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!

What's in the Basket?

What's in the Basket?

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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!  

Spring Snow!

Spring Snow!

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Spring weather is predictably unpredictable here is Tasmania, and after beginning with summer-like weather in the first week of September, we've had snow this week.  Its the first real dump of snow in around 8 years at Swallows Nest Farm.  Thankfully I think the plants will cope okay, although many of the branches were bowed down under the weight of the snow.  

Most of the Safari Goldstrikes have been harvested - if they hadn't been I imagine they would be bent over like the plants beside them.

Pink Ice ... literally.

Maui Sunset and Tall Red bending over with the weight of the snow.

The Tall Red is nearly finished flowering.

Safari Sunset acted as little cups, catching snow and ice.

The Waratahs were a little early this year.  I'm not sure how they'll cope with the snow!

The kids had a lot of fun making snowmen and having snowball fights this morning - it was a memorable day on the farm!

what's in the basket

what's in the basket

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It's all about the gorgeous yellow Safari Goldstrike leucadendrons here at Swallows Nest at the moment!  I'm so happy with the crop this year.  The flower heads are lovely and big, and the stems are up to a metre long.  They're a pleasure to pick, but they do present a problem for the poor basket, which strains under the weight and can't cope with the length.  I've taken to carting them on my shoulders instead!  

Hints of Spring

Hints of Spring

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August in my part of the world is characterised by the colours yellow and blue.  It seems that wherever I look those two colours catch my eye.  The sea, the mountains, and often the sky are a rich blue,  and provide a lovely backdrop for the cheerful yellow that is glowing everywhere.  Wattle season is definitely in full swing and the large black and silver wattle trees are becoming golden with their masses of little flowers, all like miniature sunbursts.  I love wattle!  

At Swallows Nest, the signs of spring are everywhere, with many of the Leucadendrons in flower.  Safari Sunset, usually rich red for most of the year, are yellow and pink at the moment with a delicate rose-like fragrance that makes picking them a joy.  

Safari Gold Strike are beginning to flower and are a beautiful fresh yellow at the moment.  I have started to pick them in earnest now and I'm so happy with their long sturdy stems and beautiful big blowsy flower heads.  Yellow is such a great colour to lift the spirits at the end of winter.  

Inca Gold are another stand-out for this time of year - yellow pointed blooms stretching toward the sky.  

Yellow is such a happy colour!

These flowers are the Tall Red Leucadendron.  It is a very vigorously growing plant that we pruned with a chainsaw (they really were unruly!) in our first year at Swallows Nest.  They have grown back to be bigger than they were at first.  They will need to be heavily pruned this year, and this gives them great stems for next year.  I love their lime green pompoms!  

I love the combination of colours available at this time of the year - and the textures too.  It's all just a hint that spring is not far away.  

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!

We've Struck Gold

We've Struck Gold

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Please excuse the cheesy title of this post, but this beautiful spring flowering leucadendron is called Safari Goldstrike.  I wrote about it earlier in the year.  It was our first new planting after we took over the protea farm 4 years ago, and it has been a great success.  This year is the first big harvest, with the plants beginning to produce lots of saleable stems.  If you want to see the before and after shots, click on the link.

For most of the year, Safari Goldstrike are a green leaucadendron with a slightly pink tip, as seen in the photo above.  Many florists use them at this stage.  They are long lasting and a great accent flower, the green really glowing among soft pastels, or natives. 

You can see them being used above in this native arrangement.  Depending upon the weather conditions, sometime in August these unassuming leuco's decide its their time to shine, and they begin to change colour and open into the large golden blooms that give them their name.  

They really glow with colour and their large, teacup shaped flowers just shout "look at me".  

We are so proud of these great flowers - our first planting.  They are versatile all year round, but are definitely a spectacular spring-flowering leucadendron.

Welcome to Winter

Welcome to Winter

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Welcome to winter on the farm!  It's a little chilly, and quite wet, but its a beautiful season.  There are many proteas that flower right through the winter.  In fact, I think they are superior in some ways to the blooms produced in the warmer seasons.  They seem to be clearer and brighter, free from insect activity and the effects of strong sun.  They really glow!

Winter is also a great time for planting proteas.  We have planted in all seasons here at Swallows Nest Farm,  and by far the most successful season is winter.  The plants clearly love getting their roots into the soil when its cooler.  It gives them time to focus on their roots before they feel they have to produce leafy growth.  There is more rainfall here in winter too, so there is no need to irrigate.  Real rain always produces better results than irrigation.  Somehow, the plants can tell!

Our very first winter here, 3 1/2 years ago, we planted 50 new plants as an experiment.  We didn't really know what we were doing, but I had read up on all the varieties and then realised that I could only really buy what I could find available!  A local nursery had some of these, so in went 50 Leucadendron Safari Goldstrike.  They were so small!

We put them in the ground and never irrigated them once!  I remember that as I planted the last 3 plants,  it started to rain.  Three years later, they look like this!

This spring will be our first big harvest of these wonderful yellow Leucadendrons.  They have large teacup-like heads in bright yellow, on strong strait stems of amazing length.  Really spectacular.  I will be sure to post photos of them as they start to sparkle!