More Roses

As the sun shines a few more roses unfurl: deep pink `Lady of Megginch’ (which David Austin says has a `fruity old rose fragrance with a definite hint of raspberry’), softer pink `The Mayflower’ (which has a strong, old rose fragrance), and, in a friend’s garden, this glorious golden David Austin rose, all packed with petals and perfume out of this world.

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)

First Rose

My first rose in a few ways.

My first flower of `Souvenir de la Malmaison’, planted where I can reach in and easily take a whiff of the delicious tea rose fragrance. (More of this famous rose later.)

The first year my roses are growing well – a wallaby has breached the garden fence only once in the past 7 weeks (and counting). She ate about 5 roses down, and 2 are not recovering from nearly 10 years of this treatment (and who can blame them?) but others are taller than ever before with buds the icing on the cake. Two flowers are blooming! Many other garden plants are finally growing. It’s all very exciting.

So the first of my first real rose season, I think.

(I didn’t grow roses until I was into my 40’s and found the English roses – with their scents of `honey and musk’, or `English Rose myrrh fragrance' or `old rose fragrance with hints of honey and almond blossom' and realised roses were special.)

Until this year I’d only David Austin roses, those shrubby long-blooming old-fashioned looking roses with fragrances out of this world. For some reason I bought Rosa `Souvenir de la Malmaison’ this winter, the famous bourbon rose, very full and quartered, palest of flesh pink, and fading as the flower ages. (I blame Diggers at Cloudehill; the rose simply leapt into my basket. True story.) Named for the rose garden of Napoleon’s Empress Josephine who collected every rose known to Europe at that time – he had instructed his army to look out and collect new roses as they set about their nefarious business. Yesterday the first bloom appeared; beautiful, fragrant, like an oasis in a desert.

In my sun and sky bed, the yellow roses are also growing happily at last bar one, on the edge, obviously eaten just too often over the years. I really am hoping that they’ll grow above the deep blue Salvia `Anthony Parker’ this year – a mix of uneaten roses and, perhaps, trimmed salvias. The salvias looked great through June and July so they are staying for now, even though they are a bit big for this site (and constant trimming sounds like work that, frankly, just won’t happen). If the salvias are too big, at least the newly planted 2 Rosa `Graham Thomas’ will definitely rise above and behind the row of salvias (as one would expect with a name like that).

At last I am learning about roses, too. Pedigree, cultivation, and, what’s more, taking catalogue information – even pictures - with a grain of salt. It’s more expensive than buying rose bushes bare-rooted in winter, but getting them in a pot can mean getting a plant with a flower the exact shade of colour you want (yes, I am fussy) and there’s a great place along the road between Monbulk and Silvan to do this, and maybe The Perfumed Garden in Mt Martha and one or two other good places, too.

A good range is needed to find that perfect plant with the right height and the perfect colouring (and long flowering)...and then the garden will sing.

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)

Snowy blossom

 Snowy blossom (delicious, obviously) drifts down onto the birdbath and stone seat from the weeping white wisteria tree (Robinia). 

The spring bulbs are over and the perennials have not begun just here, so to bridge the gap I am going to plant the lovely little waxflower (Philotheca myoporoides ssp acuta, below); sweet white stars open from pink buds, it’s a hardy native shrub I’m fond of. Perfumed mock orange (Philadelphus) is making a good mound, behind. Later on, Belladonna lilies flower (in autumn): big pink and white blooms with a strong fragrance, they justify those too-large leaves nearer the front (just), before the winter roses (Helleborus) begin again.

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)

My Flowery Fibonnaci Lawn Spiral

 What is it about flowers popping up in lawn that’s so pleasing?

The flowery meadow was beloved in mediaeval times but of late, it’s a brave daisy that dares arise in a lawn.

And then Christopher Lloyd popularised the meadow trend in Britain and promoted fritillaries and other bulbs in the sward. Crocus (below) and snowdrops may be the bulbs of choice for our cold climate friends, but I have chosen the warm climate equivalents – and cheapest – with cobalt grape hyacinth (Muscari – almost too tall) and milky blue spring star flower (Ipheion, pictured above). When I have enough snowdrops to extend the season, I’ll add them; and I’m thinking of also planting dog rose (Rhodohypoxis, last picture) for later flowers. Even white rain lilies (Zephyranthes) for autumn, perhaps, white winter hoop petticoat daffodils (Narcissus foliosus) and – when I have enough – those pretty lilac crocus.

A downpour of rain in winter combined with drainage problems led to our little circular lawn becoming – almost - a pond and I thought my newly planted bulbs would rot. Learning that in spring many Turkish bulbs grow in extremely wet soil, from snow melt, before the summer-dry, reassured me just before my little bulbs began to show.

But I didn’t plant them informally, oh no.

I planted my dwarf bulbs in a Fibonacci spiral.

