Bulbs flourishing at the Autumn Equinox

Sea squills (Drimia maritima, Syn. Urginea) have thrust up strong stalks of starry white flowers amid mauve obedient plant but elsewhere autumn bulbs have arisen from garden beds rendered husky-dry from rows of 40 degree days where perennials have been reduced to crispy mulch.

At last there are more than a couple of flowering size bulbs of Mediterranean Drimia but I think recent record-breaking hot weather may be the cause of sea squills flowering like there’s no tomorrow; they give the garden some good vertical lines as they reach for the sky.

From South America comes the Sacred Lily of the Incas, white, perfumed, bizarrely-shaped; it’s been flowering for some time (Hymenocallis, above).

Bulbs from South Africa, too, grow well in Victoria; Belladonna lilies (Amaryllis belladonna), especially, have erupted all over the garden. There are so many autumn bulbs and they seem to have appeared to welcome the equinox; fanciful, but reflecting my mood perfectly.

Yellow Sternbergias haven’t flowered yet so the colour palette seems very restricted: red, pink-mauve and white. (Some other colours in the garden are supplied by a few perennials valiantly marching on, particularly blue salvias.)

Elephant’s Ears (Haemanthus coccineus, below) have waxy, scarlet blooms (bracts, actually, around a paint brush head of tiny flowers); the huge, attractive leaves are yet to appear. My favourite (living) garden writer, James Hitchmough, writes that this is `the ideal botanical candidate for a Dali painting!’

Easier to use in the garden is Scarborough Lily (Cyrtanthus elatus, Syn. Vallota, above) which is a bright, orange-red too, but more effective: taller, prettier, and a wonderful contrast to green.

Deep-vermillion red are Nerine fothergillii `Major’ which add a punch to the garden; particularly effective amongst grey foliage, say, Dianthus.

Nerine come in hard candy pink too, in N. bowdenii. Hot pink, saturated pink…use with care!

More subtle pink bulbs that are still effective in the garden include pale pink Rain Lilies (Zephyranthes), Colchicum (above, and see post 26/2/14), and rockery cyclamen, C. hederifolium, the latter 2 a lovely lilac-pink and superb in drifts. And while it’s a bright pink, I have a few – a very few – Belladonna Lilies with candy pink trumpets, white throated (possibly `Parkeri’, below), far from the house, but adding perfume to the garden.

Yes, it’s the autumn equinox and the nights are cooling. Every single bulbous flower at the moment reminds me that the garden is starting to recover from the severe summer and the weather is becoming more benign; time to enjoy the garden again (and plant some shady trees).

Jill Weatherhead  is horticulturist, garden designer and principal at Jill Weatherhead  Garden Design who lives in the Dandenong Ranges east of Melbourne, (www.jillweatherhead.com.au)

White Belladonna Lilies

Gardening years can disappear in the blink of an eye; memories of a special flower or plant can flood the senses unexpectedly and transport back in time.

It would have been my mother’s birthday yesterday – a botanist who gardened for, what, 60 years? (starting, as a bride, with crocus in a window box, or, really, her parents British garden during WWII as a teenager, with quite some responsibility); overall a good life.

My sister visited yesterday and admired my white belladonna lilies (or naked ladies, Amaryllis belladonna `Hathor’, see post 26^th February) in the garden and in a spectacular vase (with a few pale pink ones). After wielding the spade and producing about 3 bulbs with flower heads attached I was suddenly transported years back. Passing them over to her, I said how these had come from a bulb farm in Gembrook originally, and that almost exactly 25 years ago I’d driven there and been thrilled to have just 2 bulbs dug up, flower heads perfectly shaking out their skirts. I’d given one to Mum for her birthday - and kept one.

I have dozens now and this year – after the hot summer? or the wet spring? – they are flowering prolifically all over the unwatered garden, pink ones nearly over, white still blooming with heavy heads of scented flowers, impressive when they bloom in a crispy-dried garden before almost any other plant stirs after the hot dry summer. (Like planting a tree, planting a bulb or 2 in the early years of a garden can be immensely rewarding a decade or score years later.) Hot pink varieties are hard to use in the garden but one or 2 amongst greenery (and their pale pink sisters) look pretty.

