Struan Farm

Feeding Out in Drought

We need rain in most areas of the North Island at the moment. We haven't had a decent day or days of solid rain since December, which doesn't happen very often here in NZ. I haven't heard whether or not a drought has been declared officially, but many communities are rationing or restricting water use, and farmers are getting short on feed for stock. We looked out from our drive at the house this week and saw that our neighbour has started to "feed out," supply feed for his dairy cows, so he's short on grass.

While we're still okay with the limited number of ewes we have on the property at Struan Farm, this is not a good situation and getting increasingly serious. We're still watering what remains of the veggie garden, but nothing else gets a drop unless it's from a roof tank filled from rain runoff. And even then I'm only watering a tree or perennial that looks like it's going to die without a drink.

Definitely time to ramp up the rain dance.

In Support of Sedum, However You Pronounce It

John's mum grew sedum near the Homestead rose trellis for years and years here at Struan Farm, along with nepita. While I've always loved the combination of the purple nepita below deep red Dublin Bay roses, I never particularly appreciated sedum's subtle appeal until now. It's a hardy succulent, easy care and drought tolerate. But far more important is that honey bees, bumblebees, and butterflies absolutely love it!

I was down working in the Homestead gardens this week and couldn't believe the number of bees and butterflies feeding on the flowering plants, sharing the pollen/nectar. There are over 400 varieties of sedum and it's definitely worth having in your gardens. When it is mature it can be easily split to create new plants too.

I would pronounce the name of this plant "sed-um," however kiwis pronounce it "see-dum." You decide what's right for you.

Big Trees from Little Seeds Grow

Here's hoping that's the case! We inadvertently discovered our female native totara trees fruiting about a week ago. This prompted a seed gathering frenzy the past few days around Struan Farm, as we tried to figure out what is seeding right now and what isn't. We found six female totara trees, three old trees I've christened "grandmothers," along with three younger ones. John put topsoil beneath several so we can grow young trees from the seeds as they drop. Later in the season we'll dig up and pot up the seedling trees.

We also noticed berries on the Miro and Matai trees, now I'm trying to grow too. Everyone needs a good challenge, right? The Miro berries are red, and are much loved by Kereru, our native wood pigeon, while the Matai berries are a dark purple blue when mature. Our tree books indicate that Matai seeds don't germinate quite so easily as the others so we'll see how I get on with those.

The tawas are also fruiting. I've been able to grow seedling trees from those, and they also self-seed, so I won't grow any more of those for now. The kahikateas aren't fruiting just yet, those also grow easily from seed. But despite an extended search, we haven't been able to find any rimu fruiting, and this is meant to be a "mast" year for them. They only fruit every 7-10 years. It may be that we don't have any female trees on the property, just males, rats.

For the moment John is focused mostly on totara. With about a thousand seedling trees growing away in his native tree nursery from last year, we're hoping to grow at least a thousand more to plant out in the area where the radiata pine trees are coming out. We've got a year or so before that rather big project starts to happen.

This is what the totara seed looks like, these look to be "twins." 

We manage to keep ourselves busy here at Struan Farm, don't we?

A Brief Journey to Middle Earth

Last week John and I had friends visit Struan Farm for a few days from Seattle, Washington. It was their first trip to Piopio, so we booked a tour at nearby Hairy Feet Waitomo, our local Hobbit film location in Piopio. While we weren't sure how much they were into all things Hobbit, Hairy Feet's setting and the surrounding landscape are so spectacular that it's not to be missed either way. Tour groups are quite small and personalised.

And here's Jim doing his best Gandalf impression:

It was a beautiful day and a fun time.

Forever Protected

I'm thinking this should be "protected forever" rather than "forever protected." Regardless of that, the area supervisor for the QEII National Trust came by this week to inspect our two areas of protected bush reserve at Struan Farm. This happens every two years or so to make sure there aren't any pests or problems which need to be addressed, to assess the overall health of the bush. All is well.

This year it seems they've re-branded, so we got new signage to erect too.

I guess "forever protected" does place greater emphasis on "forever," which is what it's all about really.

We're giving some thought to extending the second bush reserve at the pond so that it runs further down to the river. This is the area that we've fenced out from stock, where John has planted kauri and is progressively planting native trees along the stream as time and winter weather permit. John's dad was one of the early adopters of this in the King Country, and we're following in his footsteps.

A Striptease of Sorts

The weekend before last John and I went to nearby Ohaupo to see the TreeChurch. It's a very special place, as we've told you. We were particularly struck by the white birches, which are the same variety of tree, Betula jacquemontii, that we have along our front roadside Pet Paddock here at Struan Farm. Only ours aren't quite so brilliantly white, and we wondered why.

It turns out that the owner of the TreeChurch, a seriously committed nurseryman, peels and washes them twice a year to keep them looking this amazing. I'd thought about testing this out on one of our trees to see what would happen, but John beat me to it. At least with the peeling. We'll now watch them to see if they whiten up, right now I think they look a bit pink... perhaps they're embarrassed to have been stripped?