Giving Flowers

Giving Flowers

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In the last two weeks I have picked flowers for so many occasions.  It has caused my mind to wander about the gift of flowers.  I can think of no other gift that is appropriate for congratulations, and commiserations, to celebrate and to encourage.  We use them in weddings and funerals.  They are given to celebrate birth and to sympathise in death.  Flowers say "I love you", "I'm sorry" and "Thankyou".  They say "Welcome Home" and "Goodbye".  I find it quite amazing!

A friend recently passed on a book called "The Language of Flowers"  by Vanessa Diffenbaugh.  It was a great read!  It is based on the Victorian idea of expressing thoughts and feelings through the gift of flowers.  The Victorians had a very sophisticated flower language.  I want to do some more exploring in this area now - I've been inspired!  At the back of the book was a paraphrased list of flowers and the meanings assigned to them through this floral language.  Of course, I was keen to look up Protea, and was really surprised by its meaning.

Proteas mean courage.

I rather like their meaning!

Tasmanian Waratahs

Tasmanian Waratahs

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This week, I picked my first Tasmanian Waratahs for the season.  I have one bush that flowers in late October - just a bit earlier than the rest.  Almost over night, it seemed to be covered in bright red blooms.

Most people associate the Waratah with New South Wales, probably because its is that states floral emblem, but Victoria and Tasmania are also home to some wonderful species of waratah.  At Swallows Nest Farm, we are lucky to be growing the waratah endemic to Tasmania called Telopea Truncata. It is a smaller flowered plant to its mainland cousins, but size isn't everything!  The Tassie waratah is about the size of a carnation and looks a bit like a cross between a "normal" waratah and a grevillea.  It has lovely bent styles the give it a charming sculptural quality.

The Tasmanian Waratah grows as a large shrub to 3 m, but can that can get to over 8 metres tall.  In the wild, it grows in wet forest areas and flowers in November and December.  It is often picked in the wild for the flower trade. The flowers are striking red making the bush really stand out when its in bloom.  Very rarely, the flowers are actually yellow.  The yellow form has been used to make hybrid waratahs which are available to purchase as garden plants called "Shady Lady Yellow".  It is the only waratah to have a yellow variation.  

I love it that these cheery Tasmanians are ready to pick in the lead-up to Christmas.  As a flower grower, its the plants that help to mark the seasons and this one is such a lovely Christmassy flower.  It brightens up a bouquet and compliments the other flowers that are available in the Christmas season. 

The Tasmanian Waratah is best propagated by seed.  After the plant has flowered it produces some fantanstic seed pods.  I'm a bit of a collector of seed pods and waratah seed pods are definitely worth collecting!


Look out for Tasmanian Waratahs in your florist or in the wild during November and December.  They are a real treat and a great reminder that Christmas is fast approaching!

If you'd like to have a go at growing your own Tasmanian Waratah, you can buy fresh seed collected from Swallows Nest Farm here.

The Waratah's Are Out

The Waratah's Are Out

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Today, I picked my first Waratah of the season.  What a stunning flower, the Waratah is.  It is an Australian Native, and the floral emblem of New South Wales.  We grow a number of different Waratah or Telopea hybrids at Swallows Nest.  They are characterised by their long (up to 1 metre) strait stems, and large red showy flowers that are long lasting.  

The Waratah is from the Proteaceae family and grows from a lignotuber, a swelling in the root crown that acts as a protection from fire.  The plant stores nutrients and buds in the lignotuber, and can sprout from below ground level.  Because of this, cutting the flowers of a Waratah encourage more stems to sprout until you get a very bushy plant with many many stems.  Some cut flower growers have very prolific plants producing up to 400 stems each, in a season.  Ours are not quite up to that yet, but we are working on it!  

Over summer the plant focuses on producing stems.  Each stem forms a single bud.  Then over late winter the bud begins to swell.  

Over a period of weeks, they begin to open and reveal the flower.  Waratahs seems to slowly unpack themselves in stages.  The outer "petals" are actually modified leaves called bracts.  Inside the bracts are many small flowers arranged in a dome shape to form what we think of as the Waratah flower.  These individual little flowers seem to unfold and arrange themselves in the recognisable domed shape before they start to actually open.  

You can see in the picture above how the little flowerets begin to open at the outside and work their way to the middle of the dome.  

A tip for buying or picking Waratahs is to select ones that have just begun to open their little flowerets.  This will usually start on the sunny side of the plant.  Once a few of styles are open, they are ready to pick.  This will give them a much longer vase-life.  When buying Waratahs, look for ones that are not completely open.  This will give you longer to enjoy them.

At Swallows Nest Farm, we have a number of different varieties of hybrid Waratahs.  The first flowers usually appear in early September, and later flowering varieties keep appearing until mid to late December. We have some beautiful white ones too, which I'll feature when they start to flower in a few weeks.  

These popular flowers are a wonderful bold statement that spring is here!

Tall Red

Tall Red

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August is the month that heralds the beginning of spring colour among the Leucadendrons here at Swallows Nest Farm.  This lovely leuco is called Tall Red - an uninspired name for such a wonderful plant, I always think.  It is a selected type of Leucadendron Eucalyptifolium, which is characterised by its profuse, pointy leaves and vigorous growth habit.  It is wonderful as a foliage plant throughout the year, with a lovely red colour and long stems making it very useful.  Sometime in August, depending upon the weather conditions, it starts to sparkle and make itself much more noticeable.  The foliage changes from a rusty red to a pinky, bright red with yellow parts in the areas that get less sun.  Gorgeous lime green cones emerge.  Branches are covered in these flowers making them a beautiful textural cut flower.

