Our wattle does its thing

This is our best-ever case of something not going to plan – not remotely – yet everything working out quite splendidly in the end. 

Our "groundcover" wattle is in bloom again (just like we planned it), right on time in Sydney's sunny midwinter (just like we planned it). So what didn't go to plan? 

Wait till you see the size of this thing! It is most definitely not a groundcover, hugging the ground humbly like it's a living mat. No, this is a triumphant invader of spaces, accoster of innocent pedestrians passing by, a fence-climber and, admittedly, a rather lovely big monster of a thing. Here it is in flower this morning.

The rarely seen front of our house, with the giant groundcover
scaling the front fence, bearing streamers of yellow blossoms.

Seen from the front porch it covers the whole front garden,
rising to the same height as the fence and surround hedges,
a sea of lacy, delicate blue-green foliage throughout the
year, and now, in July and August, the blue sea is foamy with
streaks and bubbles of yellow blossom.

 

Like the foliage, the blossoms are also delicate things, fine
puffballs aplenty, always fuzzy to look at until you're just
an inch or two away.

We don't get as many flowers as we had
initially planned on, simply because the house
is to the north of the wattle, and while it
does get kissed by sunlight through the winter's
day, it's not a whole day of sunlight, and so
the plant doesn't produce a full canopy of blooms.

The innocent vision we had when we planted this lovely thing more than 10 years ago was that it would be a ground-hugging groundcover that was a sparkling sea of yellow through winter. This is what the brochure promised!

Instead, we have a huge plant which scooted along the ground until it came to the first obstacle (hedge or fence) then simply reared up and over the obstacle, hell bent on world domination. Everywhere, it's somewhere between waist and head high. That ain't no groundcover!

Over these last 10 years I have clipped it back from the front fence a zillion times, to stop it dripping and drooping over passers-by on the footpath (and it can be a pain that way during wet weather).

It's a "love it or hate it" plant. One mystery neighbour breaks bits off the wattle as he or she walks by, always leaving them on the nature strip in a silent, wattle-hating protest. 

Other neighbours stop to talk to me about it, and to pat and stroke the foliage as if it was a giant sleeping dog. It is certainly soft to the touch.

It is its own plant, its own personality. Apart from clipping back the overgrowth, I do nothing to care for it. Never feed it, never water it. All I do is admire it.

Pammy says that this year it is looking as nice as it ever has, and I agree.

Waking up in winter

Yawn ... stretch ... no Garden Amateur posts since June 18? Yes, we've been taking a little midwinter break, but this morning, August 1, is such a mild, sweet morning that all Sydney gardeners know spring is not far away. So it's a good time to wake up the sleeping blogger.

Out on our streets the magnolias are bursting out in pinky purples, the wattles are dripping with golden bling, and here in our little backyard there's colour everywhere you look. On with the show ...

Several of our succulents are colouring up, and this
Kalanchoe 'Copper Spoons' is flushed all over with coppery
new growth on a shrub about 70cm tall. So classy.

Bromeliads such as this Vriesia are the ideal plants for non
gardeners to grow in Sydney. Just shove them in semi shade,
pretty well ignore them, and they will then do this in winter.

Our "groundcover" Cootamundra wattle in our
front garden is at its colourful fuzziest right now.

Growing poppies for Pammy in winter has become a tradition
that I hope will last forever.

Our pot of Aeonioum 'Schwartzkopf' offcuts
that we are striking seem to have taken.

Crassula 'Campfire' is a succulent which
really colours up in winter. It's green when
the weather is warmer, but red for just a
month or two in midwinter.

Same deal with the trailing hanging basket
succulent, Senecio jacobensii. It's green in
summer but wears purple robes to ward off
the winter chills.

Finally, even our silvers are shining right now. The Spanish
moss which Pammy looks after, draped from the bare and
otherwise scrappy looking branches of our Grevillea 'Peaches
and Cream', always look superb in the early morning sun.

All the cliches of the seasons, of winter's bareness especially, just don't apply here in Sydney. And that's how I love it.

In which I interview me ...

By now I guess you're well aware of internet "memes". They're like chain letters but friendlier, yet they still have that familiar little sting at the end of "pass it on". Well, I like tempting fate with memes, so whenever the mood takes me, I half-heartedly participate in the meme, then fail to "pass it on". Nothing bad ever seems to happen, but I suspect if I ever make it to the Pearly Gates, Saint Peter will say "You could have had another five years on Earth if you only hadn't been such a party-pooper with those memes, Jamie." I'll let you know if that's how it turns out, if I can.

