Thursday 29 November 2018

Spring Flowers...and a Strange Season


 

What a strange year it's been in Melbourne: autumn and winter droughts, little rain in early spring, now torrents in late spring (no complaints from me). Our lime tree nearly died and the Garrya `James Roof' looks haggard (and it refused to flower in winter; I sympathised with this strike; better no flowers but a plant surviving, particularly a good 3m high evergreen shrub. This Garrya somewhat blocks the view of the henhouse from the house, so it's arguably the most important plant in the garden (at least until the shrubs planted to screen the sheds have grown another metre or 2).
Yes, I should have watered them.

But the spring flowers are so lovely this year: masses of bluebells, bugle and a few paeonies (top) one minute, glorious species gladioli (mainly petite The Bride...nearly a species) and fragrant English roses (such as `Molineux', last pic) the next. Clematis (above), too, one or 2 up a birdhouse pole and others including `Prince Charles' climbing a large shrub (or `thrown up a tree' as the Brits say) (I love the soft blue of this one even as my sister teases me, an Australian republican (in a non-US way) about its inclusion in the garden). Meanwhile little purple iris dotted all along the front path beautifully matched our purple gate.
And in the bush? Recently, myriads of pandorea (wonga vine, P. pandorana, above) flowers, and masses of exquisite clematis (starry C. aristata, below) blooms, both climbing up gum trees, conferred lacy white smocks and sometimes bonnets too.
 
 
Were they flowering so prolifically because of the green drought?
 

These native climbers are over now, but we have a lovely surprise by our gate (where there's some remnant bush): a grass tree (below) which has flowered once before, has sent up 4 showy spikes of white florets...that smell like semen. Yes, really.
This is Xanthorrea australis, the eastern species with a subterranean trunk, unlike the remarkable ones found west of Melbourne across to Western Australia, each with its grassy clump atop a dramatic, above-ground black trunk.

 
So...did the drought cause this floriforescence (if that's a word)? I think so.
I'm enjoying the show...so much.
 
Jill Weatherhead is horticulturist, writer, garden designer and principal at Jill Weatherhead Garden Design who lives in the Dandenong Ranges east of Melbourne, and works throughout Victoria. (www.jillweatherheaddesign.com.au)








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