WEDDING FLOWERS: button bush
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Showing posts with label button bush. Show all posts
Showing posts with label button bush. Show all posts

Native Spring Wedding Flowers


October is a brilliant month for native flowers.  A bride is spoilt for choice!  Last October I was privileged to be able to provide flowers for a wedding at MONA in Hobart.  The bride and groom were from Sydney so NSW Waratah's were a perfect choice.  My Telopea Speciosissima hybrids were just bursting with colour.  


The bride was wearing gold, so the red was really a standout colour.  I added Dryandra Formosa flowers to tie in the gold.  They are at their height in early to mid spring.  


The Dryandra leaves also add a  lovely textural quality to the bouquet.  They have a fine, zig-zag shape and fall at nice angles.


For the flower girl's bouquet, I chose some smaller waratahs to keep the size and weight manageable.   The bright pink is added by Boronia which not only creates a burst of colour, but smells divine, making it a pleasure to handle.  I used Leucadendron Lemon Spice, a selection of the female Leucadendron Discolour.  In spring its colour is spectacular, changing from a sage green to a gorgeous creamy ivory with a pink blush.  


Another ingredient I loved using for this wedding was some fresh green eucalyptus pods, immature and not ready to flower until summer.  In their immature state, they are bright green, and the textural quality adds another layer of interest to a bouquet bursting with spring goodness.  


In early October, the Berzelia or Button Bush is just ready to begin picking.  The "buttons" are green and they add another fresh textural layer to the spring native bouquet.  


One of the things I loved about this wedding was that the bride was particular about the boutonnieres.  The groom wanted white.  For the Fathers, I was given pictures of the suits and ties they were wearing, so I could create something that worked well.  It was a great way to work.  


White was a little tricky with so much colour available!  I used both wax flower and thryptomene (another duo that are fabulously perfumed) teamed with Berzelia and an immature Leucadendron Silver Tree cone.


The Silver Tree cone really glows. 


For the Fathers' boutonnieres, I used small waratahs.  I usually cull these smaller flowers, pruning them off the bushes and leaving them.  They are pretty but too small and often at odd angles so no good for selling wholesale.   I decided that they were perfect button holes for this spring wedding though - like a scaled down version of the main bouquet flowers. I like the way the red bracts surrounding the flower sit at interesting angles.


For the other boutonnieres, I used Dryandra.   These Australian Natives have a strong almost citrusy smell that can be a bit overpowering when they are first picked so I pick them a week early and sit them in the cold room till it fades a little.  They are teamed up with Lipstick Boronia and wax flower.  


Such a joyous combination of spring goodness! 
Natives are a vibrant and memorable choice for a spring wedding.




A Spring Week on the Farm

Spring has arrived, and along with it the unpredictable spring weather.  But all is forgiven because spring is the season that brings the incredible transformation in the landscape from the quietness of winter to an explosion of life and colour.  We've already experienced the highs and lows of spring with days of summer-like heat and spring snow, wind-swept days and still, misty days.  And throughout it all the spring flowering plants produce their vibrant colours and make us happy.

The Road to Swallows Nest - a misty spring day
Spring snow on the driveway at Swallows Nest Farm
Spring afternoon sunlight among the Leucadendrons
This week on the farm I've been picking a variety of spring flowering plants.  Leucadendron Gandogeri are a cheery yellow leuco that are flowering now.  We planted our first Gandogeri 3 years ago and are just starting to get good quantities of really lovely blooms.  Leucadendrons are such a diverse group of plants.  These Gandogeri have almost a daisy-like appearance when flowering.

Leucadendron Gandogeri
I've also been picking Waratah this week.  They were already beginning to bloom when the snow hit last week and some of them have a little discolouration damage, which is a pity.  They have definitely exceeded my expectations though and I'm pretty happy with them considering what they've been through!

Waratah waiting to go in the cold room
The other thing I've picked this week has been the Berzelia or Button Bush.  This is a gorgeous South African plant that's not a protea but has similar growing requirements.  I just love it - such a special plant!  We grow Berzelia Lanuginosa a Swallows Nest.  It has little clusters of balls of flowers on the end of sturdy stems.  The little balls begin green and as they get closer to flowering become creamy white until the tiny flowers burst out and make the little balls appear like fluffy white pompoms.  They are a great flower for weddings, and I have a couple coming up so they'll be put to good use.

Berzelia Lanuginosa
The Richea Dracophylla has been so busy producing flowers this year, and it takes the spring snow in its stride.  It's native habitat is the slopes of Mt Wellington and similar mountain slopes in Tasmania.  It is well adapted to coping with the extremes of the Tasmanian spring weather.  There are so many buds on some of the plants and I've been picking them early, trying to find the optimal time to pick that gives them the longest flowering time off the bush.

Richea Dracophylla
Today marks the spring or vernal equinox, when the day and the night are equal in length.  From now on, there will be more day than night, until just before Christmas and the summer solstice. Its a busy time on the farm with all the spring and early summer flowering plants, and the busyness of calendar events too.  Its lovely to have the longer days and the lengthy twilight.  They make me feel relaxed, as if I have all the time in the world.

Well, that's my spring week on the farm.  I'll leave you with a photo of tonights equinox sunset!


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