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Well it has been some time since our last update, so I thought it’s time to write a new one.

It has been a very busy Winter. Unfortunately my time in the nursery and garden has been severely curtailed for many months, as I had to spend almost all spare days lining a 50 metre drain with rocks (there was too much erosion of our sandy/silty soil during heavy rain events). Thanks to Finn, the first course is almost done, and the drain will just need a few more loads of rocks to be good for Summer. Hopefully the plants next to the drain will have grown enough to assist too. Unfortunately the Summer also looks to be extremely busy – so it will be difficult to catch up on chores.

The plants are in general doing quite well, although as usual the wekas have found new ways to kill plants. Some surprising / interesting results were:

• Black sapote (Diospyros digyna). A few of these are alive and with leaves on, unprotected and outside the entire time (for some of them, this was their 2nd Winter). This is a pretty exciting result, as black sapote are not known to be this tough or grow this far South.
• Our two “gold velvet” ice-cream beans (Inga sp.) (sourced from Northland) kept all leaves on (the one next to the metal fence at our rental actually grew significantly over Winter). All other Inga (the common so-called I. edulis) were majorly or fully defoliated (even though it was their 2nd Winter). This is a surprising result, as after the first few months the “gold velvet” ice cream beans were looking extremely poorly and needed urgent care – we thought they were definitely more tropical than the standard ice cream beans.
• Some of our yangmei (Myrica rubra) plants again continue to grow rapidly during Winter. We’re very excited to try and get them to fruiting age. The biggest one has kept pace with the Acacia melanoxylons in the nearby pots – a scarcely believable feat.
• Musa velutina here for its 2nd Winter did pretty badly. The first Winter it did have very sandy soil, and it was repotted soon before the 2nd Winter – so it could just be soil issues, but we’re surprised it wasn’t hardier. Musa sikkimensis in the same spot did fine and also started growing a few weeks ago. I haven’t paid much attention to the other bananas, but the Pisang Awak patch is looking a bit sad after Winter. It is in a wetter spot than the Misi Luki, so maybe that’s why – or maybe it’s just that it was the first Winter planted out and they have a lot of root growth to do.
• Zutano avocado was the fastest grower – having grown a bit over Winter. The Mexicola Grande was partially undug by wekas, and so may have lost a bit of growth as a result – it is also in a much shadier spot, so that doesn’t help.
• Rainbow valley papaya has grown extremely well, despite the fact it’s in partial shade.
• Yellow jaboticaba (Myrciaria glazioviana) has been one of the top jaboticaba to survive outside over Winter. Almost all of them are still alive. The related Eugenia pyriformis (uvalha) also survived with ease, as did the Surinam cherries (Eugenia uniflora). The large leaf jaboticaba also has done well, as have some Sabara jaboticaba seedlings. A few red hybrid jaboticaba are doing okay too. Most Grimal seedlings have disappeared however – they don’t seem to have been as hardy.
• Kusaie lime (rangpur) seedlings are looking very healthy and easily kept all their leaves on over Winter. Kusaie lime is used as a rootstock overseas, and we’re trialling it as part of of our search for an evergreen Citrus rootstock (trifoliata grows a bit too slowly on the West Coast as it has a very long dormancy period). We also received a few C35 citranges a few months ago (hybrid between an orange and trifoliata) rootstocks and they kept all of their leaves over Winter and some even started growing a few weeks ago.
• Black apple (Pouteria australis) also kept all of their leaves and looked fine. Diploglottis in the same spot lost all of its leaves.
• Red mountain pineapple (Ananas bracteatus) was hit or miss. Some plants are verdant and healthy, others are almost dead (it has been an extremely wet Winter). We did source plants from many different places so maybe there’s a bit of genetic difference about.
• Pouzolzia australis was totally fine and didn’t lose any leaves (it actually grew a bit). It’s a bit too fibrous so might not be a good edible – but maybe if we try grow it in deep shade the leaves will be softer(?). Our parataniwha (Elatostema rugosa) patch however did very well and is either flowering or fruiting right now. Both of these are New Zealand native members of Urticaceae (nettles) which are generally edible. The Australian Elatostema reticulatum is even called rainforest spinach!
• Grafted green sapote (Pouteria viridis) went outside a few weeks ago and seems to have ever so slightly started growing.

