Hoop Petticoats and Australian Politics

Narcissus Glenbrook Ta Julia 1/90 (above)

Hoop Petticoats are the name of a sweet bunch of dwarf daffodils from the Mediterranean; the little flowers sit at barely 20cm high with the corona (the cup in other daffs) funnel-shaped like a whalebone hoop petticoat of a Victorian lady amongst the grassy leaves. Gold hoops flower in early spring (Narcissus bulbocodium) but close relatives, paler and rather flatter, bloom in winter: milky-white N. cantabricus and lemon N. romieuxii, the latter from the Atlas Mountains.

Narcissus Glenbrook Ta Julia 6/91 (above)

 This past fortnight I have found some pots of delicious hoops near the shade-house, first ivory-white hoops, then citron, all labelled `Ta Julia’ from Rod Barwick’s great crosses from (I believe) the 1990’s.

Rod lives reclusively (he says) at his Tasmanian Glenbrook Bulb Farm and created the Glenbrook Ta Julia Group of Narcissus, a grex (`flock’: Latin) from `Tarlatan’ and `Julia Jane’. Racehorse-like, the name borrows from the parents’.

Narcissus romieuxii JCA 805 'Julia Jane' is, I read, a `superb selection that was originally collected by Jim Archibald in the early 1970's. Large pale lemon flowers with an open flaring corona, 15cm tall’ while Narcissus `Tarlatan’ is probably a bulbocodium hybrid which is `tall, pale lemon-coloured’ and blooms early – mid winter. Tarlatan is a cotton fabric mentioned in Alcott novels.

With this grex we are looking at, basically, brothers and sisters, and this is most evident comparing primrose Narcissus Ta Julia 1/90 and near-white Narcissus Ta Julia 6/91. But look closely at Rolled-edge Narcissus Ta Julia 1/90 (above, tragically this pot belongs to a friend, can I beg a bulb?) and the fraternal shape is different even while the colour is so similar to the other Ta Julia 1/90, below, unfurling.

So I pick up a pot and place it near the door to enjoy and then our Prime Minister is deposed and I look afresh at my label and I think, well, Ta Julia, and I mean it.

I mean that Thank you to Julia Gillard most sincerely.

Reducing Aboriginal child mortality, introducing the Disability Scheme, NBN, parental leave, carbon tax, Murray-Darling Basin Plan, reforming education; all under unbelievable levels of attack and abuse.

Gillard goes and I’m holding a little pot (with a womanly flower standing tall in the deepest cold) that says Ta Julia. Amazing.     

                                               

 Narcissus Glenbrook Ta Julia 16/90 (above)

Politics, Irony and a Rooster

Half a dozen croaky crows disturbed the Sunday morning quiet following the cold Belgrave Lantern Festival, a wonderful night-time solstice celebration. `Nadia’ followed up with more rooster-like behaviour:  calling the hens with that distinctive `food is here’ call, which worked, albeit rather desultorily.

The Who’s song chimes `I’m a boy, I’m a boy, but my Mum won’t admit it...’ and hums as we digest the inconvenient news and look with fresh eyes at our chesty, glossy bird with the handsome curved tail (but small comb).

(It reminds me of a friend who thought, for several months, that his son had a cold until his newly broken voice was pointed out; you can be too close to see the overall picture.)

`Chickie’ is still `his’ best name – usefully unisex as we adjust – but doesn’t reflect his civilised nature: crowing at 7.30 is not too early; it’s fine! Last night, to my sorrow, I watched as our first female Prime Minister was deposed for the Labor cause.

As I see it, the glass ceiling just got double glazing.

Clever Chickie sniffed the political winds and decided to crow again this morning – although at 8, still not at dawn, tempering the rashness. It feels, momentarily, ironic until I reflect that Chickie is lowest in the pecking order still, crowing and male chromosomes notwithstanding. That is what is – faintly - ironic.

