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!  

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!

Autumn Flush

Autumn Flush

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We're well into Autumn now and we are finally getting some autumn weather.  We have had a long hot summer here in Tasmania, with some record temperatures lingering well into March.  But I think the Indian Summer has drawn to a close now, and the rain and cooler weather has arrived.  Autumn is often thought of as a season where things wind down and nature gets ready for the hibernation of winter, but here in Australia that's not the case.  We see a definite autumn flush of growth.  The Leucadendrons particularly flourish in Autumn.  Mid to late summer, they start to push out their new stems for the season and it seems that they almost grow while you watch them.  They can grow such long stems - up to 1 metre - in just a few weeks.  Above are a crop of Safari Sunset,  with their flower heads just firming up and plumping out, almost ready for picking.  

It's as if the cooler weather gives them new energy and they thrive.  New seasons growth is always so bright and clear, and the colour seems to really glow.  These are our Red Gem, just ready for harvesting now.  

These Sylvan Red Leuco's have shot up over the last few weeks but their flower heads are still small and not well formed.  If you pick them too early, their heads flop and their colour fades quickly.

There are plenty of fresh Pink Ice Protea which the bees are loving.  I found three different species of bees in this flower at the one time.

It's great to see some of our new plants flourishing with the autumn weather too.  This Leucadendron is a hybrid called Lemon Spice.  It's stems have shot up over the past couple of weeks and it seems to be reaching for the sky.  This lovely pale yellow flower with a tight tulipy shape won't be ready until spring but most of its stem length will be put on in autumn.  

These new Protea Compacta plants have doubled in height over the past couple of months.  The long stems have small flower heads hidden in the rosette of leaves at the top.  These will be lovely deep pink flowers with a rich red centre.  I'm looking forward to picking the first usable flowers from these plants this year.  We planted them as tiny tube stock coming up to 3 winters ago.  

The Thryptomene is starting to form tiny red flower buds all along its branches, ready to burst into a mass of white flowers later in the year. 

Autumn is a lovely season in Tasmania.  There are still warm days, but the air is fresh and the grass greener than in summer.  The sunsets are spectacular in autumn too.  

Stay tuned in the next few weeks for some tips on keeping cut flowers fresh for longer, and some amazing plant geometry I'm hoping to share with you.  

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!

The Black Fringe

The Black Fringe

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There are hundreds of species of Protea - and so many more when you add the lovely hybrids.  One of the most well-known traits of a Protea flower is the fringing.  At Swallows Nest Farm, we grow a small number of bushes of this lovely Protea Neriifolia, which as you can see, has a spectacular black fringe.  This pink variety reminds me of a 1950s party dress, with its bright colouring and black trim.  The Neriifolia flowers over a long period of the year, and at the moment is producing some beautiful flowers on lovely long stems.  I have had fun photographing these beauties, trying to capture their shape, colour and texture.

This is a close up of an immature flower, showing the "hairy" fringe beginning to turn black.

This photo captures a whole flower bud.  You can see that the fringing is white at this stage.  The black develops as the flower reaches maturity.

In this picture, you can see the difference between the Protea Neriifolia, and the hybrid that is the staple of the cut flower industry, the Protea Pink Ice.  The shape, arrangement of petals and black fringing are immediately apparent.  The centre mound of flower spikes differ in colour too.  

At this time of year, the pink of the proteas looks spectacular with the yellow Inca Gold Leucadendrons, and the dainty pink and white Thryptomene.  

The Protea Neriifolia are a stunning addition to a bouquet.  I really love them!