Early Spring Wedding

Spring is a fabulous time for native flowers, and a fabulous time for weddings.  I get to put the two together when I'm doing spring wedding flowers!   Early this spring,  I did flowers for a lovely Hobart bride who wanted bouquets with highlights and pops of colour. 

The bride's bouquet combined the creamy white of Maui Sunset Leucadendrons, a late-winter or early-spring flowering leuco, with one of the first of flowers from a newly planted Protea called White Ice.  White highlights were added with Bushman's Bootlace, a local native Pimelea.  

Providing pops of colour were early flowering Waratahs in rich deep pinky red, Protea Satin Mink in pink with black fringing, and the startling pink of Boronia which also smells fantastic, which made working with the bouquet all the more enjoyable.  

Dryandra Formosa, with its glowing golden flowers and beautiful leaves provides texture, as does the fabulous Berzelia.  It's green in early spring and is such a great texture plant right through the season until it bursts into fluffy white flowers just before summer.  I also used some native Tasmanian Richea Dracophylla flowers which you can just see poking out on the left at the rear of the bouquet.  

The grooms boutonniere combined all the colours and textures of the bouquets in a tiny package.  I love the colour combination of the dryandra and boronia.  That pink really packs a punch!

Groomsmen's boutonnieres were a simple combination of the golden dryandra, some berzelia and pimelea.  

I really enjoyed the opportunity to play with these early spring flowers.  I hope the bride and groom had a brilliant day.

Saving Seeds - Phylica

Phylica Plumosa

Phylica are a genus of plants that mostly come from South Africa.  They occur in the shrubby heathland of the western Cape region known as Fynbos.  I have been growing two different varieties of Phylica for a few years now and I love them.   

Phylica Plumosa

The shrubs that are covered in fine hairs and when they flower, the hairs catch the sunlight and seem to glow.  This variety is Phylica Plumosa, characterised by a greenish tinge with light flowers, and sometimes called Green Phylica.  The other variety I grow is Phylica Pubescens which is known as Golden Phylica.  It has a yellowy green appearance and is more hairy on the leaves as well as the flowers.  Both are really spectacular in late winter when they flower.  

Phylica Plumosa in flower

A close up of the "flowers" reveal that there are tiny little flowers tucked in at the base of the feathery, showy bracts.  Phylica are sometimes called Featherhead, and its easy to see why.  

Phylica Plumosa flowers

My plants have been getting older and less productive.   I just LOVE them though, so after searching the web for a supplier of new plants and not finding anyone who could provide them, I decided to do some propagating of my own. 

When in full bloom, the Phylica bushes are swarming with busy, happy bees.  They go from flower to flower and pollinate them.  I have to hold myself back from cutting all the flowers to use!  It's for a good cause.

Phylica Plumosa seed heads

After the flowers are spent, the bracts close around them and those that have been pollinated begin to swell with seeds.  

Phylica Plumosa seed head nearly ready to harvest

Brushing aside some of the bracts, you can see seed pods starting to darken.  The seed heads are ready to harvest in November/December, once they change to a dark brown. The seeds are attractive to ants so its good to check regularly and make sure you get to them first.  Alternatively, cover the flower heads with a little organza pouch and tie them gently closed.  A physical barrier helps to keep them safe until you can harvest them.

I take the entire flower head, which pops off easily, and leave them to dry a little in a paper bag.  

When they've dried out, you can see the seed pods are sectioned into thirds.  Not every section will contain a seed.

Squeezing the pod between your fingers, the sections break apart and if fertilised, will reveal a plump black shiny seed.  Shrivelled or light brown seeds are no good. I have found that the seed stays viable for many years.  I had surprising success in germinating seed that was 6 years old.

The seeds have little "caps" called elaiosomes.  It is these appendages which attract the ants to the seed. They can break off without damaging the seed.

I soaked my seeds overnight in warm water first and had good success with this.  They seem to have a toughish outer casing so the soaking softened up the seeds ready for germination. All the viable seeds sank to the bottom, and I threw out the one or two that floated.

I sowed my seeds in a shallow tray in a mixture of seed raising mix and coarse river sand. The tray was put in a warm sunny position on a north facing windowsill.  From the little information I had been able to find to read regarding germinating these seeds, it was thought that they would take 4 - 6 weeks.  My experience was that they took a little longer than that.  But once they started to sprout, the germination rate was good.  My advice if you were to try your own seedlings would be to continue to look after them until they start to germinate, even if it takes 2 months or more.  Keep them moist, warm and sheltered.