In mathematics, the Fibonacci sequence is the numbers: 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, 34, 55, 89, 144...defined by the recurrence relation x_n = x_n-1 + x_n-2 and named for Leonardo Bonacci (known as Fibonacci , c. 1170 – c. 1250); the sequence had been described earlier in Indian mathematics.  (Fibonacci is also known for introducing the Hindu–Arabic numeral system in Europe.) I read that ` applications include computer algorithms such as the Fibonacci search technique and the Fibonacci heap data structure, and graphs called Fibonacci cubes used for interconnecting parallel and distributed systems.’ But I was more interested to read that the Fibonacci sequence: ` also appear in biological settings, such as branching in trees, phyllotaxis (the arrangement of leaves on a stem), the fruit sprouts of a pineapple, the flowering of an artichoke, an uncurling fern and the arrangement of a pine cone.’ Most of us have heard of it thanks to novelist Dan Brown.

Shaped like an unfurling leaf, my spiral represents life itself; at the same time, maths and reason. Perhaps it’s worked out well that only two types of bulbs are here, and that they do not last long; it’s an ephemeral display, it’s delicate, it’s not as heavy looking as this dissertation sounds.

It’s meant to be light hearted, pretty, and celebrate life.

And I love it.

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)

Time to plant tomatoes

Just in time to plant tomatoes I discovered a terrific stall at Kallista market. Mulling over the varieties took time, but these took my fancy: `College Challenger’: `2 weeks earlier than Grosse Lisse’; derives from Hawkesbury, I’m told while `Burnley Bounty’ comes from my horticultural Alma Mater and produces juicy, round, medium size fruit which, if left on the vine, `develop a glorious taste’. `Cherokee Purple’ – dusty rose, extremely sweet, large flat fruit; `Wapsipinicon’ – a peach tomato (whatever that is), `slightly spicy, very fruity, sweet flavours, light and creamy’; and `Principe Borghese’, a heavy yielding cherry tomato, `excellent for sundried tomatoes’ also took my fancy. The mouth waters, doesn’t it?

Herbs near the kitchen are doing well and thyme is brilliant as a pretty edger where it’s dreadfully dry and the soil powdery. This stall had some different herbs and one of the owners, Marg, introduced me to her thymes: Pizza, Rainbow Falls, Bergamot and – slightly lemon scented - Mt Tomah thymes; these will edge my paving nicely.

Tradition says Melbournites can plant tomatoes between Grand Final day and Melbourne Cup Day and if warm weather occurs we may have tomatoes for Christmas. With good watering I am hopeful!

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)

Picking Spanish Bluebells

Spanish Bluebells (Hyacinthoides hispanica) has a bad reputation for multiplying too fast and becoming weedy, so J is not enamoured of them. (I don’t think they increase much here.) But they were perfect yesterday.

A sunny spring day brought a niece and her young twin boys and daughter.  After feeding my bantam hens with bread they collected 3 eggs each out of nest boxes. My favourite hen Freddie didn’t stay still long enough for patting but I think they enjoyed it.

And then I suggested picking bluebells `for Mum’. Only my sweet niece wanted to do this! And her mum was very clever, surmising that she would prefer the flowers in her own room.

Chasing her zombie brothers around led her and me to fall over in the mud, but such fun.

As they left my adorable niece was clutching her bunch of bluebells as if she’d been given its weight in lapis lazuli.

Weed or no, those bulbs are staying!

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)

Liberté, ÉgalIté, Fratenité

Liberté, Égalaté, Fratenité. How the mind does leap to rationalise.

Amidst blue and white windflowers and blue Aguga my white tulips are red and I could say that my garden is ruined, yes, ruined, but I’ve had a little chuckle and decided that the bulb farm which mucked up big time has created an interesting tableau.

(And yes, they are amidst the pumpkins painted red in the bleak winter months – still there - that I love and am finding hard to toss.)

It’s not the garish blue-red-white you sometimes see in English gardens - in their council bedding schemes and `best’ hanging baskets of the year, flower-packed, overwhelming. No, it’s some blue-red-with-a-little-white and lots of green to soften the impact (though it’s still a bit strong, and a damn good thing it won’t last long).

 Some of the windflowers (Anemone coronaria), too, have not lived up to their description of purely single (this white, above, is a wonderful simple single flower – lovely), and have extra wimpy petals which I don’t find attractive...but it’s hard to actually pull them out when this bed needs – or will need - the colour.

Take away the blue and the white and the garden could be really exciting, like this field of Flanders poppies (above), bright, ushering in spring with a giant welcome mat. But this area is near my sun and sky bed so...the red tulips will be enjoyed, and then dug up, and the long-blooming windflowers allowed to do their thing, bridging winter bulbs and summer perennials.

The blue-red-white colour schemes are, I believe, patriotic in Britain. For me, here, it’s a very different story; it’s a statement (albeit completely accidental!) of rebellion, of the French cockade, of wanting a republic for Australia, of my strong conviction that we are all equal. (Incidentally it’s been 2 centuries since publication of Jane Austen’s Mansfield Park with her protagonist constantly, painfully browbeaten in the name of social order; a horrid placing of cousin above cousin. As one who believes I may call my Governor-General (and Prime Minister too – should I so wish) `mate’ – I can’t handle this hateful inequality.)

I like a garden that tells a story but, with these bright clashing colours, all cymbals and strobes, however passionate I am about egalitarianism, I’m glad this one won’t tell it for long.

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)