Cheery Winter Colour

Cheery Winter Colour

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Winter can be a little dreary, especially when you get days and days of rain.  In Tasmania, the sun rises late and sets early, and tracks lower across the sky than in summer.   Sunshine is sometimes scarce.  But  just as winter is really setting in, there are a number of plants that begin to bloom in that sunshine yellow that you really crave on a grey day.  The daffodils and jonquils start to pop up, and the masses of wattle brighten up the landscape.  Leucadendrons are wonderfully colourful in winter too.  Inca Gold are a well known hybrid that have been grown commercially for many years.  As the weather gets colder, they get brighter, until the yellow becomes almost creamy.   They glow on a grey day, seeming to promise that warmer weather is coming.

These Inca Gold are fabulous in a seasonal bunch.  Their colour coincides with the flowering of Safari Sunset which, whilst beautifully rich red at other times of the year, turn pink and cream with central cones covered in yellow pollen.  It's such a pretty and cheery midwinter colour combination.

These bunches of mid-winter cheer are off to a local shop, ready to bring some sunshine to someone's grey day!

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.   

winter mornings

winter mornings

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Winter mornings can be spectacular here in Tasmania.  Frost, fog, mist, mizzle, ice, even snow on occasions.  And blue skies!  I love sunny winter mornings.  They are usually accompanied by frosts and as the frost melts, mist wafts up from the ground, glowing in the sunlight.  This week we've had some low lying fog which are really quite spectacular to see from above.  

Picking on these mornings can be a real joy.  New growth can sometimes be frosted with ice, and sparkling like treasure.  I took a break from pruning yesterday to take a few photos of these floral gems.

Thankfully proteas are, on the whole, quite frost hardy and will tolerate the cold as long as there is good airflow and the temperature does not dip too low into the minus'.