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!  

Whats In the Basket?

Whats In the Basket?

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I haven't done a "what's in the basket" post for a while now, but that doesn't mean I've stopped snapping basket shots!  It has more to do with a lack of blogging time than anything.  There is so much happening around the farm and on days when the weather prevents too much outdoor activity, I have been doing some "spring" cleaning and redecorating inside.  I have a current theory that winter is a better time for spring cleaning than spring is!

Last week was a very cold, wet week in southern Tasmania.  Winter has definitely set in here!  But I managed to do a fair bit of picking and pruning in amongst the blustering wind, hail and even snow!  The photo is blurry because is was taken in the rain, but the colours are still cheery and vibrant and the flowers are looking lovely in the cold weather.  It seems the colder it gets, the happier they look.  They Protea Pink Ice certainly prefer the cold to the heat.  They don't look as happy or fresh in the summer. 

So in the basket we have Grampians Thryptomene (tiny white flowers on long branches and the bottom of the photo).  You can read more about them here.  They will continue throughout winter and into early spring with more of the tiny buds opening until they cover the branches like snow.  I love picking them because they smell fabulous!  There are the usual Pink Ice, and there is a Protea Neriifolia as well, just coming into bloom at the moment.  The larger red Leuco's you can see are Safari Sunset that are starting to get their spring colouring already.  We have plots of them planted in different areas around the farm and some flower before the others.  The ones higher on the hill catch more sun at this time of year and flower earlier.  The fine red foliage at the top of the photo is Leucadendron Tall Red.  It will flower in August and it really makes you stop and look when it does, but at this time of the year it is useful as a tall foliage that adds colour and structure to a mixed bunch.