Simple Summer Wedding

Simple Summer Wedding

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Simple Summer Wedding 

"I'm looking for something small and simple, and I love the idea of natives" was the brief for a January wedding held locally on the Tasman Peninsula at the beautiful Tigerbay Retreat.  Greens and whites with a pop of pink and purple were the brides instructions, keeping the bouquets simple. 

Bride's bouquet 

Beautiful silvery green Silver Tree and some lovely Pincushion foliage were the basis of my inspiration for the bouquets.  A few Proteas had braved the dry summer heat to bloom during their usual few weeks of scarcity, so they provided some of the pink.  Local native tea tree flowering en masse provided the white.  

Leucadendron Jubilee Crown with its rosy cones added some darker tones.  There are also some Leucadendron Galpinii with their silvery cones surround by purplish whirls of leaves.  Purple was added by the addition of some Hebe.  

Leucadendron Lemon Spice is a leuco that in late spring and summer has creamy pink tinged bracts.  I used the last few of these for the season in the bouquets and they added a warmth to the colouring that I loved.  

This picture shows how the L. Silver Tree really catches the light in a bouquet.  Its such a beautiful silky addition to a design.

This simple January wedding called for lots of boutonnieres.  More tea tree and Hebe teamed with some Pincushion foliage surrounding a L. Jubilee Crown cone.  

Simple, fresh, summery for a simple January wedding.  

Saving Seeds - Leucadendron Argenteum

Saving Seeds - Leucadendron Argenteum

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Leucadendron Argenteum is the proper name for this stunning plant, commonly known as the Silver Tree.  This photo shows the male tree's flower.  The Silver Tree is like other Leucadendrons in that it has male and female plants.  With some, the male and female are quite different and easy to identify, especially when it comes to the flowers.  With the Silver Tree its difficult to tell the male and female apart until they flower.  These gorgeous flowers on the male plant bloom in spring and have a lovely vanilla-like perfume.

The female flower is not as showy, but as it swells, pregnant with seeds, it becomes this stunning silvery cone.  I love using these cones as cut flowers.  They always stand out in a bouquet.  They dry well too, and can keep in a dried arrangement for years. I've written about the Silver Tree cones in more depth previously on the blog if you'd like to see more.

The function of these stunning cones is to produce the seed for the reproduction of the plant.  The cones, unless picked, are persistent on the tree.  The seeds are locked inside the cones.  Sometimes a plant will release the seeds while the cone is still attached, but often they can stay on the tree for a couple of years.  

I thought it might be interesting to show you how I collect these seeds, as it's such a lovely process to watch the cones open and shed their contents.  

I cut the cones, usually selecting ones that are not suitable as cut flowers, and let them sit inside on a windowsill.  Out of water it only takes a few days for the cones to start to open.

Soon, they are unrecognisable - almost feathery.  The cones open to reveal the tip of the silky parachutes that surround the seeds, designed to help with dispersal.

I simply pick up the cone and tip the seeds out.  The cone that is left is a beautiful structure with a central furry white mass.  The outside of the cones is silvery and velvety.

The seeds are quite large and nut-like, and a little bit hairy.

Each is surrounded by a husk with a parachute.  

The parachute/husk easily slides off the seed.

What you're left with is lots of little parcels of potential which, if stored properly, can remain viable for many years.  

If you'd like to try your hand at germinating and growing some of your own Silver Trees, I have some packets of this years freshly collected seeds for sale here at the Swallows Nest Farm online store.

Silver Tree Cones

Silver Tree Cones

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Leucadendron Argenteum, commonly known as the Silver Tree, is grown for its luscious silky foliage. It's really difficult to capture in a photo just how luminous and silky the leaves are.  They are really special.  But my mature Silver Tree specimens have been producing something extra special - these gorgeous silvery orbs!  

Leucadendron Argenteum, like all leucadendrons, are dioecious, meaning that the male and female flowers are borne on separate plants. The male plants produce flowers at the end of the stems or branches that have a gorgeous perfume.  But the female flowers go on to produce these amazing cones.  They are silvery and velvety, but have an almost metallic appearance.  And they are quite large, some larger than tennis balls.    

The Silver Tree Cones are always a real eye catcher when I take them to market.  They glow as the light catches them, but they're tactile too, with their velvety softness. 

The stems are usually covered with the soft silvery foliage, but I prefer the cones on clean stripped stems.  They make a real statement!

In amongst other flowers they add a highlight.

And they dry wonderfully!  If you get a chance to have some of these beautiful cones in a vase, don't throw them out when the arrangement is past its best.  Lay them in the sun for a week or two and you'll have a fantastic red-brown cone on the end of a long stem, with a silvery fur lining.  Inside each segment of the cone is a seed and you may like to try germinating some to grow.  In its native habitat in South Africa, the Silver Tree is listed as rare and endangered so you'll be doing your bit to make these gorgeous and startling plants more widely known.  

The dried cones look great in dried arrangements and last for years.  

I love growing these special plants! Look out for them and snap them up when you see them - they aren't available often.  Not only are they striking and long lasting, but when they're no longer fresh they are still beautiful.  You can't ask more of a cut flower than that!

Thinking About Weddings - The Bouquet

Thinking About Weddings - The Bouquet

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In Tasmania, its not often you get someone wanting to plan a wedding during the winter months.  The weather is a major factor in planning a big day here in the southern-most state of Australia.  Spring and summer are the busy times for weddings, and at Swallows Nest we are excited to be providing flowers for a some weddings over the next few months.  

