An added dash of purest blue to my sun-and-sky bed

 My sun-and-sky bed – all blues and yellow – is waking up, slowly in spring, for it’s in partial shade, and mainly perennials and the little bulbs that I love, like Scilla, amongst, at the moment, one or two lungwort (Pulmonaria) and primroses.

An added dash of colour – of purest blue – comes from a new groundcover, Lechenaultia biloba `Midnight Blue’ (above), which I bought at Kuranga Native Nursery this week. It’s that dark true blue of delphiniums, that make people rub their eyes in disbelief; or of rare Chilean Blue Crocus (Tecophilea cyanocrocus, possibly extinct in the wild) that makes gardeners fork out their savings for a little bulb.

Two more Lechenaultia were there: cobalt `Sky High’(below) and `Light Blue’ (above) which is very pale indeed. Lechenaultia hails from southern Western Australia, from gravelly and sandy soils, and at Kuranga Native Nursery the plants are endearingly (and accurately) labelled `I am a fusspot’ (below). (Melbourne’s soils are just too wet in winter for these plants.)

Unfortunately gentian-blue `Midnight Blue’ was not thus labelled and...landed in my car boot. So...into the raised bed (and a probable death sentence next winter) in the sun-and-sky bed (where I want it) or into a handsome pot nearby and a possible death sentence from lack of water over summer?

Decisions...

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

A short stroll along our sleepy lane

Spring brings wildflowers and the blossom of self-sown plum trees along our short street in the Dandenong Ranges.

Wonga Vine (Pandorea, above) is flowering prolifically and as I chat to a neighbour I notice she’s picked some for a vase; I wonder how long they’ll last. Picking wildflowers – especially orchids – may be frowned upon in some circles (and illegal in national parks) but sometimes, I think, when there’s abundance, then to enjoy them will more likely ensure the survival of their habitat.

Well, that’s a theory. As I said, the Wonga Vine is prolific, coating some trees entirely with its seeming-cream blooms; but I’d hate to see rare flowers picked.

Native heath or common heath (Epacris impressa, above) continues the lovely bell flowers that I associate with winter, but can flower, really, from autumn to spring. Several have sprung up along our drive where the soil is rather barren and very well-drained (and still, from before our time, a little damaged from the hard hooves of horses); mainly white but some delicious pink ones too. How I wish this was easy to propagate!

Wattles continue their golden show: myrtle wattles (Acacia myrtifolia) nearly over, prickly moses (A. verticillata) covered in bright lemon rods, tall blackwoods (A. melanoxylon) with soft primrose balls.

Wood ducks (or maned geese) seem to live year-round at the end of our street; yesterday I had my first glimpse of ducklings. Handsome, sleek, with great personality, they are a joy to see. The birds fly to our dam (and they brought ducklings there too, in the past, and may now still, we just can’t see it) but I envy the neighbour who has a lawn decorated, it seems, by a throng of the wild birds at all seasons.

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

Celebrating Spring Sunshine in Orchid-rich Bushland

Hopefully a new tradition, our second outing with friends Ian and Diane to nearby orchid-rich bushland at Baluk Wilam Nature Reserve in Belgrave South at – where else? – Orchid Rd – yesterday yielded dizzying numbers of greenhood orchids (captured on camera of course, the modern equivalent of recording and capture for many of us, I think. Gone are butterfly nets, egg collecting and – for most of us, thankfully, duck and other kinds of shooting).

Greenhood orchids (Pterostylis) are the shy little cousins to the dazzling cymbidium orchids you can buy in nurseries and florists; short, small, grass-green and translucent; perhaps an acquired taste. But oh so pretty in their clumps - and one patch was a startling hundred strong.

Then we found the mosquito orchids: tiny, maroon-brown, exquisite and neat; perfect. Or were they the maroonhoods?

Other flowers seen were strongly fragrant, pure white blooms of Scented Sun Dew (`I won’t be able to smell this...oh!’), a few daffodil-yellow guinea flowers (Hibbertia), red Mistletoe, pink heath (Epacris), 3 or 4 different wattles, tall and short, and many plants of the purple-flowering Hovea, its violet peas standing out beautifully against the brown trunks of long leaf box.

Of the greenhoods we saw tall ones (or were they black-tongued?), nodding, cobra and mountain greenhoods.

To perfectly round out the day we then found some spider orchids. Bliss!

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