I have been picking belladonna lilies for the house for at least 2 weeks now but – despite the overpowering perfume of the white ones - without thinking about my mother. Then a visceral response occurred without warning; a powerful reaction to handling a simple bulb-with-flower head. Gardens can be filled with memories which add another layer of meaning and joy; an intimate layer for the gardener, unseen to others’ eyes.

Jill Weatherhead  is horticulturist, garden designer and principal at Jill Weatherhead  Garden Design who lives in the Dandenong Ranges east of Melbourne, (www.jillweatherhead.com.au)

Cosmos, one of the great annuals for autumn

Cosmos, one of the great annuals for autumn, has started flowering; I love the pink and white ones that reach about 1.2m or so.

From central America, Cosmos comprises annuals – from pink and white Cosmos bipinnatus hybrids to lemon and orange C. sulphureus - and perennials like dark blood red Chocolate Cosmos, C. atrosanguineus from Mexico which, sleepily, pushes up in late spring after all the other perennials have stirred and even, maybe, flowered.

Cosmos must be the prettiest daisy and the height, on (generally) sturdy stems, adds elegance to the autumn garden with its wide flower head described, at times, like a dish antenna – which doesn’t adequately convey its simple beauty.

I was barely aware of sulphur-yellow varieties, let alone orange, until a nephew returned from Japan last year with enchanting images of an urban meadow he loved, of mainly deeply saturated C. sulphureus flowers - hotly orange - floating above a vast green springy cushion; a simple mixture of 2 colour cousins. I believe the meadow is in Hama Riky, a large landscape garden in central Tokyo.

It’s an idea I am tempted to steal - or appropriate, rather, as a possibility for over our bushfire shelter, when it’s approved by council and plonked into the ground. Then we’ll have an ugly large molehill – or a rounded hillock of flowers (rather than a flat field to push through).

Where to find them? I turn to the British Chiltern Seeds catalogue and find 8 varieties of Cosmos sulphureus varying from lemon and gold to orange and red; but it’s the apt flame-orange for me, 10% bright colour against 90% sober green.

This garden of flame and green, Japanese-inspired, will be far flung to the north (whence hot winds and possible bushfires come) beyond my fire-inspired garden of red, grey and maybe black. Let’s hope they do not sit too strangely together.

Jill Weatherhead  is horticulturist, garden designer and principal at Jill Weatherhead  Garden Design who lives in the Dandenong Ranges east of Melbourne, (www.jillweatherhead.com.au)

Thank you to Murray Batten for the second and third photos.

Naked Ladies, deep rain and the kindness of a stranger

Summer seems to have turned a corner, or is it a brief cosmic joke?

Cooler – much cooler - temperatures bring a sigh of relief and heavy rains seem to bring this Colchicum (above) to bloom. (It was open the morning after the first heavy rain; surely a coincidence.)

Also known as Naked Ladies, and occasionally as Naked Boys, this handsome goblet has a floral tube arising from the corm (or bulb) well before the leaves emerge, hence its perceived nudity. But Belladonna Lillies (Amaryllis belladonna, below) are more commonly called Naked Ladies as they, too, arise right now as welcome flowers in the parched garden with no greenery to clothe their feet.

Colchicum are often also called autumn crocus but true Crocus (below) are much smaller and have neat little leaves at flowering time.

Common names, again, let us down, as the two Naked Ladies (and what a great moniker!) are very different in the garden; the first beautiful and hardy in great swathes, the second – hardy too – great for picking for a vase.

Both, too, are harbingers of autumn, when my garden starts to recover from the heat and dryness of summer. And maybe we start to have relief from bushfire danger. I can’t help but let out a sigh of relief and pleasure.

And speaking of hardy plants, Plumbago is a tough old shrub found in many a `70’s garden. How tall is it? – well -how high can that resident clip it? Seriously though, in this perfect example of familiarity breeds contempt, Plumbago auriculata can reach 2 or 3m depending on how good your soil is (and if you irrigate well). Baby blue is a horrid way to describe a flower colour so I’ll call it `sky of far northern Europe’…which is far too wordy; the flowers contrast well against the deep green foliage. But a plant that flowers through a Melbourne summer and requires little watering earns respect.

I was in a queue at the green grocers last week when the owner was given 2 sprigs of Plumbago with smoky azure flowers by a nice customer. (You can imagine my excitement.) I admired them but I swear, that’s all. I was offered one to take home for cuttings and was delighted. I asked the cultivar name - `Oh, Mercy Hospital Garden form I call it’ she replied guiltily. I shot back that she was spreading the joy around. (A small cutting off a large shrub is simply not in the same league as (say) digging up a rare bulb or a wild orchid.)

