Sydney's first pops of spring

One of the great things about gardening in Sydney is that winter is still a time for growing things, planting and enjoying a few pretty blooms that like to flower in the cooler months. None of that cliched bleak snowy winter malarky down here!

Then again, we still do get the best of both worlds, in that there's a genuine burst of energy that accompanies the longer sunshine hours and warming temperatures of spring. So here's just a small selection of what's blooming here right now.

I can't show you all of them because I have postings lined up for later in the week about Pammy's plants, some of which are flowering now. And there's also a posting on the plants belonging to Pam's lovely old mum, and they're flowering too. 

Our Australian native Dendrobium orchids are flowering their heads off this spring, and it's with a real sense of relief that I say that — because they didn't flower at all last year, and that was because an awful orchid beetle was chomping everything it could find. Such rotten timing, too, you rotten little orchid chomper!

The rotten part about the orchid beetles is that when I looked up in my garden pest reference book, it seemed there was little I could do, especially if I'm dedicated to organic methods. Bugger! So this year as the flower buds swelled I was out there, not sure what I was looking for, but I was out there anyway! Maybe I scared them off? One of the side effects of this lockdown season is a lack of haircuts and beard trims from my barber, so maybe I was just so scary looking that the beetles snuck away?

There was no need to worry about chomping beetles tucking into our Pieris japonica blooms.

This little potted plant is a fighter. It does best in cooler zones (my friends Eric and Jane up in the cool Blue Mountains west of Sydney have glorious big Pieris hedges.) But down here on the humid coast the Pieris struggles through our summers. I have it growing in a pot so I can move it from here to there as the seasons change. Right now it's getting all the morning sun it wants. Later on, I'll give it more shade as summer's intensity ramps up. 

Look carefully at this photo of one of our hellebores. Yes, it's a bit blurry, so I was about to go outside and take a better one, but then I noticed sitting on top of the big green leaf was the hellebore plant's resident spider, the concierge, wanting to know what the hell I was doing. I'd been there for more than an hour weeding and mulching, and he had just about had enough of me. So, I decided that he was perfectly entitled to photo-bomb me!

Here's the fruits of a rare venture in online plant shopping: baby hellebores looking quite healthy and happy but no flowers yet. Maybe next year, but nice to know the kids are all right.

Finally, two plants which have admittedly been flowering all through winter and are still looking fabulous in spring. Now I am not certain exactly what type of bromeliad it is. Its botanical name is Aechmea fasciata, and it came to me via a lovely neighbour who was moving house. He came across to my place several years ago, told me he and his husband were downsizing and so they couldn't take all their plants with them. Would I like this one? I've never repotted it, fed it, cared for it or anything. As it's next door to my potted lime tree which I water often, the bromeliad does get watered often, and it loves life. I think it actually started flowering last autumn ... but time is getting very blurry around here. It just goes on and on and on ...

What a modest claim to fame: "Plant of the Century". That's what the label says (see below). It's a real geranium (ie not a pelargonium) and its name is 'Rozanne', voted Plant of the Century by some mob called the Royal Horticultural Society. It certainly loves to flower, and it's been flowering ever since I bought it at our local garden centre at the beginning of winter. And it doesn't look like stopping any time soon. 

There you go, a plant label that catches the eye with sheer modesty

And if you can read the back of the label it says the plant should grow to 50cm high (20 inches) and 60cm wide (two feet). Pam asked me this morning "Is it a groundcover?" because it's still hugging the ground while slowly spreading out in all directions. I await its decision to suddenly shoot up to that lofty 50cm size, but this certainly is the most delightful flowering plant I have met in ages. The deliciously pretty flowers just keep on coming, and coming and coming. If you see one in a garden store, buy it! I should have bought two ...

 

So there you go, folks, our springtime show and tell. It's all happening here right now, beautiful weather this Sunday to be out there in the garden, even if all you're doing is reading a book, snoozing or maybe just thinking "I guess I could do a bit of gardening sometime soon."

