WEDDING FLOWERS: cut flowers
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Showing posts with label cut flowers. Show all posts
Showing posts with label cut flowers. Show all posts

Foraging Fun - Forest Candles

I have developed a love of foraging!  Often, I'll be driving along the road and a plant will catch my eye but I'm usually on my way somewhere with a car full of kids,  and can't stop.   So reecently I went for a drive with the intention of wandering and discovering,  and was rewarded by finding this gorgeous flower.  It really caught my eye, being so bright among the other native shrubs growing beside the road.  

Forest Candles - Stackhousia Monogyna
 Closer inspection revealed a plant that grows from a central mass with many stems, all tipped with clusters of flowers.  I cut a generous bunch to bring home!


My trusty "Flowers and Plants of Tasmania" tells me this beauty is Stackhousia Monogyna or Forest Candles, a perenial herb.  It grows in heaths and open forests from sea level to alpine regions.  These were found in heath beside a country road near the coast here on the Tasman Peninsula.  They grow up to 60cm and have a pretty perfume as night falls.

Further research reveals that Forest Candles, whilst widespread across all states of Australia except the Northern Territory, is not well known and rarely cultivated.  It flowers in spring and summer when, as its name suggests, it stands out brightly amongst the other vegetation.  


I am really quite blown away by the beauty of these "Forest Candles".  And it has certainly encouraged my foraging tendencies.  Prepare for future foraging finds!!


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? ....

Telopea Truncata - the Tassie Waratah


Telopea Truncata is the botanical name for the Tasmanian Waratah, a wonderful wild flower that blooms in spring.  I've begun picking these beauties for the season with one of my bushes, a rather large and productive one, flowering weeks before the rest.  It's a joy to grow these special flowers!

Telopea Truncata is a many-branched shrub up to 3 m tall.
The plant can grow to 3 metres with long stems reaching for the sky.  It can take you by surprise, flowering all of a sudden.  The buds, often covered with fine brown hairs,  swell within a few days given the right conditions, and then emerge with red folded blooms.  

Flowers look smaller and less bright when they are just beginning to open.
 What we call the "flower" is actually a cluster of up to 20 individual flowers.  These "unfold" and assemble themselves roughly facing the centre of a circle.  Each individual little flower then begins to unfold freeing their styles with the effect that the flower gets larger and more sculptural.  It also gets more intensely pinky red.  

I pick the waratah early,  before the first "unfolding", which gives them maximum vase life.  They are smaller and less brightly coloured at this stage, but they will continue to unfold naturally and brighten in colour even after being picked.  


The "flowers" have arranged themselves and are beginning to open.

Some of the styles are beginning to emerge from these flowers.  Intense colour and bent styles are typical of Telopea Truncata

The brighter flowers are the more mature flowers.

More mature plants will produce hundreds of blooms each season.  All these are from one of my bushes which flowers 2 weeks earlier than all the rest every year.  It is only about 15% of the flowers this bush produces.  


Telopea Truncata makes a fabulous garden plant too.  


Honeyeaters love these beautiful blooms, which develop droplets of sugary syrup as the flowers reach their peak.  

I know I'm biased, but I have a soft spot for these lovely little waratahs!








Richea Dracophylla


This week, I've been picking Richea Dracophylla.  They are an Australian native flower, endemic to Tasmania, although many people say they've never seen them before.  It's such a pity that we are unaware of the natural beauty that occurs in our own part of the world.  These flowers are long lasting, if you pick them just as they are opening.  They are spectacular in a strong, bold sculptural arrangement, but equally at home in a soft mixed bouquet of natives.  I love them, and am so proud to be able to grow them commercially.  

It's tricky taming wild plants though - and these Richea Dracophyllya are definitely wild! They grow in the wet forest and mountain regions of southern Tasmania - you can find them on the slopes of Mount Wellington in Hobart.  They can be quite unruly, and their leaves are a little spiky.  In the wild, they are described as "sparsely branched" but my cultivated specimens are certainly not that!   They are densely branched and thick, requiring gloves to get in and prune them.  They need pruning to produce long upright stems, otherwise the flower spikes can grow an funny angles searching for the sun.

The plants themselves, as with many bush plants, don't really announce themselves until they start to flower.  But the flower spikes really do say "look at me"!  They sometimes have a deep pink blush to the bracts, which then brown and fall off revealing the rice-like flowers underneath.  Their petals are fused together to form a little cap, which falls off and reveals the stamen.  All of this gives the flower a rich textural appearance to add to its strong structural look.



I decided to get up close and personal with these little tiny flowers, using my macro lens.  Lots of fun and such a fascinating look at things that are normally lost to the naked eye.