Proteas and Natives are not the traditional wedding flower, but they are becoming much more popular, and with good reason.  I know I am biased, but really, they do have so much more to offer than many people realise.  Natives offer an incredible range of colour and texture that can lend themselves to both modern and traditional type weddings.   They can be rustic, and simple or sophisticated and sharp.  They can be feminine and soft, or bold and expressive.  Its all in the way you combine the colours, textures and forms.  And then of course, theres the fact that most Natives are hardy and long lasting and  remove the worry of a wilting bouquet!

I've been doing some research into the uses of Natives for weddings so I thought I'd share a few of the ideas I've found.  The internet is awash with ideas and I've recently discovered Pinterest - a serious risk for time-wasting, but full of wonderful ideas for just about everything.  There are some lovely images of weddings that have used natives in creative and beautiful ways, and I've been really inspired.  

The Bouquet, really the central floral point of any wedding, is the focus of these finds.

This beautiful bouquet uses Pink Ice proteas with a variety of Leucadendrons (two variegated forms called Jester and Corringle Gold) and a mix of other beautiful folidages.  There are also some Banksias - what look like Speciosa and Occidentalis.  It has an informal, softly coloured beauty. 

(www.blushingblooms.com.au)

The use of proteas in this bouquet is a different take on a more traditional wedding bouquet shape.  I love the use of eucalyptus foliage too, for the colour and form it adds.  

(the brides diary)

This is another combination bouquet, using Banksia Baxterii as the main flower and combining it with more traditional flowers.  I love the vibrancy of this one!

More Banksia Baxterii in this one, but adding some Hakea nuts and paper daisies.  I love the leaves of the Banksia Baxterii and I think they've been used well in this cute posy-style bouquet.

There is a great range of whites in the protea family, perfect for weddings!  This is a combination of mini King Protea and white Protea Nerifolia, with the lovely soft black fringing. A few magnolia leaves complete this simple, informal bouquet.

For a spring wedding, Waratahs are a spectacular wedding flower.  I love this bouquet which in addition to the gorgeous red waratahs, also has flannel flower, gum nuts, everlasting daisies, leucadendron, serruria or blushing bride,  and a form of brunia.  

(i-do.com.au)

Waratah's are also available in white and, as this bouquet shows, are really well suited for a wedding too.  This bouquets combines them with leucadendron, wax flower, blushing bride or serruria, and some blue flowers that look like cornflowers.  Gorgeous!

(thebloomroom.net.au)

I recently did a wedding with an orange and black theme.  The colours and textures of spring were perfect - yellow green Phyllica, Leucadendron Maui Sunset and Red Gem, the bright yellow pom poms of Leucadendron Tall Red, soft Silver Tree foliage and Berzelia or Button Bush all together to form this fresh bright bouquet.  

This fabulous native bouquet uses Banksia Coccinea and Protea as the main flowers, with Safari Sunset Leucadendrons, and what look like a yellow Salignum Leuco.  Very memorable!

(www.gingerdesigns.com.au)

Another Swallows Nest Farm bouquet, with simple spring flowers includes an early Waratah, and some Protea Pink Ice, surrounded by soft yellows and greens.  There are Leucadendron Gandogeri, Phyllica Pubescens, Leucadendron Silver Tree, and Berzelia or Button Bush,  a wedding favourite.  Adding white highlights is Thryptomene.  

I'm looking forward to the pincushions coming out here at Swallows Nest.  They are later here than on the mainland of Australia, and go right up until just after Christmas.  Faboulous for weddings in shades of yellow, orange and red, with some beautiful soft colours available too.
(koruwedding.blogspot.com.au)

More Pink Ice Protea with Leucadendrons, Flannel flower, Thryptomene and beautiful Eucalyptus pods.  Wow!

Last one - I promise!  Although there's so many beautiful native bouquets!!  I love this freestyle bouquet with my favourite Brunia Albiflora, Eucalyptus pods, foliage, and Leucadendrons.  Gorgeous!!

(Flowers By Megga Bloom)

I hope you're inspired!  I hope you've seen the versatility, variety and beauty that natives can bring to a special occasion like a wedding.  I'm looking forward to the rest of the "wedding season" here is Tasmania, hoping to get lots more opportunities to explore what can be done with these fabulous flowers.

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!

Photos Around the Farm

Photos Around the Farm

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I love to take photos.  I thought I'd share some of the ones I've taken lately around the farm  These first two are of an area that has been planted out in the last 12 months.  Although it looks a bit like a bunch of headstones in a graveyard, give it a couple of years and they'll be rows of productive large shrubs.  It's a very satisfying thought!  

We get a great view of Mt Wellington in the distance from this point in the plantation.

A couple of days ago I got my first ever photo (in focus, that is!!) of this wonderful Wattle Bird.  We have so many of them around the farm.  They have a very distinctive birdcall - not what you'd call pleasant, but distinctive.  And despite being quite large (maybe 40cm long) they are hard to catch on camera.  They love sitting in the Silver Tree (Leucadendron Argenteum).  They are called Wattle Birds after those dangly yellow "wattles" that hang below the eye, not as you would expect, because they like wattle!

A beautiful Silver Tree seed pod on a female tree.  

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!