In terms of our quest for the best, always-growing herbaceous plant (that can deal with damp soil) we also have some results:

• Abyssinian banana (Ensete ventricosum) is probably the winner. It was already growing back in early August, after maybe 4-6 weeks of stopped growth. It grows with a dense root system in poor soils, and doesn’t let hardly any nutrients escape. It’s easily mulched and theoretically is edible (the root is very starchy). Hard to beat.
• In 2nd place is possibly Mexican kava (Piper auritum) – which also grew significantly over Winter, and has the added bonus of being edible. It grows in relatively thick shade for us.
• We’re also trialling a lot of different taros and related aroids. Japanese taro has grown over Winter despite the partial shade it’s in, and looks good. It does however seem to be a target for weka attacks. One of the other better ones has been bạc hà white taro (Colocasia gigantea, syn. Leucocasia). This began growing towards the end of August for us, and it’s also supposedly edible.
• Canna edulis has done pretty poorly in many cases. The plants are still very small however, so maybe as they become larger and have more dead foliage to protect from cold they will grow better. Certainly the ornamental Canna grown locally in big patches are quite tough plants so maybe it’s the size.
• Pretty much all of our gingers have defoliated other than white butterfly ginger (Hedychium coronarium) – which grew well the past few months and dwarf cardamom (Alpinia nutans; I didn’t check to see how it grew over Winter yet). Some of them might do better as they came to us a bit poorly and small (e.g. Alpinia caerulea). Myoga ginger (Zingiber mioga) sent up shoots this week, but this is a bit slow compared to the other plants above.

Actually the 3rd and 4th flowers this year, as I missed photographing the other two. Hopefully the fruit will be ripe next season 🙂

The other name for this passionfruit is ‘red vanilla passionfruit’, but it’s a bit of a misnomer. Fruit don’t taste like vanilla, and the flowers don’t really have that scent either even if you squint your nose. There is a ‘true’ vanilla-scented passionfruit (also edible, though smaller fruit) though – Passiflora capsularis, which we hope to grow soon (we have a few sprouts)

It has been quite some time since we have posted an update here. We are updating slightly more often at our facebook page here: https://www.facebook.com/westcoastagroforestry if you want to take a look there 🙂 That is also usually where we are putting rarer seeds for sale that we aren’t likely to source often. These rarer seeds we currently sell via our trademe page here: https://www.trademe.co.nz/members/listings.aspx?member=7680909

Earlier in the month we sold some plants at our first local market in Carter’s Beach. This could be considered our soft launch for our plants nursery, and we enjoyed the day greatly talking to many people and seeing our plants go to good homes.

We grow our plants outside all year round in local West Coast conditions, sourced from local seed sources where possible, and without artificial fertilizers or pesticides – just the same kind of conditions they would experience planted in your garden.

Some of the plants we had for sale (most of which we still have stock of):
– Avocado (Zutano, Fuerte mostly, but also some other varieties)
– European sweet chestnut (grown from West Coast seed)
– Hybrid sweet chestnut (grown from West Coast seed)
– Macadamia (seedlings from multiple varieties)
– European oaks (Quercus robur, grown from West Coast seed)
– Silverberry (Elaeagnus x ebbingei, cutting grown)
– Lucuma (Pouteria lucuma, seedlings from multiple varieties)
– Horse chestnut (grown from West Coast seed, not edible, but apparently can make soap from the nuts)

We have also been hard at work trialling new species in our nursery which will begin to be available in the coming seasons. Red pineapples (Ananas bracteatus), American persimmon (Diospyros virginiana), Lotus persimmon (Diospyros lotus), Hybrid persimmon (Diospyros virginiana x kaki), Asian persimmon (Diospyros kaki), Yangmei / Chinese bayberry (Myrica rubra), Bunya (Araucaria bidwillii), Jaboticaba (Plinia cauliflora), Tall guava (Psidium giganteum), Tropical guava [white-flesh] (Psidium guajava), Chilean guava (Ugni molinae), Davidson plum (Davidsonia pruriens), Large-fruited hawthorns (Crataegus species), Oncoba spinosa, Mountain papaya (Vasconcellea pubescens), Hybrid mountain papaya x babaco (Vasconcellea x), White butterfly ginger (Hedychium coronarium) – just to name a few! A lot more experimental plants are also growing that we’re still evaluating as well.

In terms of our garden, we have been doing a lot of soil building the past few months, preparing the avocado terraces. They are getting nice and thick and hopefully will be planted in the next few weeks with some avocado varieties. We have some tougher named varieties (Mexicola Grande, Zutano, Hashimoto, Jan Boyce, Bacon, Duke 7, Edranol) that we will be trialling, as well as a few very promising fruiting unnamed selections (‘Tobi’, ‘Peru’, ‘Mark Mexicola’) that have yet to be trialled down here. A few mexicola seedlings with superior vigour/hardiness we have grown will be planted as well, and lastly a few seedlings from other varieties that appear vigorous too. We will be propagating these varieties as well.

I think that’s about it for now! It’s been a very busy year, and it’s taken all of our energy to work in the nursery and garden, and live life. Plenty of new articles are to be written and we look forward to sharing them 🙂