Daisy Identification and working on colour combinations

I have left the native grasses (an Austrostipa species that I have tentatively identified as A. nitida and Microlaena stipoides) volunteering in one section of the garden and added other natives. Willow herb is volunteering as is a daisy like flower I was hoping might be one of the native Podolepis sp.but on closer inspection it is the introduced Smooth Hawksbeard (Crepis capillaris). There are always a few flatweed (Hypochoeris radicata) plants volunteering too. The hawksbeard is increasing in numbers and is easy to pull up so we will begin to remove it.

Crepis capillaris flowering with Pelargonium rodneyanum and Epilobium sp.

Crepis capillaris and Hypochoeris radicata

We do encourage some self seeding flowers that stray no further afield. The orange Californian poppy has been  very useful in this regard and the pink and purple Linaria purpurea introduced by an iris expert are also starting to reproduce. We have introduced a pale yellow Californian poppy and we have scattered seed from a red Californian poppy in the hope that we might introduce a few more colours to the mix. Our soil is still not good enough for a great success rate with scattered seed but once established I think they will manage their own reseeding. The red Californian poppy is part of a plan to add more reds to compliment some preexisting berberis. We have cut the berberis back into mounds and planted a red striped and highly scented floribunda rose called “Scentimental”, scattered seed of the red Californian poppy and seed of Cosmos bipinnatus “Velouette”. Only a few seeds have germinated but Tom took a photo of our first striped cosmos on Friday with the rose in the background. The photo of the rose has the berberis in the background and the original orange self seeding Californian poppy.

Cosmos bipinnatus “Velouette” photo by Tom Kennedy

Scentimental and berberis

Other red flowers in the gardens near by at the moment are a red bergamot I am keen to establish more thoroughly and the old red floribunda rose.

Bergamot and perennial sweet pea

Floribunda rose and oak leaf hydrangeas

The Christmas Linden

The flowering Linden

Yesterday I stayed back late at work to apply entomopathogenic nematodes (ENs) to one of our lawns. The Linden was absolutely buzzing with life and looked beautiful in the evening light with moths and butterflies erupting and resettling all over it. On close inspection I saw butterflies, moths. bees, flies, hoverflies and beetles all attending to the  flowers. The flowers have an elusive scent in this garden, beautiful but faint.

Painted Lady among Linden flowers

Merry Christmas and Best Wishes for the 2017

Summer and all it brings

Santolina virens

We have had a short hot spell, with 2 days at just over 30 degrees C so we have been perfecting our sprinkler rotations and planning to move the nursery into the shade. One of our wedding lawns is managing the hot weather well but one still needs more work. The hydrangeas are covered in flowers this year but do need a little watering when they start to look wilted. We do seem to have a couple of hydrangeas up the back approaching blue.

Hydrangeas

 

It is the season for lilies and our Japanese iris. I had actually dug out the day lily thinking it wasn’t flowering and was in the wrong place but luckily I didn’t quite get it all, it has flowered and is a lovely colour among the iris. The yellow pavia lilies are thriving at the entrance to the Gazebo.

Japanese Iris

Day Lily

Pavia Lily

 

 

November Garden

We have been hedge trimming and mowing in earnest this month and it was while I was in the middle of our double Camellia sasanqua hedge earlier in the month trimming back the top that I looked out through the cut leaf maple coming into leaf. The light was purple, maybe not quite caught by the photo. The roses are coming into bloom. We have planted some new ones this year and they do have lovely flowers but the established and reliable ones are giving the show, white icebergs and red floribundas.

Insect numbers are on the increase and a green butterfly was spending lots of time in the thyme, sufficient for me to get a couple of decent shots out of many taken. I have looked on the Coffs Harbour Butterfly House site and I think our green butterfly is a Macleay’s Swallowtail Graphium macleayanus.

