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Unusual Plants Growing In My Garden

Hello friends,

Today I wanted to share with you some of the more unusual plants growing in my garden. Either they're plants that are on the edge of being able to grow in Dunedin's climate, or they're plants that I want to do experiments with, in terms of harvesting and processing them.

First up is my Camellia sinensis plant, aka my tea plant, which I've already discussed in a previous blog post where I harvested and processed my own white tea.

Next up is the Wasabi plant I recently bought from my local garden center. The plan is to grow my Wasabi plant for three years, and then harvest the root so I can make my own Wasabi for eating with sushi. Wasabi requires full shade and damp conditions, and I have the perfect spot in my garden to give it a home. It is sensitive to frost, so I've been spraying the leaves with liquid frost cloth this Spring for frost protection. It has only been growing for about a month, and it's already growing strong in its shady spot.

I have also been growing my own pomegranate plant for the past year in a large pot in my patio over the summer, and in my glasshouse during the winter. This pomegranate variety, "Wonderful" by Incredible Edibles, is a deciduous variety which can handle up to -6˚C frosts in winter, which makes it perfect for Dunedin's climate. In it's first year growing, last year, it even managed to flower before winter, but unfortunately it didn't set any fruit. Once the frosts are over this spring I plan to plant it in the south side garden alongside my blueberries and tea plant. I can't wait to harvest my own pomegranate fruit for turning into pomegranate juice in the future.

And finally there is my Marshmallow plant, Althea officinalis, which is the ancient source of making the marshmallow confectionery we know today. The marshmallow plant is a perennial which dies back each year over winter, and it grows again to a height of over 1.8 meters in summer, producing long stalks of white and pink flowers (which is where the marshmallow confectionery these days get their colours from). All parts of the marshmallow plant have medicinal uses, and its dried root is the original source of mucus for making marshmallow sweets.

My marshmallow plant is growing in the garden so that I can one day try making my own marshmallow confectionery from scratch, but I forget to dig it up in winter to harvest the roots. If you want to try growing your own Marshmallow plant, Kings Seeds in New Zealand stocks the seed.

Do you have any unusual plants growing in your garden?

Have a wonderful day

Julie-Ann

Want to discuss my post? Feel free to chat with me on Instagram or Mastodon or Bluesky.

How To Keep My Outdoor Dahlias Alive During Spring Frosts

Hello friends,

We're at the time of the year when the days are getting longer and warmer, and my dahlias in the ground are starting to wake up and poke their heads above ground. This is a good thing, but it is also very stressful because spring weather in Dunedin can be quite fickle.


It used to be that you could plant temperature sensitive crops of all types in Dunedin at Labour weekend, which is in the third weekend of October. But for the last three years we either have had a snowfall in the last week of October, or we have a very late frost in the first week of November. As this is a death sentence for any dahlia growing in the garden, I've had to come up with a frost protection method which will work for all my dahlia plants.

Over the last couple of years I've tried frost clothing my dahlias, but this method is prone to the wind blowing the frost cloth off overnight before the frost at dawn. So I've had to resort to a more brute force method of protecting my dahlias. After many trials, I finally settled on using a lot of small, cheap buckets, placing them on top of the dahlias on risky nights, and holding them in place with a spare piece of firewood.

It's not a very pretty method, but it does the trick. It does take a lot of work though, going around each night putting buckets on dahlias, and then the next morning removing them when the temperature rises. Larger buckets are needed to protect the dahlias as they get bigger. Then there is the problem of running out of buckets if too many dahlias are above ground, and I'm not proud to admit this, but that's when I resort to raiding the kitchen cupboards for ice cream containers and mixing bowls...

I used to go around with a wheel barrow collecting up all the buckets and firewood each day, and then redepositing them each night, but now I've gotten lazy, and leave them sitting beside each dahlia all the time for easier distribution. It may make the garden ugly looking for about a month, but I can totally live with that.

The whole process is a giant pain in the ass, but it's completely worth it in summer when my garden is filled with flowering dahlias.