So, is it time for cuttings, and sowings, and plantings?

No, I am sure we will have still many hot days. But I am enjoying these cool days so very much.

Jill Weatherhead  is horticulturist, garden designer and principal at Jill Weatherhead  Garden Design who lives in the Dandenong Ranges east of Melbourne, (www.jillweatherhead.com.au)

Hyacinth orchids

Deep pink Hyacinth orchids have just finished flowering along our road; pretty late surely? Often blooming at Christmas, maybe these responded to the late, sudden cessation of the good spring rains.

I thought these were parasitic to the handsome gum trees under which they are always found – and they do appreciate the semishade - but today I read that they are actually myco-heterotophic; dependent or parasitic upon fungus (which may be the interface allowing nutrient absorption from another plant). Certainly Dipodium punctatum has no leaves for photosynthesis but the tall stalks (also not green), up to 1m high, are striking with the magnolia-pink flowers, spotted violet, arranged hyacinth-like (although less congested) at the top.

There is a colony of these beauties under 3 stringybarks in our bushland and one year, early in our custodianship, we found most of the 20 or so flower spikes torn off. Distressed, we wrote a note to the area’s children or other wayfarers: `Please don’t pick the orchids – they need to set seed’! Of course it was our old friend wallaby having a Christmas snack, who else?

`Lysterfield clay’ renders gardening at Possum Creek a challenge at times but gives us low gums trees, mainly messmates and wonderful silver leaf stringy bark gums (see post 21/4/13); this in turn gives us winter sunshine in the house, slanting low over the shorter trees to our north. But travel only half a kilometre up the road and the soil changes: not to that fabulous red mountain soil of Monbulk and Emerald, but a more nutrient-rich, well draining loam than ours none-the-less. With it the trees change, particularly to the beautiful, mountain grey gum, tall with clean, soft grey trunks and – except in large clearings – winter shade. Here the orchids arise too.

It’s hard not to be impressed by these showy flowers which bloom just when the summer heat is getting so uncomfortable. But there’s something else important here too. When clearing under gums for bushfire fuel reduction and in our incessant quest for tidiness – and this is not the place for it, surely – we need to look out for these flower buds, and let them bloom and set seed. Then multiply this by 10 and we are then not mowing down all the other tiny, hard-to-see seed heads of orchids, lilies and other wildflowers (like Blue Stars (Chamaesilla corymbosa), below). If we want to live amongst nature we should not kill it off in the process.

Jill Weatherhead  is horticulturist, garden designer and principal at Jill Weatherhead  Garden Design who lives in the Dandenong Ranges east of Melbourne, (www.jillweatherhead.com.au)

Silver-leaf plants, absinthe and rare plant nurseries

Designing a Mediterranean garden (in the line of work) has been fun, creating a semicircle of sage, a near-circle of rosemary and silver-grey lines of olives, globe artichokes and silver wormwood. Continuing the plants-that-are-used-edibly theme, and consulting my mother’s battered, beloved tomes, brought me to a wormwood called Artemisia absinthium, used for making absinthe, available from one mail order nursery in the whole country (www.herbcottage.com.au) - or so I thought. Paths edged with dwarf French lavender bring the scale back and bring it all together. All these plants will do well here; silver reflecting excess sunshine back from the leaves, just like in their home by the Mediterranean. Green veg and edible flowers will in-fill and give colour. English lavender will be used in many other parts of this large country garden too; the unifying theme.

This week a lecture took me to Mount Macedon (French gardens I’d seen; some were Mediterranean) and while in the west I gleefully visited Dicksonia Rare Plants (Mount Macedon), Frogmore Gardens (Blackwood Rd, Newbury) and Lambley Nursery (Lester’s Rd, Ascot). I picked up various silver Artemisias for my silver and raspberry border – which I’ll plant after autumn rains have come - and a cerise Monarda called `Donnerwolke’ (above) which contrasts with them superbly. Similar in colour, but slightly less saturated, is Agastache `Sangria’ which I bought for the pink and purple beds.

I never thought I could buy a cerise-flowered plant and maybe this Monarda is really pink-cerise but it’s interesting what colour is needed for contrasting with the silver: too pale and it’s all too wishy washy.

