, reproduction ceases, and some even go into hibernation. Insects will seek out safe refuges while they’re very vulnerable, but the deciduous exotic trees and shrubs popular with gardeners do not provide much cover (Crofts-Bennett & Lord, 2025), especially if fallen leaves are removed from the ground. Whilst most ground foraging birds are scarce in Central, leaf litter is an important habitat for a great number of insects. |
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| Above: The green cicada Kikihia subalpina is a good food source for birds when its adult stage appears in autumn - pictured here hiding on large leaved evergreen natives in a patch of bush on the shore of lake Wakatipu |
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| Tidy gardens are anathema to arthropods. Bare soils, tightly clipped lawns and bushes are devoid of winter insect domiciles. Bug hotels are frankly inadequate contributions - unless designed with a specific species of arthropod in mind, they do less than an old rotten stump, which is much cheaper. Rotting wood is an important part of ecosystems and easy to include as garden features, by stacking logs or dotting about sawn off tree trunks.
Wood doesn’t need to be rotting to provide refuges. There are many native shrubs and trees with rough and textured bark that is not only visually attractive but prime real estate for insects. Kunzea (kanuka), Podocarpus laetus (Hall’s totara), Fuchsia excorticata (tree fuchsia) and Olearia hectorii have rough bark that can be peeled off revealing many crevices for dormant insects. Carpodetus serratus (putaputawētā) tree bark is tunneled by the puriri moth caterpillar, and these tunnels are later used as homes by the weta and funnel web spider. While we do not have puriri moths in Central it is a great illustration of the mutualistic relationship these organisms have. |
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| | Left: Fuchsia excorticata, with its flaking bark and gnarled habit, provides a great habitat for insects, especially when part of a complex 3-dimensional environment as above. Right: Flaking bark of Kunzea ericoides/kanuka, another valuable shelter for insects |
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Many of these relationships between plants and animals have yet to be studied and documented, but they do exist in native ecosystems and plantings. While non-native trees and shrubs may also exhibit attractive flaky bark that can work as winter refuge they likely offer little else. The birch tree for example has a degree of flaky bark but offers no nectar or fruit and is wind pollinated. It is generally not used by native birds for nesting and being deciduous, its shelter to invertebrates is greatly reduced.
If you want to help birds through winter, plant a broad range of native plants, not just limited to the well known honey-feeder plants like flax and kowhai. Don’t be too tidy especially over winter, leave leaves and decomposing material like logs. Have water like a bird bath, pebble dish or a small pond/wine barrel with logs in for accessibility. Don’t use pesticides especially systemic insecticides (like those used for killing grass grub). Keep bird feeders religiously clean. Monitor bird sightings in winter using an app like eBird or Merlin, as the type of birds you see will give you an idea of what food is present. This will also help track bird numbers and diversity over time to see if any changes you made have made a difference. |
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| | Plagiathus regius is one of the small number of deciduous trees in New Zealand. Fairly common throughout Aotearoa it can be found in riparian areas, forest margins, alluvial fans and fertile lowland areas. That said, its natural habitat has been reduced due to land modification for farming etc. So much so that in the Queenstown area it is rare, with the closest plants found in the Matukituki valley. In Southland it is restricted to conservation areas and remnant gullies that have been set aside from farming. It seems naturally rare in inland Otago, most likely due to low rainfall and limited seed dispersal range.
Plagianthus regius can grow to a mighty height of 25m in ideal conditions but more frequently tops out at 10 - 15m tall. In dry growing conditions its growth and height are compromised, so it may not grow much higher than 7-8m tall. It can grow as a strong single leader tree with a wide cone shape at maturity or in more difficult growing conditions it can grow multiple leaders giving it a shrubby appearance. Growth is rapid when young, shooting up a meter in a single year, then slowing down once it reaches 2- 3m high, depending on their environment. |
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| Above: Kelvin @ 1.8m next to a fully grown Plagianthus regius, at Croydon Bush Scenic Reserve in Southland |
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| Leaves of Plagianthus regius can vary between 3 - 7.5cm depending on growing conditions. Leaves are small when young (1-2cm) and get larger once the plant begins maturing (heteroblasty) - we have observed this happens around 2 - 3m. Its leaves are serrated and are relatively thin compared to evergreen natives. Paired with its slender branches, this give Plagianthus regius a slender elegant form. In spring it produces inflorescences of small green-white flowers. Plagianthus regius is classed as subdioecious (Allan, 1961), meaning plants can be found as male, female or hermaphroditic. While it is beneficial to plant that multiple plants for seed set, a hermaphroditic plant can seed on its own. Flowers are pollinated by a broad range of insects. Mallow plants are favoured by insects in the bee family (Apidae) so it is likely that Plagianthus regius is visited by multiple species of native bee and wasp in spring. Due to being insect pollinated plants can be fairly spread (10 - 50m) to achieve pollination. Multiple trees through a neighbourhood would achieve this. |
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| | Left: Plagianthus regius showing juvenile leaf form at the bottom of the plant, and adult form on the top. This particular specimen is about 6 years old, growing in poor soil with little irrigation, and has reached around 4m height. Right: Nest of korimako/bellbird (Anthornis melanura) near the top of a neighbouring Plagianthus tree. |
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| Plagianthus regius is part of the Malvaceae family which includes genus such as Hoheria, Linden trees, Hibiscus, Hollyhocks and mallow (as in marshmallow). Malvaceae is dominated by herbaceous species so it is possible that at some point Plagianthus regius could have evolved into a tree from a herb ancestor that looked similar to mallow or hollyhock. As with all Malvaceae, Plaginathus regius produces small nuts. These nuts are dropped to the floor with the full panicle which can roll short distances in the wind and rain or float down stream. It has been observed that a good deal of Plagianthus regius seed is consumed by moth larvae (when we collect eco source Plagianthus seed, much of it has holes in it and sometimes requires a treatment). Not much is known about these moths, but moths of course make up a part of our native bird and bat diets. Plagianthus regius create a good quantity of seed which helps to compensate for this larval predation.
Due to its fast growth and tolerance of a wide range of conditions, Plagianthus regius is a fantastic early tree for native revegetation. It has good drought and wind tolerance when young, creating much needed shelter for other native plants, which may eventually outgrow them. They also create great fast habitats for smaller native birds to nest in. For full size growth as a stand out tree they should be planted in areas that get regular water, such as gullies and riparian areas. However in Central Otago most trees won’t grow past 8m making them a valuable small native tree for the garden. Trees exhibit frost tolerance to -10c but damage may occur below this. Wetter areas with less drainage may reduce tolerance as they have been reported to be less frost hardy in Britain. In milder winters and in microclimates, plants will retain some of their leaves. Plagianthus regius will appreciate additional compost when planting and annual mulch which will result in more growth. |
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| | | | As always if you are planning any plantings or big jobs for next spring or autumn let us know and we will prepare a quote. The more lead time you can give us, the better we can meet your needs.
Check out our Catalogue for more information or feel free to flick us an email or a call.
As always, if you want a quick overview of what we have immediately available in stock, you can check our order page. |
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| | No AI was used in the creation of this newsletter - all our content is proudly 100% human generated. |
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