Have a wonderful day

Julie-Ann

Want to discuss my post? Feel free to chat with me on Instagram or Mastodon or Bluesky.

Dahlia Experiments 2025 - Source Books For Dahlia Growing and Hybridising

Hello friends,

As you've probably already figured it out by now, I love doing gardening experiments. Whether it be growing my own wheat, and then harvesting that flour to bake into my own bread, or growing my own linen plants so I can spin and then weave the fibre from it, I'm curious about how the world works, and especially how plants work. This mostly comes from the fact that I'm a trained scientist, I have a PhD in Plant Biochemistry, and also a certificate in Horticulture. From a very young age, while gardening with my grandfather and aunt in their backyard, I fell in love with plants, and I decided I wanted to work with them.

Even though I am no longer in these fields of work, I still love learning about plants, and I use my garden as an experimental testing ground to do this on a very small scale. This, combined with my obsession and love of dahlias, I've decided that this growing season is going to be the one where I hone my dahlia skills including growing hybridised seeds from scratch, taking my own cuttings, and also breeding new dahlias from dahlias I already have growing in my garden.

To do this my first job has been to find good source material to work from. Even though there is a tonne of information about dahlia growing and hybridising on the internet, it's hard to know what information is accurate, and what information is incorrect. Luckily there are some very good source books available from growers and hybridisers I trust, and I now have three books from them at my disposal.

First up is Erin Benzakein from Floret Flower Farm, her work with dahlias and other plants like zinnias is legendary, and her book "Discovering Dahlias" has been my go to dahlia book for years. It includes understanding dahlia types, how to grow, store, and divide dahlias, and also advanced techniques including propagating and hybridising dahlias. Her book also includes a great section on floral designing with dahlias, along with a visual section of her favorite dahlias sorted by colour. I really recommend this book to any new dahlia grower.

The last two dahlia source books I now own are by Kristine Albrecht, the owner of Santa Cruiz Dahlias. Her long term work on dahlia breeding, and her deep dive into dahlia genetics (which she is willing to share), makes her a fountain of knowledge about dahlias. Her book "Dahlias: Seed to Bloom" is an in depth guide to dahlia growing from seed to bloom. This is a great companion book to "Discovering Dahlias", and I now use them both side by side.

Kristine Albrecht's second book "Dahlia Breeding for the Farmer-Florist and the Home Gardener", is a small, but dense step by step guide to hybridising new dahlia varieties by seed. Its sections on dahlia genetics, traits to target in dahlia breeding, and growing dahlia seedlings, is perfect for the dahlia enthusiast interested in dahlia breeding. It was also really great to see her record keeping set up as well, as detailed notes are needed to decide whether a dahlia seedling has the traits you are looking for in the first year, and in the continuing years, if you decide to keep growing it.

With spring now sprinting towards summer with each passing day, and the first of my garden dahlias are popping their leaves above ground, I can't wait to dive into all things dahlias this growing season.

Have a wonderful day

Julie-Ann

Want to discuss my post? Feel free to chat with me on Instagram or Mastodon or Bluesky.

Daffodil Days

Hello friends,

With high spring now upon us, I took some time to photograph the daffodils flowering in my garden at the moment.

First up are my favorite daffodils, the Tete-a-Tete varieties. I'm now especially fond of the double variety I bought last autumn, Tete Boucle, and I would like to grow some more of them in the garden.

Next are the white daffodils, which I'm becoming more and more obsessed with recently.

And lastly we have the large, yellow varieties. Some of the lemon and double varieties are just beautiful, including the delicate daffodil Mother Duck.

Daffodils are just such a happy and bright reminder at the beginning of spring that sunnier and warmer days are on their way. I'm so pleased that I invested in hundreds of daffodils a couple of years ago, and spent all that time planting them in the ground in autumn, because my garden now has a brilliant burst of colour in early spring.

Have a wonderful day

Julie-Ann

Want to discuss my post? Feel free to chat with me on Instagram or Mastodon or Bluesky.

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