Once they were past the cotyledon stage I potted them up into little pots.  Their roots spread quickly and they began to grow tall - ready for pinching out the tips.  

Phylica Plumosa

I'm looking forward to planting these out into the field next winter, so I can continue to enjoy using these striking and unusual flowers.  Its such a satisfying thing to harvest and raise your own seeds!

Wedding Boutonniere using Phylica Plumosa, Gumnuts, Berzelia, Kangaroo paw and eucalyptus foliage

Winter Wildflower Wedding

Winter weddings are few and far between in Tasmania. The colder months are quiet times for those who provide services for weddings.  This makes me a little sad at times because as a native flower grower, it seems such a waste to miss out on all the gorgeous seasonal flowers that winter brings.  

I was really excited to get a winter wedding request.  It was a small simple wedding with the bride and groom flying in to Hobart from the mainland.  A simple bouquet and boutonniere were all that they needed, but it was such a great opportunity to "play" with some winter blooms.

The brides dress was in deep green silk with rich dark blue patterning.  I decided to go with green and blue and add warm yellow and orange.  The inspiration began with the banksias that were in flower.  In the basket are some Banksia Marginata which grow wild on my property.  The flowers are light fresh lemony yellow.  Wattle was just beginning to bud and I loved the yellow hints with the great texture.  I also picked some branched of Blue Spruce - what a great colour!  And its structure is fantastic too.

Another banksia in bloom was the Banksia Brownii.  Its flowers are less lemony yellow and have a purplish tip.  Brownii foliage is just gorgeous too, and some found its way into the bouquet.

Banksia Ericifolia was flowering prolifically.  I love the rich orange colour with the purple tinges on the tip.  It really worked will with the other banksias.

Going all out with texture, I also added some early Berzelia, some Eucalyptus buds, some Tea Tree and, as blue green highlights, some sweet little succulents.

Winter can be so beautiful!

I love the happy little gum buds sitting proud of the bouquet surface.

You can see the purplish tips of the Banksia Brownii and Banksia Ericifolia here.  I love the way the colour adds depth to the colour scheme.  You can also see just a few Phylica Plumosa flowers.  I picked the very first flowers just days before the July wedding.  Phylica is such a brilliant flower for weddings.

The boutonniere had Phylica too, teamed with the Blue Spruce, Tea Tree and Berzelia, as well as some gorgeous blue green succulents.

It was such a great opportunity to "play" with some stunning winter blooms.  I hope more couples decide not to wait for the warmer weather!

Hip Hip Hooray! Celebrating 100 Posts with a Giveaway

Back in January 2012, I wrote my first Swallows Nest Farm blog post.  I began blogging after having to seriously re-think the way I ran my flower farm business.  In 2011 I spent 5 months away from home with my little girl in hospital on the mainland of Australia.  With a sick baby to care for, changes needed to be made.  When I began, blogging gave me a way of focussing on strategies for the future of the farm while not being able to actually get much outdoor work done.  As time has passed, it has become an important part of my flower farm business both for the exposure that it provides, and also for the way it helps me to see where I need to go next.

So here we are, more than 3 years and 100 blog posts later and I'm surprised that I still feel I have so much to explore by way of blogging.  I'm even more surprised at the attention this humble blog receives, with well over 50,000 visits.  I would never have expected it!

So I feel that a celebration is in order!

I am giving away a little pack of celebratory goodness including a
Linocut Hand Painted Waratah Bookmark from trees4thewood
4 Packs of Swallows Nest Farm Seeds
(including Telopea Truncata,
Leucadendron Argenteum,
Conrymbia Ficifolia and
Dryandra Formosa)
A Blue Gum Linocut Notebook with a Myrtle Beech Twig Pencil from trees4thewood
and some Swallows Nest Farm postcards.

You can enter the giveaway by sharing your favourite Swallows Nest Farm blog post, or by visiting our Facebook page (while you're there, if you like what you see, you could follow our page too).
The giveaway will run for a week and a winner will be chosen at random at midnight on Monday 14th September.

Enter using the rafflecopter counter below.
Entry is open to everyone!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Thanks so much for visiting Swallows Nest Farm blog!