Winter Solstice

Icy-white rimes leaves and grasses as the mercury drops below zero on the dawn of the winter solstice. But it’s a sunny, glorious day at odds with the weak moonlight-lemon of leaves – a fifth of the canopy – still hanging on somehow to neighbouring golden elms.

Slightly cooler still are the many interesting hoop petticoats (Narcissus bulbocodium varieties, this one intriguingly labelled `AGS [Alpine Garden Society] 1077 Galligaskins’; how could this flower from seed after 2 years? Is it a ring-in?)

The Alpine Garden Society is a great source of interesting seed and from my fellow members of the Victoria branch, great plants. Tomorrow I am giving them a small lecture titled French Gardens. Wish me well, s’il vous plait.

Meanwhile fast-growing Salvia `Icicle Pink’ has opened its rather icy-pink flower buds – so far, so good – into winter flowers (again, good) of soft candy pink, rather harsh and de trop (merde).

But back to the cold nights.

Minus Point Nine in the henhouse!

Of our 6 little hens, one Light Sussex (Debbie) has moulted and now looks almost sleek; her blondie sister (Harry) is now moulting appallingly and looks like a scarecrow: more scary than crow. Truly punk I guess. J may not approve but on these freezy nights I check on them stealthily, torch in hand, and sometimes rearrange matters. The pecking order is relatively immutable but the sleeping positions have every permutation and combination possible, disputed nightly. Tonight I’ve just plonked our poor scrappy girl next to her sister-white with lowly Freddy - living eiderdown - on her other side. Bunch up, girls! Dark mutterings (and that’s just in the henhouse) but take away the torch and they won’t dance about. Nearby, lower, is newest `Chicky’ (Nadia as a moniker wasn’t going to last, was it?) but while, at last, she is biggest, she sensibly recognizes the natural order of seniority in the house. For now.

Formal Lines

 This is not my garden! But I do yearn for some structure in the garden – just a little.

The informality that swept into Australian gardens at the same time that sexual freedom swept through much of society has been embraced with such fervour that many – like nature – abhor a straight line.

Our front path is 7m long and Euclid-straight  – to J’s dismay. (So many people, including those who love bushland, bar themselves from liking any formal lines in the garden at all – except sometimes in the edible patch. Similarly puzzling, some lovers of native plants do not admit exotics into their garden - unless they’re edible. (The plants, not the gardeners.) I can’t understand this – to me – double standard. Flowers (and berries, leaves…) are just as important as vegetables…or more so, depending on your focus.)

Along the front path are a double row of dwarf lillypillies, easy, `self-shaping’ balls for giving, long term, green structure to the beds of (otherwise) mainly perennials. And an edging of groundcovers too of course, bugle (Ajuga `Jungle Beauty’ the best) and cranesbills, when the wallabies let them expand.

My only other formal area is my circular lawn, 6m in diameter, which sets off the garden beds so beautifully. It’s never watered but soaks up the hot sunshine in summer, cooling the garden literally and spiritually (for want of a better word); besides, we can sit out here in spring sunshine and autumn; and play boulles here with friends. It’s winter now and those pretty garden beds are almost empty of green; just clove-brown iris stalks, biscuit rose bushes, chestnut mulch. Originally this was meant to be the winter garden! Epacris, hellebores, winter Crocus: all have been tried. Either El Nino dry or La Nina wet years have defeated them all. (Struggling winter roses with barely a flower yet are decidedly unimpressive.) So…a solution is the classic hedge, a dwarf one, to make it all seem deliberate and to hide the ugliness a bit; this is unquestionably `out’ where J is concerned; a pity, I would have had my roundel. But I think I’ve found a great compromise: a circle instead, of Corsican Winter Rose (Helleborus argutifolius) to give neat greenness all year with those handsome serrated leaves, grey-green, veined cucumber-green; above, those apple-green flowers almost winter-long, starting before all the others. Closely planted to create a lush continuous circle in slightly raised soil to aid drainage (our soil is wet, wet, wet every winter) adding a little bugle (Ajuga), perhaps, at the very edge of the lawn.