How cute are the little rice-like flowers peeping out from behind the bracts?!


In this photo you can see that the "rice" are like the petals of the flower that have been fused together - they slip off the flower as it matures, to reveal the stamen.


Little "rice" petals.


A tangle of stamen awash with pollen.


Such a fascinating and beautiful structure!  In my internet browsing about the Richea Dracophylla,  I found a blog by a self-confessed Tasmanian plant nerd who even tried the nectar in his exploration of Tasmanian Bush Tucker.  So apparently, they taste good too!

So I hope I'm doing my bit to spread the word about the beauty of native flowers, and especially Tasmanian ones - they are really exceptional!  I hope you get a chance to enjoy them sometime.







Tips for Longer Vase Life


Fresh flowers are one of life's little luxuries and if you're going to spend your hard earned dollar, you want to get the most for it!  Vase life is an important consideration for flower growers, wholesalers, retailers and of course, buyers.  Proteas have a reputation for being long-lived cut flowers, and they certainly are, but even the most long lived cut flowers will not last if they are not properly handled.  



As a grower, I see the flowers when they are at their absolute best - on the bush!  From the moment they are cut, they are slowly deteriorating - it's slowing down that deterioration process that makes all the difference!


BUY FRESH
My first tip is to buy the freshest flowers possible.  Buying cut flowers with a "reduced for quick sale" sticker from your local supermarket, you're not getting value for money.   It's obvious that the flowers are not going to be the freshest you can buy in this situation!  But how do you know whether the flowers you buy are fresh, or whether they have been sitting in a cold room for weeks?  It is very difficult with some types of flowers and only experience can tell.  But with proteas there are some key pointers to look for.  
1.  Colour should be clean and clear - no bruising and not dull or greyish.
2.  Leaves should be green and fresh looking (think fresh leafy vegetables).  Some proteas have a problem with their leaves blackening - this can happen even under ideal circumstances.  If you find some protea flowers that have blackened leaves but are otherwise fresh, a good trick is to remove all the leaves - this can actually be a plus with floral design, making the flowers more prominent, and making the form and colour of the flower the star of the show!


3.  Proteas open over a period of time.  As a grower, I have a window of opportunity for picking.  As soon as the petals begin to separate at the tip of the flower and are soft when gently squeezed (in the above photo) the flowers can be picked.  This differs slightly for other protea, but the principle is the same.  With waratah or pincushions, once the first few stamens have begun to emerge from the base of the flower and unfold out of the "petals", they can be picked and will continue to open.  


People often expect proteas to look like this (above) but this flower is actually too mature to pick.  Its vase life is shortened because it is already fully opened.  The central mass will start to collapse very quickly (see below) and the colour will fade.  From a growers point of view, these flowers are unsellable.  Practically too, the more open they are, they will more easily be damaged during transit. 
So for longer vase life, buy protea that have not fully opened and you'll be able to enjoy watching them unfold.  


FRESH WATER IS VITAL
This seems really obvious but I can't stress enough how important fresh water is to the vase life of a cut flower.  The following are some tips for keeping water fresh
1.  Put a teaspoon full of common household bleach into the vase before you put your flowers in.  This will stop bacteria from growing on the stems and in the water.  If you are keen, and have it on hand, a pinch of citric acid helps to pep up the flowers too.  There is no need to purchase the floral food sachets.  As a grower, I use bleach and citric acid - much cheaper than commercial water additives and every bit as effective. 
2.  Vases must be clean.  Bacteria can live on in a dry vase under the kitchen sink for months, and will seriously shorten the vase life of any flower.  The slimy, stinky water that comes from a dirty vase is not just unpleasant but will make your flowers very unhappy! Clean out dirty old vases with a bleach solution.  If you want to, you can then put them through the dishwasher every so often as the heat will kill off any lingering bacteria.  
3. If the buckets that your flowers are sitting in at the florist or wholesaler are dirty, your vase life will be lessened.  Look for clean water in buckets.  
4. When you get your flowers home, remove any leaves or slimy stems that will sit in the water.  Its a good idea to snip about 2cm off the end of stems anyway and this increases the flowers ability to "drink".  But removing leaves below the water line will also ensure that your water stays fresher for longer and that bacteria will not grow around the stems, choking off the water supply.
5.  Replenish water regularly - proteas are very thirsty flowers.  If your vase is not the see through kind, check every few days - I have seen proteas drink a vase completely dry in days.  Use a small, long necked watering can so you don't need to carry around big vases full of water.

