Shade-loving flowers on song

A rare event is happening out there in our garden this week. All the shade-loving flowering plants are singing from the same song sheet: they're all flowering at the same time, and it's never happened before.

You'd think if someone said to you "here's three different spring-flowering, shade-loving plants for you to grow" you'd naturally enough picture all three of them in glorious bloom together: in this case a golden orange, a pale yellow and a dusky pink.

Yet over the years I've had these three growing in the same spot, the best I've managed is two at the same time, with the third missing in action. Not this year! The full orchestra is on song, and it's looking lovely.

This is Scadoxus puniceus, otherwise known as the paintbrush lily or the Natal paintbrush, and you'd be right in guessing that it's originally from Natal and other provinces in South Africa. I'm just pleased to get one flower this year, as earlier the year while my ankle was in plaster we got in some boys to cut back hedges etc, and they stomped all over the Scadoxus bulbs and left them poking sideways and looking the worse for wear — such a shame. I replanted them when I was able to in early winter, but they don't like being disturbed, and I was fearful that none might flower. There's lots of babies, and at least I have 14 bulbs growing now. Four are 'adult' sized, and the other 10 are bubs which might take another 4-5 years to flower. So there's a good reason to live right there! Imagine 14 Scadoxus in flower — can't wait till I hit my mid 70s! 

This pink person is Velthemia bracteata, and as well as producing dusky pink blooms it has the added bonus of always reminding me of our good friends John and Liz, who gave us three bulbs, all of which are flowering nicely. And it's another South African, from the Cape Province and elsewhere.

Rounding out our trio of spring flowers is, very suitably, another South African shade-lover, Clivia miniata. This is better known to most people as an orange-flowered, strappy-leaved clump-forming perennial, but at a flower and garden show several years ago I came across a guy with a clivia stand and had to buy these yellow ones, just to be different (who, me?). The clumps are slowly spreading, so I am hoping that coming years will be even yellower.

Finally, here the view from the clivia end of the patch. All three plants are growing in the shade of our frangipani tree, which is bare of foliage right now. You can see the Scadoxus baby plants and their upright clumps of leaves growing happily around the big flowering adult plant. On the left, barely visible, is a tall murraya hedge that shades the plants from the northern sun, so it's shady in here most of the year. 

This 'South African' part of the garden is not in deep, dull shade, though. In fact I love to stop here in summer when I am filling up the birdbath with fresh water and have a look inside this tiny 2m x 2m shady zone. Under the full foliage of the frangipani it's like a peaceful little shady forest with bright green light, hopefully somewhere these shade-lovers can grow and thrive for many years to come.

Last but not least, I love this little patch of my garden because of the memories it conjurs. As I mentioned earlier, when I see the Velthemia I think of John and Liz, who live almost nearby in Sydney but under these covid restrictions, they're too far away for us to get together.

And when I see the Scadoxus I am reminded of a lovely co-worker, Geoffrey, an expert horticulturist who just bought in a bag of scadoxus bulbs one day and left them on my desk, with a very Geoffrey "see me" note attached. After expert tips on where and how to plant them, they have thrived. I haven't seen Geoffrey for quite a few years now, but I have thought of him often.

And when I look at my little South African patch I think of our dear friend Amanda, who's a whole border crossing away in Kyneton, Victoria. She's a mad keen gardener too, and I'm just hoping that she'll see this little patch of South Africa and think of us, just as we often think of her.

Boing!

One of my favourite experiences in our garden is simply to step out into it every morning, to see what's happening. In Spring I'm guaranteed to find something new every day. Just like me, it's alive and breathing (but unlike me it's young and pretty and growing fast). Oh well, I'm happy to settle for "it's great to be alive".

And so here's a photo-driven little posting of just some of the lovely things I found in our garden this morning.

I think we're at "peak native orchid" today. The show has been brewing for a few weeks but this morning all of them are on song. 

Pammy wants me to send her this close-up of a tiny native orchid bloom, taken with the camera about an inch away from the small but perfectly formed bloom. I think she can sense a watercolour painting coming on ...

