Gardening: Get your fill of feijoas

I wouldn't know half as much as I do about gardening if it weren't for The Landscaper's clients, who, I'm convinced, get together on a weekly basis to think up difficult questions to keep us on our toes.

While The Landscaper desultorily discusses these challenges with one of said clients over tea and homemade pikelets, I'm welded to the computer trying to find the best tree with which to create a beautiful English-looking avenue that grows no higher than 4m, has a canopy no wider than 1750mm, keeps its leaves in winter, enjoys a subtropical climate, has an interesting trunk, provides flowers and is fragranced. Oh, and doesn't require pruning, needless to say.

I'm reasonably certain there'll be gardeners out there who'll have the answer to this client's question - please email me (leigh@gardenpress.net) with your suggestions. Don't forget the "doesn't require pruning" part. I can think of plenty of trees that can be convinced to take on the persona of a canopied avenue tree, but only when confronted monthly by an enthusiastic landscaper with a lusty pair of loppers.

While you're dreaming up an answer to that one, I'll be back at the computer comparing a bedraggled feijoa twig with images on the internet, trying to find out what variety it is and where to find some the same kind as a couple that have given up the ghost in somebody's hedge. Good grief.

I'd never even heard of feijoas until I moved from Dunedin to Auckland in the '90s, and I wasn't interested enough in gardening in those days to find out more. But when I arrived in the Far North 15 years ago, everyone I knew had at least one feijoa in their garden, and most people had a feijoa hedge. You were considered a gardening failure if you didn't have bags of the things to give to anyone who came to the door.

Now we have two feijoas - a "Unique" and a something else I've lost the tag of. They're in their second year and both have produced a respectable number of feijoas, which are likely to be ready in a week or two. Obviously, two plants isn't enough to enable me to join the local Feijoa Appreciation Society, so I'm on the search for three more. Happily, there are plenty of varieties to choose from (some are listed right). Some are self-fertilising, but I'm reliably informed that they'll produce heavier and more regular crops if pollinated by one or more varieties.

Ours will be planted near our olives - not for any scientific reason but because I think they'll look good.

Feijoa foliage has a tinge of grey that works well with silvery olive leaves, and the flowers are fabulous, making up for the olive's lack of floral flamboyance.

Actually, feijoas and I have a lot in common. They like moderate summers and cool winters, enjoy the sun and don't like frost. They like free-draining soil but other than that, they're pretty unfussy about the details. Once they're established they can live with the odd drought but will provide more fruit if watered well during flowering and fruiting.

Feijoa trees have a shallow root system, so don't muck about cultivating around the base or planting herbal ley there. Feed them a couple of times a year - early spring and late summer - and mulch now with compost, peat or any well-rotted organic material to keep the soil moist.

I hesitate to say this in case The Landscaper reads it (he's a demon with the clippers) but feijoas do rather like a wee trim and as fruit forms on the current season's growth, it'll keep the tree productive. However, heavy-handed haircutting will reduce flowering and fruit.

Having digested all that without finding a match for The Landscaper's wilting feijoa cutting, I now feel I'm a candidate for the Feijoa Appreciation Society, and I'm sure that within the next three years, I'll be selling bags of the things at the gate. Well I would be, except they're so common in these parts you can hardly give them away.