Tasmanian Native Wedding in March

Tasmania is a place known for its pristine wilderness and many people come here to experience that. For this wedding, the bride was a tour guide for the new Three Capes Track wilderness walk that shows off some of the spectacular coastline of the Tasman Peninsula.  Being a tour guide she wanted plants that were native to the Tasmanian bush that she worked in.

In spring there are a multitude of wildflowers available in the local landscape, but in March not so many.  I was able to use some gorgeous native coral fern, and the beautiful Tasmanian Myrtle Beech foliage to create the structure of the bouquet.  I also used some lovely wattle that flowers throughout the year in our local area.  I love using wattle in bud, when its little flowers are still little green balls that sit at great angles along the stems.  

The other two local native ingredients were creamy pale yellow Banksia Marginata.  These grow all around the local area and will flower at different stages throughout the year, given the right conditions.  The real standout, colour-wise, was the Pink Mountain Berry which grows profusely in patches around the Tasman Peninsula.  

Pink Mountain Berry or Leptecophylla Juniperina is native to New Zealand, Tasmania and Victoria.  It is not often used as a cut flower because its very prickly!  But I was lured in by the amazing hot pink colour so I got out the rose de-thorner tool and handled it carefully.  

The remaining ingredients were some red Banksia Occidentalis, a Birdsnest Banksia or Banksia Baxterii, and two different coloured flowering gums.  The result was a bright, native bouquet designed to go with the brides dress which had red Nothofagus leaves embroidered over it.    

For the groom, some myrtle beech, coral fern, wattle, Pink Mountain Berry, flowering gum and a red Leucadendron.  

I enjoyed the challenge of coming up with something "local" and "native" for this special wedding.

  

Do yourself a favour and check out the Three Capes Track website for some truly amazing Tasmanian Peninsula Wilderness.  (I'm not biased at all!)

In Full Bloom

Spring is coming to an end, and the Tasmanian Waratahs are in full bloom.  The smell of summer is in the air!  Many of the spring flowering leucadendrons are starting to loose their colour now and the summer flowering proteas are getting ready to make their appearance.  Watch out in the next week or so for the bright and beautiful Leucaspermums, commonly known as pincushions, that are popular coming into Christmas.  

I'll be posting about the amazing varieties of pincushions that we have here at Swallows Nest Farm as they begin to flower.  In the meantime, enjoy the last of spring and its spectacular colour!

Tasmanian Waratahs

This week, I picked my first Tasmanian Waratahs for the season.  I have one bush that flowers in late October - just a bit earlier than the rest.  Almost over night, it seemed to be covered in bright red blooms.

Most people associate the Waratah with New South Wales, probably because its is that states floral emblem, but Victoria and Tasmania are also home to some wonderful species of waratah.  At Swallows Nest Farm, we are lucky to be growing the waratah endemic to Tasmania called Telopea Truncata. It is a smaller flowered plant to its mainland cousins, but size isn't everything!  The Tassie waratah is about the size of a carnation and looks a bit like a cross between a "normal" waratah and a grevillea.  It has lovely bent styles the give it a charming sculptural quality.

The Tasmanian Waratah grows as a large shrub to 3 m, but can that can get to over 8 metres tall.  In the wild, it grows in wet forest areas and flowers in November and December.  It is often picked in the wild for the flower trade. The flowers are striking red making the bush really stand out when its in bloom.  Very rarely, the flowers are actually yellow.  The yellow form has been used to make hybrid waratahs which are available to purchase as garden plants called "Shady Lady Yellow".  It is the only waratah to have a yellow variation.  

I love it that these cheery Tasmanians are ready to pick in the lead-up to Christmas.  As a flower grower, its the plants that help to mark the seasons and this one is such a lovely Christmassy flower.  It brightens up a bouquet and compliments the other flowers that are available in the Christmas season. 

The Tasmanian Waratah is best propagated by seed.  After the plant has flowered it produces some fantanstic seed pods.  I'm a bit of a collector of seed pods and waratah seed pods are definitely worth collecting!


Look out for Tasmanian Waratahs in your florist or in the wild during November and December.  They are a real treat and a great reminder that Christmas is fast approaching!

If you'd like to have a go at growing your own Tasmanian Waratah, you can buy fresh seed collected from Swallows Nest Farm here.

Truly Tasmanian - The Pineapple Candle Heath

Meet the Pineapple Candle Heath, or Richea Dracaphylla,  a truly Tasmanian flower.  When I first discovered this plant, I thought it looked like it should be a tropical bloom - some type of rainforest rarity that could be feasted on by colorful tropical birds.  But its home is the temperate rainforest slopes of Mount Wellington and other high altitude rainforests - moist and cold, the soil wet with snow-melt and a dense canopy of trees over head.  It is endemic or native to Tasmania.  These flowers have been harvested in the wild, but at Swallows Nest we have some wonderful well established plants that are able to be pruned and trained to produce lovely long stems.  

Pruning these plants is no mean feat!  They are as spiky as they look and very dense.  Gloves are required!  But the effort is worth it when the lovely long stems produce beautiful tall flower spikes.  Flowering time is usually the spring months but we often get flowers here much earlier - July and August.  Flowers can also surprise us at other times of the year, but August is usually when they are really starting to bloom in earnest.   

The spiky leaves, about 20cm long, spiral up the stem and the flower emerges from the crown of the spiral.  These flowers are sometimes called Riceflower, because of the obvious likeness.   The rice-looking part is actually the petals of the flower that are fused together.  They fall off when the stamen in mature.  These petals are grouped together and sheathed by bracts that often carry a pink or red tinge.  

In this picture, you can just see the flower starting to emerge from the spiral of leaves on the stem.  

In this picture, you can see how the bracts surround the petals.  There are some petals peeping out on the left.  The bract will open and eventually fall off.

Richea Dracophylla, or Pineapple Candle Heath are a very architectural flower - a strong bold shape.  But they can also be softened by adding them to other natives.  They are a beautiful and unusual flower - uniquely Tasmanian.