Our current horticulture trainee Tom has an interest in woodwork so when an old stained glass window turned up in the builder’s skip we decided to have a go at upcycling it into wall art. With mirrors all the go in gardens at the moment we decided to back the glass with a mirror so that the colours of what turned out to be faux stained glass would show up. The section now painted with our turquoise paint had previously been rose glass paint and detracted from the olives and blues in the centre now highlighted by the mirror. The window was white so Tom sanded it back, did much filling with putty and oiled the oregon frame with linseed oil. We have hung it above a raised garden in our Gazebo function area.

Finally a shot taken this morning as we prepare for a wedding under the Linden tree. This Verbascum “Polar Summer” from Cloudehill Nursery is flowering nearby with Cercis canadensis, Stachys byzantina, Lavandula dentata and the Linden beyond.

 

Poppies for Remembrance Day

 

Gallipoli poppy, Papaver rhoeas

Since the Centenary of the Landing at Gallipoli in 2015 Gallipoli poppies or Flanders Red poppies have been readily for sale in garden centres. The red poppy has been used as a symbol of Remembrance of the 1914-18 War in many countries. It was a  beautiful coloniser in the disturbed soil of the battlefields in Belgium and France. The Gallipoli Poppy we grow has been developed by Oasis Horticulture.  There is another red flower that symbolises for me the Great War conflict in Palestine and that is the red anemone. When I first saw this photo at an exhibition at the War Memorial in Canberra I thought it was actually my own grandfather kneeling to pick the flowers. It turns out not to be but the image of the light horseman collecting anemones behind a camp in Palestine

An Australian light horseman collecting anemones near Belah in Palestine

is still very moving. I remember when I was around 10 years old and sick with the measles Grandpa bringing me a bunch of flowers from his garden including (in my memory) white flowering dwarf plum and red anemones. We do have poppies volunteering in this garden but not Papaver rhoeas, although I do remember a dark pink poppy in the cereal crops in the central west that may be P. rhoeas. Our “field poppies” are Papaver dubium,  the long headed poppy and Papaver somniferum ssp. setigerum, the small flowered opium poppy.

Papaver somniferum ssp. setigerum

Papaver dubium

Spring continues

Pandorea pandorana “Ruby Belle”

Pandorea pandorana

We are slowly moving towards the warmer weather and despite experiencing a few frosts last week the spring flowers are continuing to appear. Besides the waratahs photographed for the last post we have three other native plants looking lovely. We have two different varieties of Pandorea pandorana. The white one is a selection very close to the species, although the throat in the ones I have seen in the bush is a little more purple. The second is a reddish variety most likely “Ruby Belle”.

Dendrobium kingianum

We are trying to increase the orchids both native and introduced. Our Dendrobium speciosum is not doing well but a Dendrobium kingianum planted in an old banksia stump is flowering well. There are cymbidiums planted into the ground in nearby gardens so I am trialing them too. More generally in the garden we have Moraea collina flowering.

Moraea collina

It is an unusual flower in the local gardens because we are continually asked it’s name. It is a native of South Africa and known as the Cape tulip. I suspect it has been in this garden for a long time surviving through periods of attention and neglect. I found the echium seedling volunteering in the Margaret Steven’s garden a few years ago so it is in it’s prime now. The thujas were planted when the garden was begun in 1966 and are now a little taller than I would like them as they add to the shade already cast by the 2 storey building.

Echium candicans and Thuja occidentalis “fastigiata”

Viburnum plicatum tormentosum “Double File”

 

 

 

 

 

 

The viburnum is in it’s 3rd year and the first year in which it seems to have established. We are trying to improve the bluebell area by various means including removing some tree cover and planting shrubs. This is the first year we have had a few flowers on the viburnum and though few none-the-less lovely.

 

Waratahs at Mt Tomah Botanic Gardens

The oldest Shady Lady  waratah in the Waldorf patch

We have a small patch of waratahs at Waldorf and when they where looking their best we decided to visit Mt Tomah Botanic Gardens and check out the waratah collection there. Mt Tomah is on the Bells line of road which runs across the Blue Mountains from Richmond to Lithgow on the northern side of the Grose Valley. We drove from Leura along the GWH to Mt Victoria and crossed over to the Bells line via the Darling causeway and then headed back east to reach Mt Tomah. We were greeted at the entry by a very substantial “Shady Lady” waratah and came across some giants further down the slope.