The 10-Year Rewind – Part 12 – Gone Troppo

Every day this month I am looking back on the 10 years since I started this blog in June, 2008. Part 12 is this one — Gone Troppo — from January 2010, another traveller's tale, this time from one of our favourite destinations, Darwin in the Northern Territory. We've been there three times and would love to go there again.

January's almost half done and not a single blog posting! Well, this marathon bunch of holiday snapz will make up for that. Pammy and I have just got back from a week of foolish fun spent paddling about in the middle of the wet season in Darwin, in tropical far northern Australia. To cut a long story short, we want to go back! But as this is a long photographic story, it's on with the pix (as always, click on the photos to make them bigger) ...

Typical southern tourist me, wearing the new Panama hat Pammy gave me for Christmas, posing under a variegated pandanus tree. And that was one of the themes of this holiday. "You can't grow these in Sydney, Jamie, so if you like them you'll just have to come back for another visit, won't you?" Yes, mam.

More forbidden delights – the Bismarckia palm. These stately grey-leaved palms are everywhere in Darwin.

It's a good thing these cannonball trees aren't everywhere, as they're dangerous to stand under. This one is in the Botanic gardens and it's the only one we saw. It's a big thing, at least 25m tall.

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The cannonball fruit are like small coconuts and they are said to fall from the tree at any time, clonking passers-by on the head in the process. It's not an Aussie tree – it's a native of Guyana in South America, but it thrives in Darwin's tropical climate. Fascinating weirdo.

These tall, thin Indian Mast Trees are another import which are everywhere in Darwin. Growing to about 10m tall, they're just a metre or so in width, with elegant droopy green foliage. First time you see one you tap your partner on the shoulder and say "oh look at those".

However, my gardening discoveries weren't all of the "you can't grow these at home in Sydney" variety. We visited Jenny's orchid garden in Howard Springs where countless numbers of both bromeliads and orchids were on display, and some of these bromeliads could probably be grown in my garden (hopefully, fingers crossed, maybe).

Bromeliad flowers are nothing if not varied, and at times outrageous.

By comparison to the spotty space alien before, this yellow fellow is almost plain.

Ornamental gingers were in bloom everywhere. While I have seen many photos of beehive gingers before, none of them prepared me for the fact that the blooms poke up just a couple of inches above ground level. I had always envisaged these as being atop stately stalks.

This is another ornamental ginger, not sure what sort, but it's useful to include just because it shows how varied ginger blooms can be in both colour and form.

The heliconias were in bloom too, and like the gingers there are many colours and forms on show. This is the popular and striking crab claw heliconia.

Many other heliconias look more like this, in an assortment of colours, often red, orange or yellow, or a combo of any of these colours.

Foliage plants are the backbone of tropical gardens, and these crotons seem to do a lot of the technicolor heavy lifting in many tropical gardens.

Not sure what these spotty people are called, but they're pretty typical of many foliage plants here, which wouldn't dare limit themselves to just plain green.

One vivid exception to this 'not just green' rule is the ornamental sweet potato, a fast-growing groundcover that is so tough that it's used to fill in traffic islands on highways. Just looking at it is like enjoying a cool drink.

Of course palms are everywhere, and gardeners in Darwin seem smitten with these red-stalked beauties known as lipstick palms, for obvious reasons. And no, you can't grow them in Sydney, Jamie.

Speaking of Sydney gardeners on holidays, here is me in my Panama hat about to smile, but not quite managing to, while visiting Jenny's orchid garden. As well as the bromeliads pictured above, this remarkable spot is, of course, filled with orchids in bloom. 

In many sections organised simply into a series of tennis-court-sized enclosures, Jenny's orchids are hung in long rows of wire baskets, not planted into soil of any sort.

Everywhere you wander the orchids are festooned with air plants, tillandsias, better known as Old Man's Beards or Spanish Moss. Makes a nice, spooky forest, it does. 