In the picture above, you can see the colour variation caused by the level of sun the leaves are getting. The bracts around these cones are creamy with a pink tinge.  The more sun they receive the deeper the red colouring.  Sometimes, the colour will change along a single stem.  There are so many flower cones on each stem that the variation adds to the charm of this plant.

The cones act as pollen presenters and over a period of weeks become yellow as they "present" their pollen.  They look lovely at this stage, like little yellow pom-poms.

This picture shows the lime green of the cones as the stems of Tall Red wait to be put in bunches in the packing shed.  

Tall Red looks fabulous in mixed bunches at this time of the year - imagine how it would be missed in this bunch.  Even though it has lovely long stems, it can also be cut down and the flowers used in box arrangements or posies.  Its multi-flowered stems add texture and colour with a long vase life.  A truly Lovely Leuco!

Spring is in the Air

Spring is in the Air

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Spring is just around the corner, and many of the plants are beginning to wake up after their winter rest.  There is a riot of colour among the many types of leucadendrons.  Over the next few weeks, I will be featuring some amazing spring flowering proteaceae but here is a sneak peek!

All of these lovely leucadendrons are late-winter or early-spring bloomers.  They create a mass of colour and texture at this time of year.  I think you'll agree that the effect is wonderfully cheery!

Thryptomene

Thryptomene

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Thryptomene is a beautiful Australian native shrub that we grow here at Swallows Nest.  This variety is Grampians Thryptomene, found as the name suggests in the Grampians region in Victoria.  It is extensively picked in the wild there, for the cut flower trade.  We only have a small number of bushes here, but they are well established and very productive. 

In mid to late winter,  the tiny bright pink buds begin to burst into dainty little flowers that erupt between the leaves and cover the length of the branches.  They continue to flower for the next few months.  I think they have the look of snow laden branches at this time of the year.

One of the features of Thryptomene is it's beautiful aromatic smell.  Fresh, clean and foresty, it really lingers.  I love it!  

Thryptomene is long lasting as a cut flower.  It looks great as a filler in a bouquet and adds a fresh scent and a touch of authentic Australian winter.  Look out for it in florists during the cooler months!

New Plants

New Plants

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I'm very excited about the arrival today of our new batch of plants.  As I've mentioned recently, winter is a great time for planting at Swallows Nest.  Last year we put in around 200 new plants.  This year, we're being very restrained - only 36!  But when they arrived today, I was so surprised by the size of them.  They were much larger and more advanced than I expected.  I can even see the beginnings of flowers on some stems, long enough to pick if and when they form properly.  I have been chasing these plants for a few years now, so there is an extra excitement at having finally been able to source some!

So what are they?  They are a type of Brunia which I have written about before.  We planted some new  Brunia last year - Brunia Albiflora which have a white flower.  These new plants are called Brunia Stokoei.  Absoloutely stunning cut flowers on long stems with beautiful architectural silvery spheres that have tiny rings of flowers - in this case pink.

We ordered the plants from a nursery in Victoria, and the horticultural transport company that brought them across Bass Strait for us wouldn't deliver them to the door, so we had to pick them up.  I'm glad there were only 36 - they were so big that they filled the entire car.  

Notice how soggy the ground is?! Great planting weather! 

This is the beginning of a flower spike, and you can see the balls starting to form.  I'm looking forward to the first flowers!!!  In the meantime, its digging holes and planting.

Please note that the first photo is not mine.  Click here to see its original home!

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.  

Drying Proteas

Drying Proteas

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Proteas are fabulous as dried flowers.  They have great sculptural qualities and they keep their structure well, not falling apart easily.  There are no real tricks to drying your proteas - you don't need to hang them upside down, although it doesn't hurt.  Just as long as they are dried without being too crowded, to make sure their shape remains intact, and to allow for airflow.  Some even keep their colour well.  

You can get fancy if you want to - the following are some ideas from Proteaflora, a major Protea nursery in Victoria.

Hanging

Pick the flowers in their prime, strip off the bottom leaves then tie about 5 of the flowers together in a tight bunch with a rubber band. Hang them, heads down in a dry, dark, airy spot for about two weeks.

In a Glycerin Solution

The glycerin keeps the plant material supple and helps it last longer. After cutting and stripping the foliage, place the stems in a glycerin solution as soon as you can. Use a mix of one third glycerin (available at your chemist) to two thirds water. The solution should be seven to fourteen cm deep. Don't put stems in water first, and if the stems have been cut for more than one hour, re-cut them before placing them in the glycerin solution. When tiny beads of glycerin appear on the leaves, take them out and hang them as described above.

The pink flowers pictured are Protea Pink Ice.  There are some others mixed in including Brunia Albiflora, (press the link to check out more of these) and some Leucadendron Argenteum.  I am also lucky enough to have a huge Banksia Grandis tree and the seed pods often come on long stems which make a great display.

So next time you have a bunch of proteas, think about drying them for longer lasting loveliness!!

Lovely Leuco's Part 2

Lovely Leuco's Part 2

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Sylvan Red is a variety of Leucadendron that we grow at Swallows Nest.  They are a well known variety and a popular cut flower.  They are similar to the Safari Sunset I first featured with a few exceptions.  They are a brighter red, as you can see, and they are finer, with almost a more pointy end to the leaves and flower bracts.  They are finer in the stem too, but they can still grow an incredible length - up to 1 mt. They really glow in the sunlight on the farm, but the smell is something I can't capture with a camera.  There is a faint sweetness to their perfume which makes picking them a real joy.  They are at their peak at the moment, but left unpicked will change colour in early winter and become multicoloured red and yellow, opening to reveal the pollen presenters inside.