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)

Lilies in the Summer Garden

Another joy of the exclusion of munching marsupials from the garden is the flowering of the late lilies – true lilies, or Lilium. Just as various Narcissus give us blooms all through winter and beyond (`Paperwhites’ in June, gold `Soleil d’Or’ in July, perfumed creamy `Erlicheer’ in August and sunny daffodils and glistening white pheasant’s eyes in September), so the lilies give us flowers from late spring until mid-summer.

My sister was asking me about the different types and although there are now more groups, I like to think of these branches of the family that have been in the gardening world, spreading their joy (and often their perfume) these many years.

Asiatic lilies (below) start the show in November, varying from pink, yellow, orange, to white and red, with short-stemmed, often spotted blooms that stare at the sky and look wonderful in a vase. Hardy, easy; a good bulb to plant in Victoria.

Christmas lilies (Lilium longiflorum, below) are next with their cool white trumpets, delicately scented (to me; they may be stronger to others), pale green in the centre of the flower. The slim trumpet ends with tips that roll back elegantly.

Similar but heftier are claret-backed Lilium regale and other trumpet types which – to me – lack the ethereal colour and delicate demeanor, yes, even when there are 10 blooms on a stalk of a Christmas Lily;  Lilium regale will bow over royally in the garden and I detest the appearance (and work) of stakes.

January brings Lilium auratum varieties (below, bred from the Golden-rayed Lily of Japan) from white, gold-banded white, pale pink to deepest pink and outrageous cerise. Lightly perfumed, these can be tall in the garden, up to 2m, and have a real presence.

Another lily to brave summer’s heat is the Tiger Lily, Lilium tigrinum (below). If you are reading this, then the chances are good that you have seen this tangerine lily with reflexed petals, in an old garden; in an abandoned Australian garden it may be the last survivor (although silver Wormwood and pink autumn-blooming Belladonna Lilies may be keeping it company).

There are about 80 species and who knows - 1000s of varieties? But the main bulb companies show the colours well in their catalogues and sell new varieties each year; I might buy a couple that complement the garden where the bulb will have shade and the flower can reach into the sun and they should flourish.

And I have just broken the rules (it’s only slightly more expensive, though); I’ve bought a flowering pot of delicious moonlight lilies (top), a tiger lily cross I’m told. It will enhance my Sun and Sky bed wonderfully. That’s what it’s about.

Spring in mid-summer (and goodbye - at last - to Skippy?)

Spring’s enduring rains combined with the new garden fencing (goodbye Skippy – so far) have lent a spring quality to the garden. Each day a new type of flower blooms, often bringing with it appreciative honeyeaters – although that doesn’t explain the grooming of the prolific, and – surely not still reproducing? – superb blue wrens. But it feels cool, green and moist here in the foothills so maybe they are following instinct as I did when I sowed pea seeds in spring – foolishly, I afterwards thought – only to be rewarded now with slim sweet pods. Instinct not intellect was spot on.

Honeyeaters love the Salvias of course but a new treat for them here is the large patch of moonlight Phygelius, handily by a sculpture from which to launch their nectar quests. This is in my sun and sky bed, filling with salvias azure and cobalt; Coreopsis bright-primrose and guinea gold; Anthemis lemon (yolk-centred) and white (gold-centred `Sauce Hollandaise’); deep amber Trollius chinensis, blue Siberian Iris and palest yellow Achillea or Yarrow. Gold Bidens weaves up through midnight blue buds of Salvia `Anthony Parker’ with sunny Gaillardia `Mesa’ (above) and soft blue Lobelia triconocaulis (below) at its feet.

In the sun and sky bed I try to keep the blues true; no purple to muddy the picture. Johan von Goethe wrote in Theory of Colours (1810) `As yellow is always accompanied with light, so it may be said that blue still brings a principle of darkness with it. This colour has a peculiar and almost indescribable effect on the eye. As a hue it is powerful, but it is on the negative side, and in its highest purity is, as it were, a stimulating negation. Its appearance, then, is a kind of contradiction between excitement and repose.’

More on blue flowers soon.

The newly replaced garden fence, less porous to the hungry herbivores, those wandering wallabies, is just a week old. Already effective elsewhere (excitedly I watch delicious pink roses weave through raspberry salvias, white campion, valerian, burgundy-budded Campanula and purple wallflowers), the yellow roses here are less forgiving, or too brow beaten. Expecting flowers immediately is probably unrealistic if not outrageously optimistic but do I need to wait until next – true – spring for yellow roses? (I hasten to add that wallabies are very welcome throughout our bushland; it’s just in my small country garden that they are unwanted.)

These are David Austin roses (such as `Graham Thomas’, below) so I am feeling quite hopeful for some summer roses here now that the munching marsupials have moved on. Let me know what you think of my chances. 

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

Spring seemingly continues…

All this fabulous rain has extended spring, or so it seems: wildflowers continue their colorful display, frogs are loud at night, and some garden plants are re-flowering (Philadelphus) or continuing like Fairy’s Fishing Rods (Dierama, one of my favourite perennials, above). Heck, we’re still picking peas (nibbling them, few reach the kitchen). Soon summer’s heat will sear the green but just now I am loving the profusion of little blooms, flitting birds and even the fleeting spring verdure of my tiny round lawn.

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