      

This is not enough, however, the beds require more! I love winter-blooming purple wallflowers (Erysimum), charmingly scented, so a few shall be added, and perhaps some early Viburnum too. (These plants are not chosen at random of course; they are not delicious to Ms Wallaby and scampering 45cm-high joey which nightly nibbles the best species cyclamen under the veranda.)

Winter flowers are precious but good structure in the garden – green, for me – is vital (not grey or brown which just depress; silver foliage should be used with care).  If my circle of green winter roses works (well fertilized to give height and lots of leaves) I will have structure of sorts, and it will never need trimming, an ideal situation for this lazy gardener.  

Season of Slow Senescence

Autumn has been hot and cold, dry and now wet. Confusion reigns in the garden as spring flowers throw bouquets of white May (Spiraea, above) amongst the bedraggled flaming leaves, Mock Orange (Philadelphus) sport perfumed blooms near dogwoods with sanguine foliage (turning ruby when the sun peeps out) and even a tall evening primrose shows some of its delicious lemon colour.

Most of the tiny bulbous treasures of autumn are over now but Cyclamen cyprium continues to toss up its sweet little near-white blooms with swept-up petals over white-splashed leaves; and creamy white hoop petticoat daffodils herald the winter months.

Salvias continue the display of soft purple, deep blue or velvet-palest pink (`Velour Pink’) with `Anthony Parker’, darkly blue, coming into its own.

Autumn regulars arrived last month: lilac Spur-flower (Plectranthus, a great plant for shade); dainty apple-blossom, candy-pink and ice-white Nerines were joined by sparkling engine-red (`Fothergilla Major’) and sweet daisy-faces of grape-purple Easter-daisies and snowy cosmos. Kaffir lily (Schizostylis), fierce red or pale pink, never rests, but I find the white form much less hardy.

But it’s mostly just a flower here or there. Most satisfying is, still, my sun and sky bed where, at the moment,  blue salvias – deep blue and azure – mix with golden Gaillardia `Mesa’, lemon Phygelius and Goldmound Bidens; all are backed by the glossy leaves and perfumed white flowers of Mexican Orange Blosssom.

It seems almost too early to have winter flowers of palest pink Thryptomene let alone spring treasures: sweetly pink Erodium, some deep blue bugle (Ajuga, its flowers mostly nestling amongst the leaves), even a few little Forget-Me-Not-like Brunnera blooms in the shadiest spot. Oddest of all, now that it’s so cold at night, is the one Cyclamen purpurescens tuber (below) with 4 flowers of soft lilac-pink, mouths deeper, almost fuchsia-pink, as if lipstick has been applied. Melbourne’s heat makes it flowers well in summer but these are a definite bonus, on the last day of autumn. I suspect it’s a response to the run of warm weather a month ago and I’m certainly not complaining! The garden throws up interesting conundrums constantly and when it’s extra flowers, I believe we should just sit back and enjoy them.

Cyclamen

 Why is it that some flowers appeal, and others do not? The Empress Joséphine is still famous for collecting every then-known rose at the Château de Mamaison, near Paris; local celebrity Otto Fauser grows wondrous little crocus from seed and my friend Peter Leigh has taken winter roses (Helleborus) from England, Japan and other horticultural hot spots and transformed the dullards into duchesses better than any in the world. (His latest catalogue includes the elusive double black (a black prince?): neat, handsome...stand aside!)

Many plants are lovely but my mother – a botanist and, of course, gardener - and my sister Caroline (keen gardener too) probably loved Cyclamen the most. I wonder if my parents property was chosen alone for its potential to have that sweep of little ivy-leaf autumn-flowering cyclamen (C. hederifolium, now popping up in the lawn where ants have spread the seeds); at each leaf fall a delicious sight: lilac-pink petals swept up on 10cm stalks hovering over wonderfully-marbled leaves amongst the dry leaves of the deciduous trees along the drive. (This is no idle surmise; when we looked for land  - for 2 years - at each place I established the probable site for my circle of lawn. My mother was older and had stronger ideas.)

