Garden workshops
Free public workshops are held regularly at Tupare covering a variety of garden-related topics. This page has information on future and previous workshops, including downloadable workshop handouts.
2012 workshop programme
Workshop notes and handouts
Notes and handouts from workshops in previous years
See also the Regional Gardens events calendar for details of all upcoming workshops at Tupare, Hollard Gardens and Pukeiti.
2012 workshop programme
Sunday 13 May 2012, 9am-11.30am: Garden photography
Bring your cameras and have a go at some garden photography at a workshop led by the New Plymouth Photography Club. See if you can capture your impression of Tupare with its Arts and Crafts architecture, intimate garden rooms and stunning vistas. Get some hints on improving your photography skills.
Sunday 26 August, 2pm-4pm: Caring for the domestic glasshouse
Tupare Garden Manager Mitch Graham will discuss the yearly maintenance regime for a glasshouse, some tips for seasonal plant compositions, and how to keep them healthy and happy.
Workshop notes and handouts
Plant pests and diseases (March 2012)
Workshop handout (108 KB)
By Georgie Williams
Plant pests and diseases don’t like healthy plants or peanut butter.
Observing other gardens in the region will give you clues for the strength of your own garden, Tupare Garden Manager Mitch Graham told this workshop. If you select plants that you see grow well locally, they’re likely to thrive in your garden too.
Thriving is the key to preventive control. Plant pests and diseases don’t like healthy plants – instead, they are attracted to those that are stressed and damaged.
Knowing that stress attracts pests and disease means that every move you make in the garden should be towards its health. You can do this by following some good horticultural practices.
Start with the soil – add compost regularly and protect it with a layer of mulch. Make sure to plant according to each plant’s requirements (light, moisture, soil type and so on). Prune out dead and diseased material on dry breezy days (fresh cuts are more vulnerable to fungal infection in wet weather), and encourage light and air-flow. Remove diseased material from the property – don’t put it back in the compost.
Clean your hands, gloves and clothes after working in the garden and make a habit of cleaning your tools and containers after use. I learnt this the hard way when I discovered a fat tiger slug sleeping off his dinner (and my summer harvest) in the nook of a recycled veggie seed tray last spring.
Another preventive practice is to plant diversely rather than en mass. A monoculture is a big signal for pests to converge on the whole lot. Yet some mass-plantings, such as the azaleas at Tupare, are too beautiful to forgo.
In this type of situation, as well as using good horticultural practices, Mitch uses knowledge of the potential pests. Azaleas and rhododendrons are beloved of thrips. Planting and pruning for light and airflow is one preventative measure – and knowledge of the pests’ lifecycle is another.
With this awareness, Mitch applies neem oil in August just before the fresh new growth that’s so tasty to them (and to be sure, another application 14 days later). Neem oil doesn’t compromise the health of the garden or the beneficial insects and wildlife – it just affects those, like thrips, which suck or nibble.
It’s such good stuff that its odour also acts as a repellant - it makes the garden, and the gardeners, smell like peanut butter.
Caring for conifers (April 2012)
Workshop handout (140 KB)
By Georgie Williams
When you arrive at Tupare, turn left after the gatehouse, walk 30 metres and you’ll find yourself, perhaps with slightly wobbly knees but with much pleasure, looking down at the Arts and Crafts house and garden framed and protected by mature stately trees.
Concentrate on the conifers and move your gaze slowly from left to right, noting the variety of shades, textures and movement. In the sweep of your eye you’ll see, amongs others: Kauri (Agathis australis), Himalayan spruce (Picea smithiana), Norfolk Island pine (Araucaria heterophylla), golden pine (Pinus radiata ‘Aurea’), enormous coastal redwoods (Sequoia sempervirens), deciduous dawn redwoods (Metasequoia glyptostroboides), graceful rimu (Dacrydium cupressinum) and clipped English yew (Taxus baccata).
Tupare’s creator, Sir Russell Matthews, planted these trees from the 1930s onwards and, given Taranaki’s benign climate, many are now reaching maturity. Sir Russell was known to move a plant a few times until he was happy. And now, Tupare Garden Manager Mitch Graham told this workshop on conifers, “we can truly appreciate and enjoy the longevity of his vision”.
Conifers come in many shapes and sizes and you don’t have to have a garden the size of Tupare to enjoy their uses and effect. So you might find the right home for them the first time round. However, conifer specialist Pip McVicar recommends that you know your conifer, check on its mature size and plant it to the right spacing where it can enjoy sun all round.
Since conifers occur naturally throughout the world, there’s bound to be the perfect one for your situation. Arborist Richard Lambert emphasised the variety. For wet sites, try the beautiful dawn redwood (Metasequoia glyptostroboides), or the swamp cypress (Taxodium distichum). For great autumn colour , try Ginkgo biloba. The Mexican pine (Pinus patula) or the Japanese umbrella pine (Sciadopitys verillata) give grace and movement in the breeze. Natives such as totara (Podocarpus totara) and tanekaha (Phyllocladus trichomanoides) are beautiful specimen trees and for the smaller garden, miro and matai (Pumnopitys ferruginea and taxifolia) attract birds, grow slowly and can be pruned to size.
Conifers are among the most ancient and long-lived trees – perhaps that’s why they are present in many mythologies and can be used by designers such as Russell Matthews to such atmospheric effect. The Fortingall Yew in the gorgeous Loch Lyon in Scotland is estimated to be up to 5,000 years old. In comparison, the trees at Tupare are a twinkle in their mother’s eye, and may they live as long.
See our workshops archives page for notes and handouts from workshops in previous years