Speaking of small but perfectly formed blooms, the first of our purple mint bush blooms made an appearance this morning. As I have three bushes and each is covered in flower buds, these are the first wave of what promises to be a few thousand more. Can't wait ...

And to finish off our purple patch, our potted common sage, the kitchen garden herb, has started to do its thing.

Just a few feet from the sage, also growing in a pot, the Thai lime plant is making good use of all the spring fertiliser I fed it with a few weeks ago. The young "double" leaves are the freshest green, every nook and cranny is filled with bum-like blooms and all is good in the fragrant, spicy Thai flavouring department.

A much quieter chap, the Turkish Brown fig looks such a treat as the morning sun shines through its new green leaves every morning. After its winter repotting, I am hoping for good things this summer. No pressure, though ...

Our Westringia 'Elizabeth Bough', covered in light pink blooms, cuddles up close with the astonishingly capable geranium 'Big Red', which flowers pretty much all year round.

And last of all, in a deep, dark corner of the garden when the sun doesn't get much of a look in, the yellow clivias have decided the time is right. I love how they know this stuff.

Made for the shade

Just like me, our garden is slowly ageing, but unlike innocent old me, our garden is getting shadier ...

Our major shade-spreader is our frangipani tree, and as it’s so beautiful and fragrant we’re enjoying letting it grow. By midsummer, once its canopy fills out, there’s a lot more shade in our garden than there used to be.

The frangipani is one of “Pammy’s plants” and it’s a favourite child of ours because we have raised it over many years from a single cutting taken from a friend’s garden. So it has a history that makes it even more special.

So, with major cutbacks off the agenda, we’ve decided to take it easy and grow more shade-loving plants in a our increasingly shady areas. Such as these yellow clivias, which love life under our frangipani tree.

Yellow clivias? Yep. The usual ones are orange or salmon-orange. The other colours (most commonly pale yellow) cost a lot more — they’re twice the price of orange ones in our little local garden centre — but they are becoming more available, and I prefer the yellow to the orange. We bought our yellow ones at a garden show, and they weren’t outrageously overpriced.

Clivias are yet another happy South African migrant to our shores, they’re everywhere in Sydney and that’s because they’re easy to look after. Over the years they’ll form bigger and bigger clumps.

Eventually, and I mean after several years, the flowering of the clumps might slow down due to overcrowding, so you will need to dig up the clump, divide it into several smaller plants, replant them, then put your feet up for another decade. Well, that’s how it works in heaven.

We had orange-flowered clivias growing here in the early 1990s, and they thrived back then, but I decided to get rid of them in one of our occasional garden renovations, gave them all to our good friend Zora (sister of Krissy, our frangipani cutting supplier, so we’re going full circle here, folks), and they’ve been thriving at her place ever since. These plants really do love East Coast Australia.

As far as caring for clivias goes, I almost don’t. Never water them, no nothing. Apart from being included in the annual Aromatherapy Garden Festival called “The Casting of the Chicken Poo”, which always takes place on a day when rain is forecast in late winter (this is as close as my life gets to religious festivals), the clivias just have to fend for themselves.

Mind you, Sydney gets a fair bit of rain every year, so if you are somewhere that gets less rainfall, you might have to point your garden hose at your clivias occasionally.

Also doing very well in our shady spots, New Guinea Impatiens have a good future here. We planted some two years ago and they’re still doing OK. Being from New Guinea, they don’t love Sydney winters but they do survive them, and once summer comes on they’re happier again.

The first batch we grew came in a punnet of seedlings, and the only problem was the flower colours: too many reds and pinks for our liking, and only some white.

This time we’ve bought larger potted plants, with the rich salmon flower colour than Pam and I prefer.

Our brilliant plan is to take lots of cuttings of the salmon-flowered plants over the coming months, and slowly but surely turn our shady patches into little seas of green new Guinea impatiens foliage topped with a mosaic of salmon and white blooms, with our cuttings-grown plantings.

Yes, cuttings are a great way to save money but they’re also the ideal way to make sure you are getting (and multiplying) the flower colours you want.