The variety of orchids here is amazing, but they don't all bloom at once. Many plants were about to come into bloom, or had obviously finished blooming a few weeks ago. They just bloom when they want to bloom, and with the sheer number of plants grown here there was no shortage of pretty things to see, such as this one.

Or this one...

Or this one...

Or this one.

Some orchids were growing in pots, but the pots were just of gravel. Drainage, excellent!

If I lived in the tropics, I think I'd grow a lot of orchids.

But if I lived in the tropics I'd also spend a lot of time enjoying the weather there, too. We arrived at the same time as a monsoonal low pressure system did, and for the first three days there it rained and rained and rained, and the wind blew the rain into sheets that fell sideways – no escape for pedestrians! The constant rain dropped the daily max down to 29°C (84°F) – nice and cool – and we settled in well. To get around, all you had to do was wait for a squall of rain to pass, then walk about on the rapidly drying footpaths in the 20 or so minutes between the next squall. I found wandering home from restaurants late at night in balmy 25°C (77°C) air the really addictive thing about tropical living. Loved it. 

Towards the end of our stay the weather returned to the more normal wet season pattern of a hot, humid day (max 32°C or 90°F) with a spectacular thunderstorm around sunset to cool things off. Those tropical cloud formations are a nice thing to behold with a cool drink in your hand.

And of course the big thing about the wet season is water. Lots of water. This is the Florence Falls in Litchfield National Park, about 2 hours drive from Darwin. The sound of the falls greets you from far off, but nothing quite prepares you for the sheer force of water roaring over the edge. It's such a shame that the word awesome has been hijacked to now mean anything fairly impressive to a bored teenager, as these falls really did produce a sense of awe in all who stood on the viewing platform, feeling thoroughly insignificant in the presence of Mother Nature running her bath.

And so that's our holiday snaps. Or should I say "Pam's holiday snaps". Most of these photos were taken by Pammy, and she did a great job capturing our holiday in the steamy tropical north. And we're going back for more, too!

Summer holiday

Time does bounce along, doesn't it? It's been more than two months since I last posted anything here, and that's because I've been on a summer holiday of sorts.

No, we haven't been travelling much, apart from a short holiday break down on the NSW far South Coast. Instead, I just haven't felt like adding anything to my little gardening blog for these last 10 weeks. The garden is in summer mode, that is to say it's as thirsty as can be, every known pest and bug is doing its best work right now, and this little gardener is merely helping where he can, watching it all unfold.

So here's a little update on just a few things happening here, more for the record that any earth-shattering insights.

In its first full summer here, the baby frangipani which I've dubbed 'Serendipity' isn't breaking any records for speed of growth, but as you can see, it's a beautiful bambino.

Sometimes you have to measure success in terms of sheer survival, and this Pieris japonica is looking remarkably chipper despite having to spend summer in hot and humid Sydney. There's new growth everywhere, and last spring's dead bits, which I simply cut off, are well hidden by greenery. One secret to keeping this alive on scorching hot days when the temperatures reach into the high 30s and beyond, is that I have made a little shade cloth cover for it and pop it on whenever the weather forecast is unfriendly to delicate petals which would rather be under a cool forest canopy, if given the choice.

I'm not sure what the minimum allowable size is for a meadow, but I am hoping that four feet by four feet makes the cut. Even if not, I am also considering this a minor success, at least as a lesson in persistence, which I do believe is a close cousin of pig-headedness.
These simple little daisies are Zinnia linearis, grown from seed. I couldn't find the seed I wanted from any seed growers online, or in garden centres, so I bought a packet on eBay and they were complete duds. Hopeless. Nothing came up. So I tried online again, and second time round a grower in California came to the rescue, and her/his seeds sprouted well. I was hoping for yellow flowers as well, but I am OK with white and orange only.

I do love the way bromeliads quietly go about their business of producing outrageous flowers. This one is tucked behind the Thai lime tree and I like the way that it's in a "backstage" position in the garden and so very amazing when you finally discover it.


Meanwhile, in the vegie patch, all is quietly ticking over, and my only problem is the usual one of the backyard vegie gardener: Gluts.

