Home & People Tree planting must allow for growing habits

Press, 17 August 1978, Page 14

Home & People Tree planting must allow for growing habits

Nothing in a garden is permanent, as I am constantly reminded by the decrepit state of the trees along our front boundary. So I am holding four young replacements in containers, and when soil and weather are right, in they will go, and out will come another lacebark. One of my new trees will, I hope, fill a rather windy comer. This is Cupressus guadalupensis, a close relative of the macrocarpa from the Mexican island of Guadalupe. Some authorities classify it as a sub-species of macrocarpa, but it is smaller, more easily domesticated, and quite hardy, despite its sub-tropical origins. My specimen came labelled “Tecate cypress,’’ but this popular name is related to another closely related species, Cupressus forbesii, which like the macrocarpa comes from southern California. Though all are similar enough in leafage for the layman to have difficulty distinguishing between them, the trunks tell a different story. Cupressus macrocarpa has the familiar persistent, deeply furrowed bark, and the other two have bark that peels back to uncover smooth, colourful layers underneath. In Cupressus guadalupensis, this layer is cherry red; in the other it is cinnamon brown. My Guadalupe cypress should, in 10 years, reach a height of about four metres, with a spread of

half as much. In time it will grow much taller, and develop a middle-aged spread. There is no danger of this with my second tree, tite Japanese “umbrella pine,” Sciadopitys verticillata, which is neither umbrella shaped nor a pine. This Japanese tree in time can become a solitary giant 30 metres tall, but there is no danger of

this in my lifetime, or even in my children’s lifetime. 1 doubt if there is a specimen in the country more than six metres high. Happily, Sciadopitys is one of those trees that need not be big to be imposing. Even as a youngster it is handsome, with its tidy habit of growing into a formal pyramid, relieved by radiating crowns of “leaves” at the end of each branch. These give it its common name. My third tree is also capable of reaching 30 metres in its native land, but it seldom grows more than one-quarter of that height here. It is the Chilean Mayten tree, Maytenus boaria, the hardy member of a family of 70-odd species of trees and shrubs from tropical and temperate South America. A graceful evergreen, it has pendulous branchlets and reddish

twigs that give a faint russet cast to the small leaves. Nowadays Maytenus boaria is seldom seen. Once it was popular, and there are some fine, mature specimens in Christchurch. Several grow, I believe, on the campus at Ham. I would not be surprised if it were to make a comeback soon. In all respects except its abbreviated height, it does well in Canterbury, because it comes from a part of Chile with a similar, if slightly warmer, climate. I will go further, and say that South American trees will be the next big horticultural fad in New Zealand. They may even push out the overplanted Cedrus deodara. Some very interesting cousins from Chile of the New Zealand beeches (Nothofagus) are being raised by one of the largest wholesale nurseries in the South Island, and will hit the market next year. Unlike the New Zealand species, these are deciduous; and they are tough, hardy, fast-growing trees with brilliant autumn colours. One of them, Nothofagus antarctica, is being looked at by foresters as a potential plantation tree for difficult areas like the Mackenzie Country. It comes from Patagonia, the world’s windiest country, as well as from Chile, and grows there on the windbattered high plateaus in the Isin rainfall belt. My fourth tree comes from closer to home. It is an Australian, Eucalyptus pulverulenta — not a common eucalypt, but an

interesting one. Superficially, it resembles the spinning gum, E. perrineana; but whereas the spinning gum has perfoliate leaves (that is, leaves that encircle the stem and are pierced by it), Eucalyptus pulverulenta has leaves that are classified as “connate-cor-date.” This means they are heart-shaped twins, united at the base, so that they appear to clasp the stem without actually doing so. Their colour is bluegrey, with a mealy text. u r e (“Pulverulenta” means “covered with a mealy substance”). It is a variable species, and several geographic forms exist, but usually it grows naturally (or with the aid of a little judicious pruning) into a. lanky, straggling shrub rather than a tree. Like the clematis, it loves to get its roots into the shade of other shrubs and to poke its head up into the sun. Its growth is sparse, so it does not bother its neighbours. I will put mine in a situation that should satisfy its heart’s desire — in a wild comer where spiraea, flowering currant, and suckering lilac have made a thicket, and a young “New Dawn” rose is slowly working its way through. A little bit to one side another eucalypt, E. viminalis, is tearing skywards, and yet another Antipodean, the variegated lemonwo o d , Pittosporum eugenioides “Variegata,” is beginning to fill in the background, so Eucalyptus pulverulenta should feel right at home.

GARDENER’S DIARY

By

Derrick Rooney