Nikau Palm. New Zealand's only native Palm

Rhopalostylis is a genus of palms with tall smooth stems marked by the scars of fallen leaves. There are only two species known and they are confined to the South Pacific – one on Norfolk Island (with a variety on the Kermadec Islands) and the other to the mainland of New Zealand and the Chatham Islands.

The Nikau or Nikau Palm is an excellent plant for the garden and is characteristic of warmer parts of N.Z. The fronds spread out from a smooth attractive bulbose base and it has been known as feather duster palm. It has been described as a slow growing plant in home gardens and while that may be true it is very attractive in those young stages. In the right place it grows fairly quickly but will take a number of years to produce a stem.

This palm tree grows to about 10 metres high on a single great leaf scored stem. The leaves are up to 3 metres long; each divided up into long narrow sharp pointed leaflets. Maori used the Nikau leaves in the construction of their whares. A framework was made of manuka sticks and the roof and the walls composed of palm leaves which formed a watertight cover. The individual leaflets are shaped like a little channel that conducts the rain to the ground. Nikau whares are extremely pretty and picturesque but now rarely seen. The leaflets are also used for weaving into baskets and kits of every description.

In the right location, reasonably sheltered from wind and has some shade, it adds that tropical or subtropical touch the landscape. In nature groves of Nikau palms make a beautiful sight. It will tolerate a few degrees of frost so it will be difficult to grow in frosty areas of Christchurch and Canterbury. It is found growing naturally in native bush reserves on Banks Peninsula at Akaroa. It will grow nicely in frost-free areas of Christchurch.

They like rich moist and deep soil and like to grow in a group. It needs to be planted more in New Zealand gardens and some experimentation on climate range could see it used in places where it does not currently grow. When mixed with lancewoods, flaxes and other native plants it will help create a distinctive NZ look.

Propagation is by seed. The seed have been used by settlers for bird shooting when ammunition was scarce. Kakas find a foothold on the smooth stem and hang upside down to enjoy their meal. Collect the bright red fruit and sow one or two per pot. They do not like being transplanted and need to be sown direct into a pot. Care should be taken in potting them up into larger pots making sure they are not over potted. Once growing well plant out in the garden in its permanent position.

The unexpanded central bud and the very young spandix are both edible and were formally eaten by both Maori and European. Removing the Central Bud inevitably stops the plant growing and it will eventually die.

A characteristic of Nikau is its inflorescence or flower spike that is up to 35cm long. It grows under a leaf sheath and between two large boat shaped leaf stalks or spathe. When opening out they protrude from the trunk below the bulbous leaf structure. This much-spiked inflorescence expands and opens out when it is free of its leaf sheaths. Individual pinkish flowers are single sexed and packed onto the branches and followed by brilliant red hard fruits about 10 mm long containing a single large hard seed which takes about one year to ripen.

Experience Economy

I have been interested in the concepts of experience for some time. My backgrond in Recreation and Parks and dealing with people and watching how they used these facilties continues to lead me to consider that the experience is vital to success.

Today I work in Heritage Tourism and here the experience is of even greater importance. Peopole learning about their culture. Visitors learning about someone elses culture. What can be more important.

The work of Pine and Gilmore is worth reading as a starting point. Check out their website at
http://www.strategichorizons.com/

Gardens of Lucullus, Rome

From The Times

May 17, 2007

Builders dig up lost pleasure garden of the ancient Romans

Richard Owen in Rome

Mosaics from the fabled Gardens of Lucullus, one of the pioneering influences on gardening, have been brought to light after 2,000 years by archaeologists in Rome.

The vast terraced gardens, or Horti, covered what is now the built-up area above the Spanish Steps. The first known attempt in the West to “tame nature” through landscaping, the gardens were laid out around a patrician villa in the middle of the 1st century BC by Lucius Licinius Lucullus, one of Ancient Rome’s most celebrated generals, after he retired in disillusion from war and politics.

They became a benchmark for all Roman pleasure gardens, and were taken over and developed by Roman emperors. The 1st-century mosaics decorated the nymphaeum, an artificial grotto with water features. One depicts a corpulent cupid riding a dolphin and another a wolf’s head in green and gold.

They were found nine metres (30ft) below street level during renovation work on the Hertzian Library (Biblioteca Hertziana), the German art history institute near the Spanish Steps run by the Max Planck Society.

Excavations below the library have also brought to light a marble head of Venus, perhaps a relic of the statues that once adorned the nymphaeum. Maria Antonietta Tomei, of the Rome Superintendency for Archaeology, said when workers began demolishing the interior of the building to modernise it “the architecture of the Ancient Roman garden appeared before our eyes. It seems like a dream.”

Andrew Wallace-Hadrill, director of the British School at Rome and a leading classical scholar, said Lucullus had invented the concept of the pleasure garden when he quit public life in disgust after his rival Pompey “robbed him of the credit for Rome’s conquests in the East”.

The historian Plutarch observed that Lucullus “abandoned public affairs either because he saw that they were out of control and diseased or, some say, because he had had his fill of glory and felt entitled to fall back on a life of ease and luxury”. Ironically, Pompey was himself outmanoeuvred by Julius Caesar in the struggle for power that marked the end of the Roman Republic.

Lucullus is said to have been inspired by Persian and Mesopotamian gardens that he saw during his military campaigns in Asia Minor.

Plutarch recorded that Lucullus “was the first Roman to lead an an army over the Tigris, taking and burning the royal palaces of Asia in the sight of their kings”, and that he funded his gardens � and his famous library and art collection � from “the spoils of the barbarians”.

Lucullus also built luxury villas and gardens with pavilions, belvederes and baths at Tusculum, in the Alban Hills near modern Frascati, and above the Bay of Naples, where he had channels cut to let seawater circulate in his fishpond. He is said to have introduced cherries and apricots to the West.

Stefania Trevisan, who is leading the dig, said that excavations were continuing in the hope of finding more remains. After Lucullus’s death the gardens were bought and embellished by the wealthy consul Valerius Asiaticus. The gardens were appropriated later by Messalina, the promiscuous wife of the Emperor Claudius, who forced Valerius Asiaticus to commit suicide. She in turn was executed in the gardens after plotting against her husband. When Claudius was informed while he was dining that Messalina was dead, he was said to have “asked for another glass of wine”.

Internet references to the gardens of Lucullus are set out below

Wikipedia.com

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gardens_of_Lucullus

http://www.maquettes-historiques.net/P43.html

http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Gazetteer/Places/Europe/Italy/Lazio/Roma/Rome/_Texts/PLATOP*/Horti_Luculliani.html

A Novel titled The Gardens of Lucullus is reviewed on these two sites.

http://flintsilver.netfirms.com/Price.htm

http://www.theharrow.com/columns/reviews/gardenslucullus.html