Neither will see the new cyclamen book, alas. Brian Mathew’s (editor) monograph is comprehensive (and big, bold and beautiful); I contributed with a small section about cyclamen grown in Australia. I visited the stunning State Library in Melbourne many times and spoke to some of the most interesting people in the country. The book germinated, I believe, about 7 years ago, and – very bulb-like – flowered after 7 years growth (altho’ the cyclamen is a tuber, like a potato, but let’s not get too pedantic). I saw and photographed catalogues and papers dating back to 1845 and fell in love with these exquisite drawings which seriously rival their subjects.

It’s nearly Mother’s Day and as large cyclamen – giant forms bred of C. persicum - flood into the nurseries I enjoy contemplating their forbears like this one (from a Law and Somner catalogue, circa 1893, top), surely much, much smaller, called Cyclamen persicum giganteum then; now they’d be barely a head turner...depending on that very personal attribute, whether you are a lover of blooms great or small.

Now I like petite flowers.

I like little camellia blooms, and shudder over the largest; same with gladioli, clematis, and so many other plants over-bred – as I see it - in the `50’s. I don’t like cottage gardens much, but at least they brought back near-species gladioli – so sweet – and some smaller dahlias that don’t need staking (what a pointless exercise that was). (Also prickly species roses which don’t flower for long...but rosarians are crazy, we all know that.)

And lately some of the bulb growers seem to be selling species cyclamen which are so hardy here in south-east Oz. Maybe it’s just that I’m a tired working woman – but I love a plant that is:

1.       Pretty

2.       Hardy

3.       Can be tossed anyhow in the ground

4.       Requires no cosseting

5.       Self sows gently

6.       Never needs care

7.       Grow in dry shade under trees

8.       And there are just more flowers – pretty little ones – every year.

Simple!

Cyclamen hederifolium in particular is hardy, and the easiest cyclamen in south-east Australia. Its flowers are slowing as we head towards winter - the mercury plummeting to 2 degrees last night – but in its place I expect, very soon, the chubby C. coum (above, a nice form with silvery `Christmas tree' markings, I am showing to honour my sister born on this special day) to start its seemingly miraculous winter blooms.

In memory of my sister Caroline Clavarino (neé Weatherhead)

25^th December 1950 – 4^th May 2013

Old birds, new chicks and gum trees

As we dodge Avian flu and regular flu and returning blackbirds (which is worst?) we welcome some avian additions to the household, or outliers, and garden.

First is little Nadia. Sick of booting mercurial Freddy off the nest (broody for 9 months!) we popped some fertilised eggs under her. One evening I stole her own egg (not happy), replaced it with two which had a spark of life (a shiver of joy), added another 2 (OK...), another, last egg, for she is a very small Wyandotte (not impressed) and that was her allotment; thank you to our friend Eddie. She concentrated hard and 19 and a half days later, while rat-proofing her enclosure, I found one had started to hatch. Making a very poor midwife, I hastily popped it – eye-glaring and wing-thrusting (the hatchling, not me) - into the nest, picked up Freddy and tossed her in after it. Phew.

Nadia’s father, it turned out, was `inexperienced’ and the other 4 eggs were infertile; apparently now he has favourites. (There’s no good TV is there?)

But from day 2 Nadia – another bantam - would hop up onto Mum like a gymnast and she even found a high bar a few days later. As a child of the `70’s I promptly named her for the perfectly scoring Romanian Comăneci of the 1976 Montreal Olympics. For 6 weeks Freddy taught her all the important life skills: this is how to scratch for food, this is how to scratch for food, this is how...but now they are growing a little more sisterly, a tad more independent...until nightfall. Over 7 weeks and Nadia still snuggled under her eiderdown quilt at night, inquisitive head poking out from Mum’s breast. Then at dawn she leaps up onto the top of the feeder; this is not a problem. (We anxiously watch her tail which looks reassuringly feminine.) And now at 8 weeks: it’s almost avuncular as Freddy can barely drape a wing over the growing one on these cold nights, down to 4°C.