This is far too much silver beet for two little people to eat. We've been harvesting lots, but that only makes it grow more, and quite frankly we're a bit silver beeted out. 

We also do not suffer from any shortages of purple/white striped/speckled eggplants.

I am currently fooling myself into believing that I've finally got on top of radish production, sowing just half a dozen seeds at a time, at spaced intervals of time.


However, I have saved the best for last. Well, it's not the "best" for everyone, but it is the one summertime gardening project which I've been most interested in. It's the little fern garden out in front of the house, sheltering under the dappled light of our wide-spreading Cootamundra wattle "ground cover" tree.

Last time I posted about this the begonia cuttings were just bare stalks stuck in the ground. Now they've sprouted their spotty leaves (which are a lovely deep red on the underside). The native violets are winding their flowery way here and there. All the ferns are well and truly alive and growing, and so too are the spidery trails of Spanish moss.

It's still quite hot and humid here in Sydney. In fact February is generally a rotten month to be a gardener here, so I don't expect to be very busy.

However, I was getting a minor sense of guilt over my slothful ways, and so by posting at least something, anything, I hereby announce that the 2018 garden blogging year has started, and all is well.

Show business

Half the trick with being a show-biz star is timing your entrance on stage. You want your audience seated before you appear. That's show-biz 101, obvious stuff. Timing is everything after that. Make them wait awhile, but not so long that they start getting too restless, before you open the curtains and appear on stage. And so this week our show-biz star pulled off a grand entrance to amaze its small audience of two — Pammy and me.

In the weeks leading up to its appearance, Pammy and I had wondered quietly to ourselves whether it was ever going to flower this year at all. I had transplanted our Aechmea fasciata into a much bigger pot last year, and full of doubts about my competence (as always), I started to wonder if I had done something wrong. 

(This comes with the territory of being a keen amateur at anything. You keep on trying all sorts of "don't try this at home" adventures, you have some disasters but a goodly basketful of successes as well. All along the way you suspect disaster lies around the corner.)

And last week the first pink stars started to form at the base of each Aechmea cup. It was only then that Pammy and I said to each other, almost in unison, "I was beginning to wonder if was going to flower this year." This week has been a pleasure, watching the pink crowns rise and rise like slow-motion fireworks. 

For me, as the gardener responsible for all transplants, my delight at the dazzling flower show easily outshone the relief that the plant was happy, but I was quietly glad that all had gone well. Even when they're not in flower these bromeliads are handsome things, with their greeny white (or it is whitey green?) striped foliage totally owning the space it occupies. It's an attention-getter at any time of year.

For the next few years at least, the large pot where they grow will see their numbers multiply and the shows become even more spectacular, until they eventually overcrowd the pot and another episode of dividing and replanting is needed.

If you have bromeliads overcrowding their pots, here's a couple of things I have learned.
1. Wait until they finish flowering before doing any repotting.
2. I'm not sure if bromeliad experts will agree with this, but I mix up a 50:50 mix of orchid potting mix and ordinary potting mix, and plant the bromeliads into that. It seems to work OK.

Thirsty work

We all know that birds love a drink and a flap in a birdbath on a scorching hot day such as today, but some of our other garden workers need a drink, too. 

I spotted a group of our native paper wasps carefully clustering around the water-filled cup of a bromeliad. As I'd liberally watered the whole garden this morning due to the forecast of 38°C (100°F), which has been exceeded already, the bromeliad had little puddles of water here, there and everywhere, and every tier of its central cluster of leaves had a puddle attended by a thirsty wasp.

This photo is a slight fudge, as I remembered that I took it on another scorching hot day a few years ago. In our largest birdbath I always place a gently sloping, low rock into the water, so bees and wasps (and tiny birds) can carefully move down the slope and slurp up a drink. If the rock is too steep-sided they run the risk of falling in and drowning.

As for the human workers, Pammy and I are both inside the house, sipping some tea and mostly staying inside. Everyone needs a refreshing drink on a scorching hot day like today!