Advice. Ideas.

Inspiration

Anita’s Garden
Volume 4, Issue 37 17 June 2022

Useful Links Editorial

Webpage

Blog Welcome to the thirty seventh issue
of my newsletter for Volume 4.
Newsletter back issues
I hope you have all had a great week.
Facebook I’m not sure about other parts of the
country but it has been raining a lot
Instagram
in Auckland. It is great for the gar-
Twitter den and is helpful to getting things off
to a good start, including spring
Pinterest bulbs. But the unpredictability of
downpours (they are not light driz-
zles) has made it difficult to get things
Contact me
done outside, so I have decided to take
 Feedback a little break from outdoors and spend
time on my newsletters and other ad-
 Newsletter input min. Something that I will be turning
(tips, recipes, gar- my mind to later in winter is ordering
den photos etc) seeds. At the moment, the new cata-
logues have not yet been released but
 To be added to my I usually prepare a list of things I
mailing list usually order based on last season’s
catalogue as there are certain items
anitakundu.nz@gmail.com
such as NZ spinach and Miners let-
tuce that are offered year after year.
varieties but have indicated this wher-
ever I could. With all the rain we have
been having, the weeds will be growing
rapidly in your lily garden. I weeded
ours before we went away to our bach
about a month ago but with all the rain,
I will no doubt have to weed the area
again. I’m not going to lift my lilies this
year as I moved all of my lily bulbs from
a different garden bed to create a sepa-
rate lily garden in a different part of
our garden. I wasn’t sure how often to
lift and divide lilies so I sought advice
from the flower gardeners group I be-
long to on Facebook. One person ad-
vised me to leave them undisturbed for
several years so the bulbs can grow and
multiply. I’m quite happy to just let
them be as it’s also a lot less work for
me! There is plenty for me to do this
month, including tidying up our straw-
berry patch, which will take some time.
Blog

June is a great time to turn your mind You can read my gardening blog here.
Inside this issue:
to lilies. They may be something that Social media
are one of the highlights of your sum-
mer garden like mine, or maybe you I have a Facebook page called Anita’s
P ot te r ing aro u nd 2 have never grown them before and Garden and maintain an active Insta-
Anita’s Garden are curious. They are incredibly ele- gram account, too.
gant but are not difficult to grow. As
they are a bulb, once you plant them, Collaborations
they will remain in your garden and
Top 5 gardening tasks 2 I have the following collaborations:
for the week come up again year after year with
little effort on your part. I have decid-  Italian Seeds Pronto
ed to write a series about growing
lilies in my articles on page 3 over the  Awapuni
Collaboration news 2 next few issues. As with spring bulbs,
there is a lot to cover and I can’t fit  Bulbs Direct
everything in one article. This week,
If you are interested in collaborating
and probably next week, I am outlin-
with me, please get in touch by email.
ing the different kinds of lilies that
Anita’s guide to growing 3 are available in NZ. I also plan to
lilies: Part I
Have a great weekend.
share growing tips. The photos I have
included are actual pictures of lilies Anita Kundu
grown in our garden. Unfortunately I
don’t know the names of all of the
PAGE 2
Pottering around Anita’s Garden
Our cymbidium orchids have been
flowering, despite being the most
neglected flowers in our garden!
Incidentally, I think I may have
helped them by moving the plants
from our patio to underneath our
banana tree when I ran out of
room for all our seedlings. They
seem to like being in a more shel-
tered location but still get enough
sun in order to flower.
Top 5 gardening tasks for the week
1. Plant strawberries, on-
ions, garlic and shallots
June is the perfect time for plant-
ing all your winter favourites.
Awapuni will be getting garlic in
stock soon.
2. Prune roses
June is also a good time to prune
your roses. I like to spray mine
Collaboration news
We have just started harvesting
our Florence Romanesco from Ital-
ian Seeds Pronto. I am very thank-
ful to Gillian for kindly giving me
these seeds. It is out of stock on
the website but keep an eye for
when it becomes available again. I
sowed my seeds in early March
and planted out the seedlings in
April when some space became
available in the veggie garden.
A NI T A ’ S G A R D E N
I was so happy to receive this book
last week! I hope to expand our
flower garden and am particularly
interested in growing cut flowers.
with Conqueror Oil afterwards to
help seal the cuts and prevent dis-
eases.
3. Plant broad beans
You can sow seeds direct or put in
plants. I recommend staking them
at the time of planting as they
need some support.
4. Plant stock seedlings
Bulbs Direct have a great range of
lilies available in their winter cat-
alogue. Choose from Orientals,
Asiatics, Xmas and Trumpet lilies.
I recommend leaving your bulbs in
the ground undisturbed for a few
years before lifting, dividing or
moving them. That way, the bulbs
continue to grow and the lilies will
be even taller! It also allows the
bulbs to multiply for division later.
V O LU M E 4 , I S S U E 3 7
We have been enjoying kohl-
rabi from our garden. This
variety is called Purple Vien-
na. I grew it from seed and
obtained the seeds from Ital-
ian Seeds Pronto. They also
stock another variety called
Vienna Bianco, which is
white. I have not yet grown
that one but it is always nice
to have something to look
forward to growing in future.
I grew mine from seed but you can
purchase lavender stock seedlings
from Awapuni.
5. Plant parsley
I still have a lot of Gigante di Na-
poli Italian parsley seedlings I
raised from seeds Gillian from Ital-
ian Seeds Pronto gave me.
Awapuni have both curly and Ital-
ian parsley available on their web-
site.
Awapuni have a lovely range of
winter flowers available on their
website. Choose from antirrhi-
num, Canterbury bells, cineraria,
pansy, stock and viola.
In addition to Camarosa plants,
Awapuni also stock strawberry
fertiliser and pea straw, which are
essentials for your strawberry
patch this spring and summer.
 V O LU M E 4 , I S S U E 3 7
Anita’s guide to growing lilies: Part I
We are officially into the winter
season and that means that it is
the right time to order and plant
lily bulbs! Bulbs Direct have a
great range of lilies on their web-
site. I cannot commend the quality
of their bulbs highly enough.
Kayne and the team also offer ex-
tremely friendly and efficient ser-
vice.
I would like to share my own
thoughts about growing lilies. Be-
cause there are a lot of points I
would like to cover, I may have to
spread the feature over a few is-
sues. I thought a good place to
start was to outline some of the
main types of lilies that are availa-
ble in NZ.
Asiatic
 Easy to grow
 Come in a wide range of col-
ours
 Single and double flowering
 Stems are tall enough to
pick but plants do not tend
to grow extremely high
 Often used by florists in
bouquets
 They tend not to have a fra-
grance
 The bulbs multiply well
PAGE 3
A NI T A ’ S G A R D E N
Oriental Christmas lily
The oriental lily Hot Spot
 Highly fragrant
 Single and double flowering
 Highly prized by florists
Magnifique
 Tall enough for cutting
without being overly tall  Highly fragrant
Oriental Trumpet  Sometimes flower much ear-
lier than Christmas time.
The lily pictured flowered in
September!
 Great for bouquets
 The traditional Xmas lily is
called Lily Regale
 A favourite of mine is called
Triumphator
 Hybrid
 Tend to be taller than Ori-
ental lilies
 Great for the cut flower gar-
den
 Very strong stems
 They can get even taller and
produce more flowers if the
The Triumphator Xmas lily
bulbs are left undisturbed in
the ground for several years Part II: I will continue to cover the
types of lilies that you can get as I
have run out of room in this issue!