Lucy (top) is our other avian newcomer. Where Nadia is russet and charcoal, fluffy and whirling, Lucy is silvery, metal-hard and...also whirling. More bird (to me) than seahorse or sea dragon - like other creations of the wonderful artist Daniel Jenkins - she has delicate ribbons in place of mane, wings, and tail; fantastical. Turning with the winds, she is patinated repoussé copper somehow perfectly reflecting, almost replicating, rippling grey leaves of our nicest nearby gums, with russet also for the bark.

We’re lucky, here. My English cousin Joe laughed when he visited last year and heard that our patch of bush with its orchids and lizards, wild flowers and little birds, was saved from destruction by its poor soil. Monbulk and other areas in the Dandenong Ranges have mountain soil (and farms), Sherbrooke has superb soaring Mountain Ash (and shade; Eucalyptus regnans (named in 1871) was arguably overestimated by Baron von Mueller (and one or two others) by 100 feet but still reaches an impressive 100m), but we have dumpy Messmate Gums which don’t shade the house in winter. Better yet, we also have Silver-leaf Stringybark (E. cinerea subsp cephalocarpa) which add a further trick to that magical trick of all gums - those round silver-white juvenile leaves so beloved of florists – with brilliant blue-tinged platinum sickle-shaped leaves in spring turning slowly to grey as the season’s progress like some annual witches progress from shimmering damsel to hoary crone. Right now – mid-autumn – there are still some leaves with a dusting of snowy white, most notable on a sunny day.

(It’s part fellow feeling for the heat they endure, but I like these down-pointing leaves, avoiding excess sun, which allow sunshine through to the shrub layer and the understorey with its small violets and fringed lilies, chocolate lilies and milkmaids, and all the creatures they support. You probably need to be born here or transplanted early to get this almost-irrational strong affection for the gum, love its beauty and grandeur, and shed a tear when you are abroad for too long and get a whiff of the scent of its leaf. It’s easy to admire the stately outback ghost gums, the majestic white-trunked manna gums in the nearby forest, the handsome spotted gums near the south east coast (E. maculata, a really great plant), the gleam of copper, olive, cream and metal-grey of snow gums in the high country if you ski amongst them when the trunks shine wetly, and even the scarlet-flowering gums with their extraordinary flower-power in the hottest days of summer; but the native born also, generally, embraces the awkward scarecrows too, the straggly and crooked growth, the fascinating epicormic growth along branches of most species after fire, the ribbons that fall from the trunk of some, the dull leaves of hard olive-green (surely there is a better word for this colour?), its ability to be home to mistletoe, birds, insects, possums and the insect larvae that give the scribbly gum its name. Complete individuality.) 

Whenever we put the kettle the on to boil we gaze out to the north into the garden, out into the sunshine where we have 3 of these big craggy bent-over fellows, sometimes ashen, but mainly gleaming silvery-white, and they distract the eye from the old grey corrugated sheds that we inherited with the property. These trees have been home to possums and owls, but most of all tawny frogmouths which sit all day in pairs, stone-still, with their heads up, eyes closed and mimic stringybark branches perfectly.

Lucy fits like a glove.

Lucy came as a gift from J as I scored my half century, and was a clever idea where I’d proposed a heavier sculpture. Instead she is light and just the right proportion for our country garden. Daniel made a sculpture – only superficially similar - that my parents have loved in their garden (above, with wattles and daffodils) for over 20 years. As they called theirs `Leunix’ (a pet name combining a phoenix and revered cartoonist  of all things innocent and curly, Michael Leunig), so did we until she was ours and then...she was shortened, of course. Lucy is arguably more aquatic and is delightfully curly but I just want her to be a bird.

And just to emphasise the importance of creatures avian, here is a picture of me at 16 with one of my `girls’ circa 1980, with my mother and my oldest niece; I think it’s my favourite picture of Mum. Chicks and chooks, if you will.