And so Amy at her very good "Crumbs" blog, http://crmbsgrdn.blogspot.com.au has nominated me for the Liebster award, whatever that is. Go read Amy's posting and check out her garden, as she's doing some very interesting stuff indeed, and takes nice photos. At the end of her post she nominates five meme-victims/Liebster nominees, including me, then adds in a bunch of questions that seem a perfectly good basis for a blog posting, and so here I am, half-heartedly party-pooping again.

1 Why do you blog?
This should probably be "why do you keep on blogging?" as I have been doing it since 2008. I like writing, I like gardening, I like photography, so for me blogging is as natural as breathing now. I have taken breaks from blogging over the years, but I always come back to it. And besides, it's a handy, diary-like gardening record which I often refer to.

2 Do you have any pets? (Show and tell is encouraged!)
Meet Paul, our goldfish, who has of course featured in a number of blog postings, such as here.

3 How did you come up with the name for your blog?
Some of my favourite characters in biography are amateur naturalists and scientists, especially of the 18th and 19th centuries, and so I've always seen myself as an "amateur" naturalist, pursuing scientific knowledge and understanding in his tiny backyard. It's a stupid blog name, I admit! 

4 What's the average amount of time it takes you to create a post?
Less than an hour, often less than half an hour. Taking, processing and selecting photos takes a bit of time, but as a working journalist I am lucky in that I write pretty much as quickly as I can type.

5 What is your drink of choice?
Before 9am, coffee. Between 9am and 6pm, 'proper' tea brewed in a pot. After 6pm, sauvignon blanc.

6 What's the best advice you ever received?
Duck!

7 What is your favourite season and why?
That's easy. Autumn. Our autumns are warm and are more like the summers I'd rather have. Winter and spring are perfectly pleasant here in Sydney, but summers are a bit too hot and humid. Summer is our worst season.

8 What accomplishment are you most proud of?
Talking Pam into marrying me.

9 What is your most prized possession?
I'm not allowed to say 'Pam', as she'd clobber me. She's a free woman who just happens to like me. So, next choice could be that I'm torn between my full Oxford English Dictionary and my Moto Guzzi motorbike, but the cute answer is "our garden".

10 What is your favourite plant?
Toughest question so far… could be our frangipani, but our outrageous Cootamundra wattle "ground cover" (ha!) out the front of our house has a big personality and extremely lovely blue-green foliage.

11 What is your least favourite task in the garden?

Being on a ladder for any reason. It's not a good time and place to uncover wasp nests, I can tell you that, but "aerial work" isn't my favourite, and I am all too aware of the hospital emergency room stats about old blokes falling off ladders.

And so 'thank you' Amy for a perfectly good blog posting idea, and the nomination. Do get along to her blog and enjoy it, and Amy, I have never seen Grevillea armigera before, but like you I want one!

Wattle it be now

There's a couple of wattle trees outside a local school which always come into bloom a couple of weeks before ours does, and so when I saw the 'school wattle' in bloom a fortnight ago, I knew it was our turn soon. And today is the day it has started, and it'll take another week or two to be at its peak, but I can't wait until that happens. I want to talk wattles now!

Wattle blossoms are the most ethereal things close up. They
always look like they're in soft focus once you get close.

Our wattle is supposedly a 'groundcover' form of the well-
known Cootamundra wattle, Acacia baileyana. Compared
to the normal upright growing A. baileyana, which forms a
small tree 3-4m tall, our 1.5m tall spreader is a groundcover
of sorts, but a ground-hugger? No way. As soon as it strikes
a barrier, such as our front fence or the little lilly pilly hedges
on the side, it just rears up and over. I am constantly cutting
it back out on the street side, as it would eventually grow to
cover the whole pathway, then the street, if I let it grow.

Some people in our street love this plant, and
like to tell me so if I'm out in the front garden.
Others don't, and they tell me so, too. And there
is a phantom wattle-snapper who breaks off a
piece every time he or she walks past (to express
his/her displeasure, I presume) and leaves it
on the nature strip. I'd love to catch him/her in
action one day or evening! Aha – busted!

Some people say wattle blossoms give them
terrible hayfever, but that's a myth, because
wattle pollen is very large, heavy and dense
(well, for pollen it is). If wattle is in bloom
and people feel hayfeverish, they put one and
one together and come up with the very
understandable but mistaken idea that the wattle
is to blame. More often it's infinitely smaller and
finer pollen in the atmosphere from other plants
including trees and grasses, so very small
it isn't visible, that causes the sniffles and
sneezes of miserable hayfever sufferers.

Fortunately our wattle's bloom show doesn't
last long each year, and then it returns to its
11-month long gorgeous display of blue-grey
foliage, which never ceases to delight me.

It's said that there are so many wattles in this country that somewhere in Australia, on any day of the year, there is a wattle in bloom. At our place there's only one wattle growing here and it only blooms for a couple of weeks every year, but I always know it's midwinter here when the front fence is ever so briefly gilt with gold.