Winter Colour

There is such an explosion of colour on the farm at this time of year.  As the weather gets colder, the colours seem to get brighter.  "Natives" are such great winter flowers with a surprising variety of colours and textures.

Leucadendrons change colour as they come into "flower" which is often over winter and spring.  While some are a rich deep maroon or red throughout the rest of the year, in winter they change colours.  Safari Sunset lives up to its name and changes to a vivid pink with creamy yellow inside.  And Red Gem, one of my favourites, changes from maroon to a buttery yellow with peachy tones.  I just love it!

Red Gem in July

Front - Safari Sunset, Middle Right - Red Gem, Back Left - Inca Gold

Other Leucadednrons that are green for most of the year, start to "glow" yellow.  Inca gold has a rich yellow colour highlighted with red tips.  I'm still looking forward to the Leucadendon Gandogerii and Goldstrike - fabulous spring yellows.

Inca Gold

There's so much gorgeous texture about too.

I love playing with colours and textures at this time of the year.  

It's heartening, on cold wintery days to be playing with such cheery colours too.

And there has been some cold weather lately - snow and hail and bitter winds.  

When you're out in the fields picking in the wind and the rain, with tingling cheeks and numb fingers, what keeps you going are the gorgeous colours that are filling the basket.

Winter is so pretty!

Hello Winter

Winter is here.  There is always just a little sadness heading into winter.  I find myself almost grieving  at the turning of the season.  Autumn has its beauty and in Tasmania, I think its possibly the best season.  (So difficult to pick!)  But prior to the solstice, the onset of winter can make me feel a little sad, with no apparent reason.  

And then, like waking from a dream, I remember its charms!  There are misty, foggy days that make you feel like you're the only person on the planet. 

The rain is so refreshing, so life-giving.  The plants drink it up and seem so full of life.  

The Yellow-tailed Black Cockatoos that live around the Tasman Peninsula are more often about, singing their raucous songs.

Winter has its own beauty.  And I remember that I love it!  I love the short days and warm fires, the crisp morning air,  the moss,  the rain, the mist, and I LOVE the colour!! Although this is my sixth winter at Swallows Nest, I still am surprised by the intensity of the winter colour that our plants produce.  Yellow that seems to trap the sunlight and glow, startling pink and red, lime green, and pale buttery yellow, peach, and white.  

And then there are those euphoric blue-sky days that have such clarity as you look up that you feel as if there is nothing but sunlight between you and the rest of the universe.  

Winter is also a busy time with planting, clearing, pruning and picking.  So forgive the recent lack of blog posts!  In the next few days I will catch you up on the flowers that are making winter so colourful here at the moment.  

What's your favourite thing about winter? ....

Protea Repens - Sugarbush

Protea Repens are a species of protea that are widely grown due to their hardiness and versatility.  They can be grown in a wide range of environments and are famous for being the first protea ever to be grown outside of South Africa, their native environment.  

We planted some Protea Repens around four years ago now, and are just starting to be able to pick the flowers in useful numbers.  They've been slow to establish but I blame that on lack of experience and the fact that we planted them in summer - certainly not something we'd do now.  Planting proteas, I have learned from experience, is best done during the winter months.  But nevertheless, they have begun to really grow well now, and I'm certainly enjoying the stunning flowers they are beginning to produce.

Protea Repens is commonly known as Sugarbush.  This is because of the large amounts of nectar that the flower can produce.  The whole flower has an appearance of being waxy or shiny, due to the stickiness of the nectar.  It has no fringing or fur like many proteas have, and it has more elongated or geometric look to the flowers.  It naturally occurs in a range of colours from white or very pale yellow through to pink and red.  We bought red Repens, but have found as they've started flowering that we have some pinks and even one or two yellow forms.  

In the photo above, you can see the shiny quality that the flowers sometimes have.  It also shows the difference in colour between a red Repens and a pink.

The Protea Repens really stand out in a bouquet with their pointed petals splaying out.  As they open the central mass is revealed.  The two flowers on the left and centre have white centres and the flower at the bottom right has a red central mass.  Having bought plants of all one colour, I'm still to find out if the flowers are different due to conditions or genetics. Its nice to have a variety though!

In South Africa, there are Repens that flower throughout the seasons, depending upon their origins.  Mine flower in autumn and into winter.  It's lovely to have such a cheery flower blooming at this time.  As you can see in the above picture, the red Repens really stand out with their intense cheery colour.  

The delicate pink tinting on the lighter coloured Repens accentuates the pointed triangular tips of the flowers.

Such a pretty flower! 

What's in the Basket?

Wow!  What a busy month its been.  Harvesting of autumn and winter flowers has been in full swing.  We are still catching up on clearing and particularly pruning some of the plants that got away from us during the break we had with our baby (who is now 3!!).  