(Veronica `Red Fox’, on the other hand, was way too pink; with that name I’d expected a perfect raspberry foil for my silver.)

Returning home and repotting my new plants I looked at the labels more carefully to find, to my surprise, that the Artemisia `Lambrook Silver’ I’d bought (from Lambley Nursery), silver, lacy and fine, is a form of that rare Artemisia absinthium, that plant I’d learnt of just the week before.

A friend has asked me about rare plant nurseries, and the latter 2 sell wonderful perennials, while Dicksonia Rare Plants, on the main road, sells every rare plant imaginable from bulb to tree to creeper by the knowledgeable Stephen Ryan. Opposite is a nursery with some woodland treasures including some good Epimediums.

Closer to home (for me) are Gentiana Nursery (bulbs, perennials, rock garden rarities) on Monbulk-Olinda Rd, Olinda, and closer to Olinda, Cloudehill – which may still have some interesting plants, depending upon what Diggers (the new owners) have decided to do there; the garden will still be beautiful. For rare and interesting trees and shrubs I go to Yamina Rare Plants in Monbulk.

Rare cool climate bulbs are available at the mo’ from Hill View Rare Plants (mail-order; the range of Crocus alone is breath taking) while Cloverhill Plants and Lynn’s Rare Plants sell delicious woodland bulbs and perennials mail-order through much of the year.

Frogmore Gardens and Lambley Nursery send plants by mail too but its fun to look and browse in person, see the garden (if open), seek advice. And buy plants of course. Then return home to a hot dry garden which feels like a desert, with penstemons burnt to a crisp, water-repelling soil, perennial hibiscus opening with a reluctant sigh. `Must the show go on?’ it says. Lambley’s have many Salvias which seem (relatively) drought-proof. Maybe I’ll go back and get some of those.

Jill Weatherhead  is horticulturist, garden designer and principal at Jill Weatherhead  Garden Design. (www.jillweatherhead.com.au)

Summer’s searing heat and sunflowers

Summer’s searing heat has wilted those spring-like blooms and long lush growth spoilt by spring rains. Summer swooped in quickly here and suddenly the lawn browns, the roses disappear, the garden looks tired. Rather like us.

But miraculously, it seems, where there’s a little shade, the hydrangeas lift their heads of mainly white little florets and Crinum (below) open their satin tulip-like bells adding a light fragrance to the garden. (South African Crinum x powellii is a handsome plant with presence when flowering, at nearly 2m tall, but I can never see it without looking at its dirty petticoats and remembering my favourite horticultural lecturer’s words about the foliage of this plant as being like `a badly made compost heap’! - Professor James Hitchmough.)

Today I discovered the first of the sunflowers, a charmer called `Ice Spray’ (top), suitably pale, but not washed out. I’d planted a row in front of the veg patch and I am hoping, very much, that they are not a traditional, one-flower-per-stem variety but a generous plant that has branches of flowers that may go on until the cool winds arrive. What I particularly like is the pale centre; I don’t warm to a black centre which is particularly inharmonious when teamed with white petals.

Some are planted amongst Jerusalem artichokes, from a friend, which look like they are planning to flower soon, too; the combination will be interesting...

From the veg patch I've been happily collecting seed: kale red Russian and black Tuscan; ruby chard; mustard greens; and from the flower garden white umbellifers – lacy heads if they weren't so large - giant hogweed (see post 15/12/13) and Orlaya. I've even found some old pods of broad beans; it’s intensely satisfying (if a little untidy in the kitchen as they dry). This sunflower is so pretty that I’ll try to collect seed from it too.

Nectarines have ripened on our dwarf tree near the kitchen and I suspect we donate a high percentage to visiting birds (below). (Our first peaches, too: delicious.) I've brought a few in, a little firm (nectarines, not parrots), and eaten them when ripe but it’s not a perfect system yet. Off to the iron worker for some good hoops I think, and (very important) some good netting that won’t entangle the native birds.

The soil is already quite hydrophobic but still the newly wallaby-proofed fence continues its magic and (some) plants are still growing: I have flowers instead of dry sticks; it’s very exciting after 20 years, you see.

Jill Weatherhead  is horticulturist, garden designer and principal at Jill Weatherhead  Garden Design. (www.jillweatherhead.com.au)