Leucadendron Love

Leucadendron Love

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Leucadendron Red Gem

It's this time of year that I fall in love with Leucadendrons all over again.  Not that I ever really fall out of love with them.  Its just that as autumn deepens, their new growth matures and their colours really pop.  Maybe I forget over the summer, just how sparkly they can be.

Front: L. Safari Goldstrike,  Middle: L. Jubilee Crown,  Back: L. Safari Sunset

In the foreground, the Leucadendron Safari Goldstrike are still in their growth phase, and too droopy to pick.  But that startling red in the back row is the Safari Sunset, showing off one of the reasons why it's the most widely grown leucadendron.

Front: Leucadendron Maui Sunset, Backgrounds L. Tall Red

Everywhere I look in mid autumn there are leucadendrons showing off.  Some of the Maui Sunsets have just set their flower heads and others are still growing.  Their colour is dusky but fresh.  Behind them is the glow of Leucadendron Tall Red.

Leucadendron Tall Red

The Tall Red are such a great filler.  

Leucadendron Inca Gold

Inca Gold are a fabulous yellow winter flowering Leuco.   Most of their growth has happened by this time of the year and the winter weather brings the colour.  They can be picked green, and often have a bronzy orange tinge as the you get towards the red tips.   

Leucadendron Safari Sunset

Picking Leucos is a pleasure.  It's one of my favourite jobs on the farm.  There's always a feeling of satisfaction at this time of year when they're a fabulous colour, and great length.  

Leucadendron Safari Sunset

And there are also moments when I gasp, and have to whip out the camera to capture the light and colour.

Safari Sunset at Sunset

I love Leucadendrons!

Winter Colour

Winter Colour

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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!

Blue Skies

Blue Skies

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I've been really enjoying the mild winter days we've had so far - beautiful clear blue skies that make you glad you're alive!  It's also been great for photographing flowers.

My plan for this blog has always had 2 main goals.  Firstly,  to showcase the beauty and versatility of proteas and australian natives which are sometimes undervalued as cut flowers, and also, to provide an online guide to what's available and when at Swallows Nest.  Creating a catalogue of what we grow has been quite difficult!  Its been a project I've started a few times and then put off.  Because I'm a visual person, it really had to be an illustrated catalogue.  These blue skies we're having are providing a great backdrop for catalogue illustration photos, and its given me the little push I've needed to get the job done, or at least nearer to completion! 

When it's all finished, it will be published as a permanent link at the top of the blog.

I know winter won't all be like this!! Enjoying it while I can!

The crop of lovely long Safari Goldstrike singing in the sunshine!

Some of the Grampians Thryptomene is flowering early this year - handy for getting a good portrait shot!  It's not usually like this until July.

One of my little companions taking photos with my iphone and having a great old chat!

 

Difficult to really capture the shimmering beauty and structure of the Silver Tree - this is more of a close up shot really, but look at that blue sky!

Leucadendron Red Gem - one of my favourites - just such a quiet achiever.  Large tulipy blooms with a great range of colour throughout the year,  great stem length and not at all fussy.  A very satisfying flower to grow!

Look out for the product catalogue over the next couple of weeks - fingers crossed these blue sky days will get me over the line!

Autumn Flush

Autumn Flush

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We're well into Autumn now and we are finally getting some autumn weather.  We have had a long hot summer here in Tasmania, with some record temperatures lingering well into March.  But I think the Indian Summer has drawn to a close now, and the rain and cooler weather has arrived.  Autumn is often thought of as a season where things wind down and nature gets ready for the hibernation of winter, but here in Australia that's not the case.  We see a definite autumn flush of growth.  The Leucadendrons particularly flourish in Autumn.  Mid to late summer, they start to push out their new stems for the season and it seems that they almost grow while you watch them.  They can grow such long stems - up to 1 metre - in just a few weeks.  Above are a crop of Safari Sunset,  with their flower heads just firming up and plumping out, almost ready for picking.  

It's as if the cooler weather gives them new energy and they thrive.  New seasons growth is always so bright and clear, and the colour seems to really glow.  These are our Red Gem, just ready for harvesting now.  

These Sylvan Red Leuco's have shot up over the last few weeks but their flower heads are still small and not well formed.  If you pick them too early, their heads flop and their colour fades quickly.

There are plenty of fresh Pink Ice Protea which the bees are loving.  I found three different species of bees in this flower at the one time.

It's great to see some of our new plants flourishing with the autumn weather too.  This Leucadendron is a hybrid called Lemon Spice.  It's stems have shot up over the past couple of weeks and it seems to be reaching for the sky.  This lovely pale yellow flower with a tight tulipy shape won't be ready until spring but most of its stem length will be put on in autumn.  

These new Protea Compacta plants have doubled in height over the past couple of months.  The long stems have small flower heads hidden in the rosette of leaves at the top.  These will be lovely deep pink flowers with a rich red centre.  I'm looking forward to picking the first usable flowers from these plants this year.  We planted them as tiny tube stock coming up to 3 winters ago.  

The Thryptomene is starting to form tiny red flower buds all along its branches, ready to burst into a mass of white flowers later in the year. 

Autumn is a lovely season in Tasmania.  There are still warm days, but the air is fresh and the grass greener than in summer.  The sunsets are spectacular in autumn too.  

Stay tuned in the next few weeks for some tips on keeping cut flowers fresh for longer, and some amazing plant geometry I'm hoping to share with you.  

Winter Colour

Winter Colour

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Winter has produced some beautiful blue-sky days for us lately, and today was no exception.  This stunning unedited colour (taken with the trusty iphone4) shows where this variety of leucadendron gets its name - the Safari Sunset.  As they begin to flower, the red bracts around the flower presenter change to yellow and you can see this starting to happen here.  Flowers sold at this stage are often called Tri-Colour Leucadendrons, because they turn from red to pink to yellow, like a sunset.  And with that wonderful blue backdrop, they are particularly stunning!

This leucadendron is of the variety that I most recently wrote about in Lovely Leucos part 3.  If you want to compare the colour change, click on the link.  A few short weeks ago, these Red Gem leucadendrons were a bronzey red.  Now as they start to flower, they become a warm clear yellow, with red tips.  This bright yellow will last until the flowers and pollen presenters have done their work, and then the bracts will close around the centre again and return to being red.  

Leucadendrons are such a colourful cheery plant to be growing in winter.  And at every season they provide different colour.  I'm so happy to be growing them!

Lovely Leuco's Part 3

Lovely Leuco's Part 3

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Red Gem are a fabulous Leucadendron.  The protea books all tell you that they are unsuitable as cut flowers, because their stems aren't long enough, but here in Tassie, they are spectacular and regularly grow to 80 and 90 cm stem lengths.  These beautiful red leuco's are so versatile for so many reasons.  They have large flower bracts, tulipy in shape.  Their colour ranges from deep red, early in the season, to bronzey red, and then in winter to bright yellow, before they open to reveal their pollen presenters.  

They are a great plant to grow too - they have a special type of root system called a lignotuber, which means they can shoot stems from old wood, and even from below the ground.  In the "old days" they were regularly pruned with a chainsaw!!! I certainly wouldn't do that to them, but they do love to be pruned, and produce many new flower stems afterwards.  

We don't regularly prune our plants, but use the picking process as an opportunity to prune.  It's such a lovely job, picking these Leuco's. Not only am I rewarded with masses of lovely flowers, but i can almost hear the plants' pleasure knowing that I am also setting them up for a great crop next year.