I love pruning!  I am working on a blog post about pruning proteas and leucadendrons.  Its such a satisfying activity.  Yesterday I did a small burst of pruning, and came back with a basket of early winter flowers.  Pruning large Protea Pink Ice can be hard work.  Some branches need more than my Felco shears can manage.  But the flowers are beautiful at this time of year and I salvage any I can.  

Small Protea Repens have been in the ground for 4 years.  They need a different type of pruning and shaping, encouraging lots of new straight stemmed flowers for next year.  I'm looking forward to having the first good harvest nest year.  The flowers from this year are lovely and you can see some of them in the basket.  

There are also some Banksia Occidentalis in the mix.  They are nearly at the end of their flowering for the year and even though they're only 3-4 years old, they need heavy pruning.  I'm trying to keep them at a manageable height because they are such vigorous growers.  

Some Leucadendron Safari Goldstrike are in the basket.  They are getting ready to flower and I'll be harvesting them in a couple of months.  This will be 5 years since they were planted and we are so happy with them.  A few wayward shoots too good to waste made it into the basket of pruning pickings.  The flower heads have properly formed and won't wilt, but I'll wait until they colour up before I pick them in earnest.  

The first few branches of Thryptomene are just starting to bloom.  By the end of winter, these will be covered in white blooms.  The excitement of seeing the first flowers of the year always encourages a bit of early picking!

The last little flower in the basket is a wild yellow Banksia Marginata.  I have a few of these Banksias growing along the path to the flowers and they are flowering profusely at the moment.  The bushes are really large - 6 to 8 metres tall and full of flowers, but most of them are growing at odd angles with shoots sticking out.  Every so often, one or two make their way into my basket and usually end up in a vase in the kitchen!  

A February Wedding

We were thrilled to be able to provide flowers for this beautiful February wedding.  The bride wore a gorgeous vintage dress and the colours for the bridesmaids were apricot, peach and orange.  

Pink Ice Protea and Fountain Pincushions were the main flowers.  The Fountain are a later flowering pincushion and are at their height in January and early February.  They have a soft purplish tinge when they first begin to flower so they really went well with the apricot and peach colours.  I added some bright pink Kangaroo Paw, Brunia Albiflora, some gorgeous purplish silver eucalyptus foliage and some blue green conifer foliage.  As a highlight, I added some gorgeous summer grass seed heads.  The bouquet was bound with jute ribbon and I added a bow which was removable.  The bride opted for removing the bow and I think it really worked.  The colours worked so well with her stunning ivory coloured vintage dress.

Photo by KS Photography

For the bridesmaids, I used Pink Ice Protea, Brunia Albiflora, Pink Kangaroo Paw, Geraldton Wax and  more of the native foliage.  Each of the bridesmaids dresses were different - all variations on the vintage theme so keeping their bouquets all the same was important.

Grevillea foliage, and the same blue green conifer foliage also tie the bouquets together, with the summer grass highlights also added.  Again, the bows were removable.  

In keeping with the idea of the different bridesmaids dresses, the bride decided that the boutonniere should all be different.  What fun!  Using different combinations of the flowers and foliage from the bouquets, I created the button holes to be all different, but "matching".  

The groom's boutonniere stood out by being slightly larger.  You can see a dried leucadendron cone, single Brunia Albiflora, Kangaroo Paw, Banksia, conifer foliage and summer grass.

And lastly, the corsage for the Mother of the Bride - a combination of Kangaraoo Paw, Grevillea, Wax flower, foliage and summer grass.  

Photo by KS Photographers

The photographers for the wedding took this beautiful photo of the brides bouquet.  KS Photographers have won the Tasmanian Wedding Photographer of the Year for 2014 and their website is well worth a look.  They are so creative and their catalogue is stunning.  

Photo by KS Photographers

It was such a treat to work on this wedding!  And so nice to see some photos of the day taken by such a great photographer!  

A January Wedding

Summer in Tasmania is a popular time for weddings.  The days are long and lazy, with daylight savings and the twilight giving beautiful lingering light until almost 10 pm.  Over summer 2013-14 I did a number of weddings and so I thought I'd share some of the highlights.  

An early January wedding, had an Australian theme with lots of colour.  "Orange, red and yellow" were the colours chosen, so I used the gorgeous range of summery Pincushions.  The varieties were "Scarlet Ribbons" for the red, "Mardis Gras" for the yellow and a Cordifolium hybrid for the orange.  

For the bride's bouquet, I teamed them with gorgeous Risdon Peppermint foliage, Geraldton Wax and the lovely Leucadendron Pisa with its cheery yellow bracts and silvery green cones.  Some Leucadendron Christmas Cones and a few Leucadendron Safari Sunset were added for a bit of red, and for to highlight the Australian theme, gorgeous dried gum nuts.  

