From the files of Commercial Horticulture - NZ's Nursery Industry Magazine:
A newly discovered psyllid which attacks members of the Solanaceae family, especially potato and tomato plants, could prove to be one of the most serious pests ever for New Zealand home gardeners and commercial growers. A native of North America, the Bactericera cockerelli psyllid, now being referred to as the tomato/potato psyllid, has already established itself from Kerikeri to Timaru in a period of just two years.
The pysllid causes reduced vigour in plants and yellowing of leaves. It also injects a toxin which affects potato tubers. At harvest tubers are rarely more than 5cm long and are misshapen. They may also show ‘zebra chip’ symptoms. These are dark stripes that appear inside affected tubers.
In tomatoes the psyllid causes plants to produce numerous small, poor-quality fruit or prevent fruit forming. Once established on a crop it is usually too late to control.
We have pictures and full details on this new and serious pest in Comm Hort June / July issue, along with suggestions on how to combat it.
Auckland Autumn Trade Day – “Really fantastic . . .” says retailer
We at Commercial Horticulture are naturally firm advocates of the benefits of the Trade Days we run – but we could be accused of being biased . . .
So it’s great to come across some unsolicited comments from an independent Trade Day observer. These were published in the newsletter of Nextgen, a group set up for younger people in the nursery industry, and they gave us permission to re-publish the comments here:
“Really fantastic’ would be the words I would use to describe the Auckland Autumn Trade Day 2009. We retailers had plenty to see with over 80 nurseries, suppliers and service providers showing off their best. Autumn is always a great time to plant and I certainly purchased a fair bit for our branch –
Palmers Gardenworld Remuera.“There was a huge range of new product at the show. Among these was the new Eco-Range from Tui Products. This included new seaweed fertiliser, fungicide and insecticide and the all-new Rain Garden Mix from Living Earth (a mixture of sand compost and topsoil mix). This is going to be great for the home gardener and should really sell well. The growers’ stands were really great with the bright and extensive visual displays. Growing Spectrum topped my list with its Coprosma Lemon and Lime display. Lemon and Lime Coprosma with lemon and lime bitters for the punters. Absolutely awesome!.
“There were new plants on other stands too, with the new Coprosma Emerald Spreader from Totoara Grove and two new plants from Annton’s Nurseries: Coprosma Pina Collada (pictured here with Jenny Cowan) and Hebe Marylyn Monroe.
“Certainly the most unusual plant there was the Bat plant on Gellert’s stand and since Trade Day these have certainly sold well for us. The customers love it!
There was certainly a lot of business going on and on a lot of networking, which was great to see.
“In the future I would like it see more retailers coming through to Trade Day – not just garden centre managers but the actual staff who are on the shop floor all the time. Meeting suppliers, seeing new products and getting display ideas make all the difference
Ben Adams
Nextgen Committee
Palmers Gardenworld Remuera
PS There are full reports on both Auckland and Christchurch Trade Days in April/May Comm Hort.
TV garden series set to run again from September
Following the success of the TV garden series The Road to Ellerslie (an estimated 1.1 million viewers over the 13 weeks), the production company Leggework has presented the NGIA with a concept for a 26-episode series to be screened from September this year. The first 13 weeks would focus solely on gardening while the last would follow the same format as The Road to Ellerslie. TVNZ have confirmed they are interested in screening a new series and are considering a more favourable time slot.
Mothers Day brings joy to mums and tills
It was a ‘yucky weather’ Mothers Day in most parts of the country, but garden centres reported good support from the gift-buying public. Here are comments from two of the retailers we talked to:
“Mothers’ Day went really well,” reports Gillian Thrum of Havelock North’s Green Door Plant Centre. “We ran a promotion: buy one of our big fat cyclamen and go in the draw to win a $150 voucher for a meal at Clearview Winery. We sold swags.”
Felicity Thomson, garden manager for the Mitre10 group’s Nelson megastore, was “very, very pleased” with their results. There’s still a huge interest in Mothers’ Day. People like to give a living gift,” she said.
IPPS Conference 2009
In Comm Hort June/ July issue we have an extensive report on the IPPS Conference held in Hobart in late May, a combined affair for both the NZ and Australian regions.
