Winter Activity

Winter Activity

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Apart from picking, the main winter activity on the protea farm for us is planting.  Proteas are characterised by a special root system.  They have deep roots that anchor them, like other plants, but they also have a "proteoid" root system that is shallow and renews itself every year.  Proteas are very cyclical plants.  Winter is their root growing season, and this makes winter a good time for planting.  

Last year, we planted around 200 plants.  I'm very excited about the varieties - White Ice - a beautiful white protea with icy white "fur".  Another variety we put in is White King.  It is a type of Protea Cynaroides, the largest flowering protea with a flower the size of a dinner plate!  The white variety we planted should be a stunning flower!  It will be 3 or 4 years before we see the results though - King Proteas are slow to mature.  But it will be worth the wait!

This morning I rang a supplier about ordering some more plants for planting this winter.  I hope I am able to get the variety I'm after!  This time next year, they'll be established, and growing, and I'll hopefully be blogging about them!  I love winter!

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!

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.  

Lovely Leuco's

Lovely Leuco's

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Leaucadendrons are one of the most popular flowers in the florist trade.  They are incredibly long lasting, they are available all year round, and come in a range of colours.  They look equally happy amongst natives, or more traditional flowers.  And yet, many people, although they would recognise them, wouldn't have heard of them.  We grow lots of varieties of Leucadendrons at the Swallows Nest.  

At the moment, most of the Leuco's (as we call them) are rich red.  We have three main varieties of red Leucos, all with slightly different properties.  This one, called Safari Sunset is the most popular Leucadendron grown worldwide.  It is a rich deep red, has long strait stems up to 1 mt, and is sturdy.  It has a medium sized flower head.  

If you weren't familiar with Leucadendrons before, I'm sure you'll recognise them if you look for them, peeping out from a bouquet at a florist or sold in lovely large bunches at flower markets.  

Mother's Day

Mother's Day

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Mother's Day is a great time for flowers.  Usually, we sell our flowers wholesale in large quantities, but being an artist, I love the creative challenge of making retail bunches.  I'm not trained in floristry so they are not technically well constructed, but I love combining colour and texture and making the flowers look their best.  My local General Store sells bunches for me, and I love the challenge of creating bunches that say "buy me" to shoppers.  This week, I made some Mother's Day bunches.  Here are a few snaps!

 From the field to the bucket, and from the bucket to the bunch!

 Happy Mother's Day

Sugar Bush

Sugar Bush

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It is generally thought that winter isn't a great time for flowers, but proteas are the exception to this.  There are many protea species that flower in autumn and winter, when other flowers are hard to find.  They grow through spring and summer, sending up long stems, and then in autumn they set buds and begin to flower.  Three years ago, we planted some new proteas called Protea Repens or Sugar Bush.  They have flowered for the first time this season, beginning in autumn, and continuing now into early winter.  I am delighted with them.   They are quite different to our standard Pink Ice protea.  They are waxy rather than hairy (!) and don't have the silvery bloom that many common proteas have.  When we have a new flower, I love to put a few on my kitchen windowsill and watch them open over days and weeks - I guess as a kind of road test!  Here are some of our new beauty.

We have spectacular sunsets at Swallow Nest Farm.  I think that the autumn sunsets are the best.  Its something about the autumn light here in Tasmania - and probably helped by a bit of smoke from Forestry burn offs.  This was the sunset that provided the soft lighting in the protea photo above it.

As the Sugar Bush flower opens, its colour starts to soften, and the centre structure starts to collapse into a wider, less tidy shape. I think its quite beautiful.

The Silver Tree

The Silver Tree

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At Swallows Nest Farm, we grow one of the most beautiful foliage plants of the proteaceae family.  It's commonly named the Silver Tree, but its actually a Leucadendron with the proper name of Leucadendron Argenteum.  (Just Latin for silver, really!)  It really does look spectacular at this time of year, and provides the most beautiful soft textured foliage with a silvery green colour that perfectly compliments the other proteas flowering at the same time.

The Silver Tree does actually grow to small tree proportions, but if it is picked regularly, like it is in the cut flower trade, it remains at a reachable height.  Some of our trees have been unpruned for a while and we were so excited to find that the female trees began to produce the most spectacular cones.  They begin as a soft silvery green, like the leaves, but look like they are made of metal.  When they dry, you end up with a beautifully structured cone, about the size of a tennis ball, on the end of a long stem.  They make a great statement in a vase, as a dried flower.

The bark of the Silver Tree is unusual too.  In their native South Africa, they were at one stage used as a firewood tree, because they grow quickly and burn well.  It's unusual wood - quite light, but the bark! I think it looks like elephant skin!

It's a remarkable tree, and we love growing it!

Early Autumn

Early Autumn

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Autumn is a busy time in the flower farm.  There are many proteas that flower over autumn and winter, and the cooler weather also brings a chance for clearing away the excess growth of summer.  There are so many weeds!  But I love the beginning of the cooler weather.  It seems like the plants are invigorated again after being a bit tired and weary at the end of summer.

Protea Pink Ice,  a cut flower industry staple, is absolutely sparkling at this time of year.  Beautiful clear pink flowers with icy white tips and clean, clear foliage are bursting out all over the bushes.  If you're buying these flowers, here is a tip - pick ones that are not quite fully open.  You'll get a much longer vase life.  Most people go for the really big, open flowers, but these are just at the end of their vase life and will quickly discolour and collapse.

Late summer and early autumn also brings out my favourite flower that we grow here at Swallows Nest Farm. Its called Brunia Albiflora.  Its not technically a protea, but it is native to South Africa and is a spectacular, sought after cut flower with beautiful long strait stems topped with stunning glowing silver balls of tightly packed flower buds.  Its very architectural and looks fabulous en masse, or as an accent in a mixed arrangement.

Brunia Albiflora is not a plant you'll find at your local nursery.  They are quite difficult to propagate and as a result its difficult to come by these plants, even as a grower.  I was very excited last year when we managed to get hold of some plants from Victoria and so we have dramatically increased our future production of these rare and beautiful flowers.  I can't wait!

Brunia's silvery balls will begin to burst into tiny rings of flowers at this time of the year.  Each ball will begin flowering in a ring around the outer edge of the ball and slowly, the flowers will open inwards until the whole ball is covered in tiny flowers.  Some people prefer the plant before the flower comes out, others like it both ways.

I always like to have some of the current season's flowers on my windowsill in the kitchen, as a reminder of whats going on outside.  I could tell you I'm doing experiments in vase-life,  but really I'm just enjoying the produce!

Whatever you do, if you are lucky enough to come by some of these flowers, don't throw them out when they are past their best.  They make spectacular dried flowers and keep for years.  You don't need to do anything fancy with them.  Just take them outside and strip off the tiny needle-like leaves so the stalks don't shed.  Then they are good to go in a vase again for a dried flower arrangement.