KEEP CUT FLOWERS OUT OF THE SUN
It's common sense really, but keeping cut flowers out of the full sun will keep them fresh for longer.  Evaporation of the water is also a factor.  Tests have shown that proteas like a little fluorescent light rather than complete darkness while they are in storage.  Fluoro light is not the most flattering for showing off blooms though!  But if you keep them out of the baking sun they'll give you joy for longer.  Don't buy flowers that have been sitting in the sun at the shop - you don't know how long they've been there!


Proteas are a fabulous cut flower, long lasting, and spectacular in colour, texture and form.  If you're buying them, make sure you get value for money and buy the freshest you can and then enjoy them for longer by looking after them.  I have heard of leucadendrons being kept in a vase, with water freshened/replenished regularly, that lasted 6 months! Incredible!  

Christmas Cones


Some Leucadendrons are grown not for their flowers but for the cones that appear after the flower.  This hybrid Leucadendron Jubilee Crown is one of them.  It is often called Christmas Cones because it produces these lovely blushing red cones in December, just in time for Christmas.  


The flowers of the Christmas Cone bush are pretty but not really memorable.  After the flowers are spent, the centre starts to swell and a cone forms.  It swells and as it does, its colour becomes more vibrant until it is round and rosie red and ready for picking.  The bush produces lovely straight stems which get longer with good rainfall.  


Christmas Cones are fabulous in a Christmas bunch - their colour and texture lend themselves well to seasonal arrangements.  They are long lasting too, like most Leucadendrons, and will usually be the freshest looking flower in the bunch, after all the others are spent.  


After the cones are spent, they open and dry out, and resemble tiny pinecones.  Last years cones remain on the bush.  They are generally not sold at this stage, but I think they still look lovely and can be used in floral arrangements even as a "dead" or spent flower.  


Leucadendron Jubilee Crown, "Christmas Cones", is not the main event in an arrangement but it is certainly a valuable addition to a Christmas arrangement adding a charming texture and colour.   

Summer Colours


Summer is within reach!  The days are longer and warmer and the first early summer flowering Leucaspermums are starting to bloom.  Leucaspermums are a species of plants within the Protea family.  They are native to South Africa, although here in Australia they are often called "natives".  They do resemble a lot of our Australian Proteaceae - they seem like a cross between a waratah and a grevillea, with a great variety of colours.  Leucaspermums usually flower in late spring and early summer.  Here at Swallows Nest Farm, we have 5 different varieties.  The one pictured is a hybrid called Mardi Gras with bright yellow stamens and red inner petals that give an overall colour of golden yellow.  


In bud form, they are silvery and hairy.  Then the bud starts to swell and out pop the stamens exposing both the yellow and the red.  It's an explosion of colour!


Mardi Gras are one of the earlier flowering Leucaspermums that we grow here.  The other is called Scarlet Ribbons.  These two are available from mid November up until Christmas, give or take a week depending on the seasonal weather.  These plants produce a large crop of flowers in a short space of time.  


Leucaspermums are long lasting flowers like most proteas, if they are handled correctly.  They must be packed carefully though, because they have a tendency to loose their heads!  The flower can easily pop off the stem if they are handled roughly.


Leucaspermums love to be pruned and will produce many more flowers next year, if this years flowers are picked.  They are ready to pick when the first yellow stamens start to emerge.  They will continue to open once they are in a vase.


I love this early flowering variety that has the colours of summer!

What's in the Basket?



We've been at Swallows Nest Farm for 4 years, and not long after we arrived, I found a basket at a local op shop which said "BUY ME"!  It has become my constant companion on the farm.  I use it for everything from planting to pruning to picking and even delivering bunches.  When we are picking large wholesale quantities collecting into a trailer attached to a small tractor, I always have my trusty basket to take the flowers to the tractor.  

Boronia Heterophylla, Leucadendron Lemon Spice, Grampians Thryptomene, Berzelia Button Bush


Every now and again, I look down at the basket and admire its contents.  Then, I'll whip out the iphone and snap off a photo. 

Isopogon Formosa Pink Cone Flower, Red Gem Leucadendron, Berzelia Button Bush

I have quite a collection of these basket photos now, and have decided to start a regular (or irregular!) post on the blog called "What's in the Basket?"  This will be the first of many so you get a kind of overview - a Year in a Basket!

Leucadendrons Maui Sunset, Safari Sunset, Inca Gold, Tall Red, Safari Gold Strike and Protea Neriifolia 

The basket is quite large but sometimes it gets overloaded - the flowers in the photo above make it look so small!

Grampians Thryptomene, Richea Dracophylla, Berzelia Button Bush, Telopea Speciosissima Waratah

Retail bunches ready for delivery to a local shop.

I'm looking forward to sharing what's in my basket. I hope you enjoy taking a peek!

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