Impromptu Autumn Wedding

Some people plan their weddings months, even years in advance.  This autumn I did some flowers for a wedding planned in only a few weeks. It was a small flower order with just a bouquet for the bride and a boutonniere for the groom, but it an experience I thoroughly enjoyed.  

My inspiration came from seasonal colours.  I love the pink of the peppercorns in autumn.  They are like little pink pearls and I love the way they fall softly.  The leaves are lovely too.

The Sugarbush or Protea Repens, being autumn flowering plants, were just beginning to really pop and their pink blush matched perfectly with the peppercorns.  The Leucadendrons you can see with a purplish pink blush are a Leucadendron Discolour called Lemon Spice.

I love the orange Banksia Ericifolia too, so they blended in well with the pinks and soft greens and yellows of the leucadendron varieties.  You can also see Protea Pink Ice.  Risdon Peppermint foliage covered in tiny buds, added a highlight of silvery blue-green.  Colour, structure, texture - the peppermint is a great foliage for weddings.

The boutonniere used peppercorns too, and a silvery grey gum nut, a mature seed pod from Corymbia Ficifolia, the spectacular flowering gum.  Foliage includes Leucadendron Pisa, Leucadendron Salignum, Risdon Peppermint and some early buds of Thryptomene.

Congratulations Karina and Corey from Red Brick Road Cider House in Launceston.  It was a pleasure to be a small part of your big day!

Hello Snow!

After a cooler, wetter summer than usual, we are now experiencing a colder winter than usual.  Last Monday most of Tasmania woke to a blanket of snow.  It snowed in the capital city Hobart for the first time since 1986. With snow down to sea level in some areas, this was a newsworthy weather event.  

It's always a magical experience to wake up to a white winter wonderland and it doesn't happen very often here in, at least in the more inhabited parts of our state.  Even school was cancelled, and the kids went out to play in the snow.

Last time we had snow at Swallows Nest Farm was mid-September 2013.  The snow was beautiful but it did damage some of the early spring flowers that were just starting to bloom.  I lost a lot of my waratah crop that year as the early ones had all begun to unfold.  The snow left burn marks on their bracts and petals.  I was keen to check this years plants to make sure they were ok.  The Berzelia crop is coming along and I'm hoping theres no damage. 

Leucadendrons catch the snow in their bracts.  Most Leucadendrons, once established, are quite frost hardy.

The Leucadendron Tall Red is about to flower, but hasn't begun to open yet.  I hope they'll be ok! 

Safari Goldstrike captured the snow all along their stems.  In our last snow event, many of our larger Leucadendron plants lost limbs because the weight of the snow weighed them down and they snapped. This time, it seems to have been a gentler fall.  You can see in this picture just how extensive the snow fall was.  We are quite elevated but the hills across the valley in the picture are just over 100m above sea level.  

Leucadendron Safari Sunset look so "Christmassy" covered in snow!

The open flowers acted like cups for the snow.  These Leucadendrons are quite tough, and seem to have coped well with the unusual weather.

I was surprised at how much snow cover the Leucadendron Jubilee Crown had.  It completely transformed the look of the plant.  

The familiar intense winter colour of the Leucadendrons was softened with the white of the snow.  Such a pretty sight.

Richea Dracophylla are used to snowy conditions, being endemic to the higher, wet slopes of Tasmania's mountains.  You can see them growing on the slopes of Mt Wellington which are no strangers to snowfall, even in the warmer months at times.   

The other plants on the farm that are no strangers to snowy conditions are the Myrtle Beech trees.  They looked so pretty covered in snow.  This tree is one of the dominant species in the temperate rain forests of western Tasmania.  

Some of the Leucadendron Red Gem had already started to flower.  Their bracts were wide open and caught lots of snow.  I think the majority have yet to open, so I hope they'll be ok too. They're such pretty winter flower.

Of all the plants that worried me, these were the ones I was most keen to check.  They are some new Leucadendron Laureolum that had only been planted a week before the snow.  This is  the reason that we choose to use planting guards to give the baby plants a little bit of extra protection in case of extreme weather.  I'm hopeful these little babies will survive and thrive.  

A day or so after the big freeze, I had to fly to the mainland and saw the snow coverage across the state.  Tasmania looked white from above.  Amazing!  I wonder what spring has in store.