The grooms boutonniere carried the Australian theme with a gum nut too.  Colour was more subdued but matched the bride with the use of the yellow Leucadendron Pisa and a red Christmas Cone.  Tasmanian Myrtle foliage and some popular Button Bush or Berzelia completed the arrangement.  I used jute twine to provide the rustic, country style but added a highlight with a ribbon matching the brides dress.

For the bridal table at the reception, a big splash of colour.  The fresh smell of the eucalyptus and the honey of the Geraldton Wax would have added to the atmosphere. 

Each table at the reception also carried the bright summery colours.  White ceramic pots allowed the foliage and colours to make a real statement.  

Summer is a great time to go wild with colour!

Banksia Occidentalis

Banksia Occidentalis is a Western Australian banksia from the coastal areas around Esperence.  Its natural habitat there is low lying sandy areas that are sometimes inundated with water for a period of time, giving this gorgeous flower the unflattering name of Swamp Banksia. 

 This makes it stand out from the crowd though, as it can tolerate more moist soils than other banksias which usually prefer very free draining soil.  Banksias, like many Australian native flowers, are part of the protea family.  As a "protea grower" I was keen to try some banksias to see how they would fare on my Tasmanian hillside, so I did a test plant of some of these stunning flowers. 

The bushes were tiny tubestock when I planted them out into the paddock just over 3 years ago. I have been really surprised at how vigorously they've grown.  I hate to think how tall they'd be if I hadn't pruned them regularly each spring and autumn - they are between 2 and 3 metres high as it is.  This coming year will be the test of whether I can keep them small enough to pick, or whether they'll get away from me.

I've been really happy with the amount of flowers they've produced this autumn too.  Some of the flowers are unusable as they grow out from the base at odd angles.  I'm still learning about training the plants to produce flowers where I'd like them to be ... and unsure if that's even possible!  The flower spikes in this picture are just reaching the stage of development where they begin to turn red.

In this picture you can see flower spikes at different stages of development - a green spike at the bottom middle of the picture is the earliest stage, then the spikes begin to thicken and "puff" out, creating the familiar tidy rows of stamen.  The red flower spike still has a few days to go before its ready to pick.  I've found that the colour needs to develop on the plant, so I let the colour intensify before I pick.

In this macro shot, you can see the structure of the flower which produces seeds prolifically.  

Most of my plants produce entirely red flowers but one bush makes these two-tone blooms with yellow at the base and red on the outside.  

A macro shot of the two-tone flower reveals how the colours are produced.

Flowers that are left unpicked continue to open.  In the final stage of maturity, the previously neatly folded stamen pop out creating tunnels that bees love to bury themselves in.  Flowers picked at this stage won't last as long in a vase but if they're picked before the unfolding process begins, you get to watch it happen.

Their colour and structure are really eye-catching in an arrangement!

Look out for them during the late summer and autumn months!

Silver Tree Cones

Leucadendron Argenteum, commonly known as the Silver Tree, is grown for its luscious silky foliage. It's really difficult to capture in a photo just how luminous and silky the leaves are.  They are really special.  But my mature Silver Tree specimens have been producing something extra special - these gorgeous silvery orbs!  

Leucadendron Argenteum, like all leucadendrons, are dioecious, meaning that the male and female flowers are borne on separate plants. The male plants produce flowers at the end of the stems or branches that have a gorgeous perfume.  But the female flowers go on to produce these amazing cones.  They are silvery and velvety, but have an almost metallic appearance.  And they are quite large, some larger than tennis balls.    

The Silver Tree Cones are always a real eye catcher when I take them to market.  They glow as the light catches them, but they're tactile too, with their velvety softness. 

The stems are usually covered with the soft silvery foliage, but I prefer the cones on clean stripped stems.  They make a real statement!

In amongst other flowers they add a highlight.

And they dry wonderfully!  If you get a chance to have some of these beautiful cones in a vase, don't throw them out when the arrangement is past its best.  Lay them in the sun for a week or two and you'll have a fantastic red-brown cone on the end of a long stem, with a silvery fur lining.  Inside each segment of the cone is a seed and you may like to try germinating some to grow.  In its native habitat in South Africa, the Silver Tree is listed as rare and endangered so you'll be doing your bit to make these gorgeous and startling plants more widely known.  

The dried cones look great in dried arrangements and last for years.  

I love growing these special plants! Look out for them and snap them up when you see them - they aren't available often.  Not only are they striking and long lasting, but when they're no longer fresh they are still beautiful.  You can't ask more of a cut flower than that!