 

Mt Tomah entrance Shady Lady

Waratahs further down the slope

 

 

 

 

 

We were advised to visit the Heath and Heather section as there has been much work put in there  recently. On the way we came across a row of white waratahs and and an unlabelled red waratah with a spectacular flower.

White waratahs

Waratah

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We made our way back past the Burnet garden and found a satin bowerbird in his bower. We took a long range photo of bird and bower and as the bower was just over a low hedge beside the path we could take a close look at both the bower itself and it’s decorations as the bird hopped a short distance away.

Satin bowerbird

Looking down into the bower with decorations in front

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Our final waratah sighting was of the state emblem of NSW clipped into a lawn. In hindsight I wonder if maybe a dwarfing agent has been used. I am still puzzling about it.

Lawn waratah

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Festival Highlights

Wisteria chinensis viewed  from our festival cafe with the golf fairway in the background

The Leura Gardens Festival has come and gone.The weather was very windy and cool for the first few days but still the tickets sales were very good and there should be at least as much money raised for the Blue Mountains Anzac Memorial Hospital as last year. We host the music in our gardens at lunchtime throughout the

Cantrice singing under the Linden tree

festival and so one of the highlights for me involved the music played or sung under the Linden tree once the weather had calmed down a bit. The Linden will not come into leaf until the end of this month.

Swing West Jazz Band

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Fiona and Gillian braving the wind in the entrance for a tulip shot

 

Another highlight of the festival is all the gardening minded visitors including Fiona and Gillian who visited while the weather was still fairly chilly.

 

 

 

Fothergilla major “Mt Airy”

The exquisite blooms  spared  by the rosellas on the Shogetsu cherry

 

 

 

 

 

Leura Gardens Festival

The Leura Gardens Festival begins tomorrow and lasts for 10 days. The spring is a bit later here this year and for us this means that if the winds aren’t too strong our tulips will still be looking good.

Driveway tulips at their best

Tulips around the urn

 

 

 

 

The wisteria is not quite out but it should be flowering during next week. The continuing showers of rain have the lawn looking good and the azaleas are still colouring up.

 

Cyclamens with pink azalea in the background

We have been putting finishing touches to the route the visitors will take which includes displaying the Gazebo as a wedding venue. We have gathered an eclectic mix of plants as table centres.

Table centres ready to go

 

Bluebells

 

 

The bluebells are coming out right on time and the cyclamens are putting on a show under the Caucasian fir.

Cyclamens under fir

 

 

 

 

Corydalis flexuosa above the dry stone wall

Compost Pile Number 32

Ceratophyllum demersum being layered into compost pile no. 32

A once a year ingredient has gone into this compost pile . In preparation for the Garden Festival I don waders on a sunny day and get into the pond to reduce the density of the pond plant Ceratophyllum demersum. It is an Australian native but does have a tendency to clog water ways. It is not endemic to Tasmania where it is regarded as a weed and is an unwanted organism in New Zealand. I think birds have brought it to our rock pool. Once it is out of the water we let it dry for a day. It becomes reasonably light and is transported to the compost area to be layered into the next heap where it readily breaks down. Our heaps are located under radiata pines and consequently we cover them to limit the influence of the growth inhibitor released from the falling pine needles. Until recently we covered the piles with old carpet but this limited the penetration of rainfall and so stopped the heap working. Recently we have changed the covering to 70% shade cloth. The pine needles slide off and the rain penetrates. We are continuing to get weekly showers so the compost is working and the lawns and gardens are in good shape for the festival.

Paul Scherer with Gwen and Flaming Flag

The tulip Paul Scherer is finally making an appearance in our entrance bed with tulips Gwen and Flaming Flag.

Malus floribunda in the rain

I photographed our espaliered crab apple Malus floribunda during one of the showers. This crab apple was planted against the newly constructed brick terrace wall (with fashionable extruded mortar) in 1969/70. There were originally two but only this one remains.

Espaliered crab apple