Six enter Nursery of the Year Competition
The NGIA has announced that six companies have entered the Daltons Nursery of the Year Competition for 2009. They are:
Allenton’s Tree Nursery, Nelson.
Ambrosia Nurseries, Christchurch.
Colorworx Nursery, Tauranga.
Kiwi Colour Ltd, Pukekohe.
Tharfield Nursery, Katikati.
Trents Nursery Ltd, Christchurch.
It’s off to the USA for Robert and JeanetteRobert Bett, of Lyndale Nurseries, and his wife Jeanette, of Multiflora, are moving to Santa Barbara, California, where Robert takes up a new position at PlantHaven Nursery.
Gardens of South America tour
Australians, Warwick and Sue Forge, of Bloomings Books, Melbourne, are offering an 18-day tour of the gardens and cities of South America in October 2010. Details of the tour are being finalised, but for those interested the contact is warwick@bloomings.com.au.
Landscape Conference 2009
The 27th Conference of the Landscape Industries Association of NZ will be held at Tihoi in the central North Island from 10 to 12 July. For more details, phone Steve Martin 07 378 7808.
Bill Chun of Zenith GC
William (Bill) Chun, founder of Lower Hutt’s Zenith Garden Centre which closed in 2005, passed away aged 86 on 12 April, only three weeks after the death of his much-loved wife, Marie.
Sad passing of Alastair Turnbull
The sudden passing of Alastair Turnbull of Talisman Nurseries in Otaki on 10 April was a sad one for family, friends and the industry he loved. Alastair was in his 80th year.
135 year-old nursery to close
One of New Zealand’s oldest nurseries, Jordan’s Nurseries in Tinwald, a kilometre from Ashburton, has joined the ranks of businesses either closing or planning to. Ken and Jenny Jordan will close the 135 year-old nursery when the last of their plants are sold, hopefully by the end of December they say.
Other recent closures include Goldpine Garden Design garden centre in Nelson which closed at Christmas, and Colorscape Nurseries’ Motueka retail outlet. Oaklands Nurseries, also in Motueka, will call it a day later this year.
Palmers Cambridge on State Highway 1 is still trading but is now in receivership.
However, on the positive side, the Palmers group in March opened a new garden centre in Hobsonville, Auckland, and report it is doing well.
Landscaping a Steel MillTake a 120ha steel mill site and make it beautiful – that was the task Fiona Macdonald took on back in 2002. And she has tackled it wonderfully well. There’s a 4-page feature on the transformation Fiona has brought to the forbidding Glenbrook Steel Mill site at Waiuku in the June/July issue of Comm Hort. The Glenbrook site was a difficult one, very windy and with little topsoil. Fiona shows what can be done with careful plant selection (about 80% of plants used are NZ natives), along with sound planting and cultural practices – a difference is that she uses slag from the mill as mulch. There are now around 300 individual plantings around the site.
Organically-grown plants come in from the cold
Vegetable and flower seedlings are among the latest organically-produced items now being able to command their own separate featured displays in mainstream garden centres and sales are good. One of NZ’s few growers of completely organic vegetable and herb seedlings is Monica Stoica, who runs the Oakdale Organics Nursery at Paerata in South Auckland. We feature this nursery in Comm Hort June/ July issue.
Growing horticulture skills inside prison
Our second featured nursery in June / July Comm Hort is Rimutaka Prison Nursery, one of several nurseries being run by the Corrections Department through NZ to provide training and rehabilitation services.
Feature Plant – Coprosmas
In June / July Comm Hort we begin a mini series on the NZ native coprosma, grown by many nurseries throughout the country and used extensively in amenity planting and by the home gardener. We talk to production nurseries about their experiences with this plant, their recommendations, and ask them to name their favourites.
Things you can do today to become a “Smart Retailer”
International nursery industry business consultant, John Stanley, comes up with some great ideas on what retailers can do to combat economic downturns.
Saving the seed of our threatened native species
This paper in June / July Comm Hort, describes recent research at Massey University on long-term seed storage strategies for three endangered New Zealand species.
Crop damage claims – what happens when things go wrong
Horticultural consultant and nurseryman, Andrew Steens, looks into the complexities of seeking compensation for crop damage or loss and has some advice on what to do when things go wrong.
