Reseda odorata 'Machet Ruben' (Mignonette)

 Reseda odorata 'Machet Ruben'

(Resedaceae) 

I have not grown this spring flowering annual for a number of years and came across it in a seed catalogue while ordering summer vegetables.  August here is the month when you can start seeds indoors in a bright location. Germination was quick and they were ready for potting on in no time. While most gardening books say it can be difficult to transplant into garden beds, I had success with placing three or four seedlings close together in 175 mm pots which was to be their flowering 'home'.

 I placed the pots along a low wall in full sun to help kickstart them during the normal cold early  spring days. Growth was slow at first but they responded to some liquid fertilizer and they soon became bushy plants to about 30cm with flower spikes appearing in late September at which time I moved the pots to bench height to better enjoy the sweet perfume released from the flower spikes in late afternoon. You don't have to stick your nose up close either as the fragrance is in the air from a distance away. It is described as ambrosial so no wonder the French in the southern perfume industry region called this plant Mignonette or 'little darling'. 

Bill Simpson in his book Growing Annuals (Kangaroo Press 1988) described the flower as having orange red bell clapper stamens protruding like grapes from insignificant white-yellow 6mm wide flowers accompanied by smooth spoon shaped plain green leaves. The leaves wilt quite quickly on hot days or when the plants are lacking water so the ideal location is in a semi shaded garden position with moisture retentive soil.

It is a North African plant in origin and it must have caught the eye of 19th Century naturalist Charles Darwin who used it to study self-fertilized plants published as The effects of cross and self fertilization in the vegetable kingdom.

Mignonette is not showy but as perfumed flowers go it is up there with the best.

Ceratostigma willmottianum, Chinese Plumbago

Ceratostigma willmottianum  
Chinese Plumbago
  (Plumbaginaceae)

 This small hardy shrub is named to honor Miss Ellen Willmott (1858-1934) who in her day was called 'the greatest living woman gardener'. She was fabulously wealthy and during her glittering and spectacular career she sponsored plant hunter Ernest 'Chinese' Wilson who brought back this plant from China in 1910. The electric blue flowers cover the bush during summer and these are followed by bristly "shaving brush" heads of seeds. The leaves are attractively quilted and turn brilliant shades of orange and red during autumn and winter. It is hardy over a range of climates except the very hot and does well in shade under trees.
Dawn Macleod calls it 'that blue-eyed darling' in her book Down to Earth Women (Those who care for the soil) Edinburgh, 1982. Germaine Greer has a soft spot for it as well and gives an interesting insight into the life of Ellen Willmott in the following article:

Country notebook: Ellen Willmott - Telegraph

collecting succulents

Starting out with Succulents

David L Jones

New Holland publishers Australia 2012

David Jones' name is synonymous with native plants so it was a surprise to find out he was a collector and enthusiast of succulents and bulbs, though the inclusion of native "succulents" eg Doryanthes makes this book true to form.  

As he lives on the south coast of NSW the information here is local and there is a terrific range of plants included. 

Because of their relative ease of propagation succulents often pop up at market stalls, usually without names, and with this book identification via photos and descriptions are made a whole lot simpler. I try and not collect too many plants these days but am always interested in trialing new plants to see if they have the potential to cross over from "collectible" to a commercial landscaping or garden specimen. Many make better container grown subjects and the little Cotyledon pictured below is a good example. I like the torpedo shaped leaves and the tiny stems carrying what will be bell shaped flowers. It's quite a cutie and as the flower stems are quite sticky perhaps it may have that ability like some other plants originating from nutrient poor soils of being able to trap tiny insects for a bit of extra food.

Cotyledon papillaris (Crassulaceae)

Plants for Aromatherapy

 Aromatherapy, Massage Oils and simple home remedies in Maria M Kettenring book published by www.joy-verlag.de

(Aroma-Gesundheitsparktikerin ,Dufttrainerin und Autorin zahlreicher Bucher)

I am not good at self-promotion but it was a real thrill to have my photo of Palmarosa grass (Cymbopogon martinii var motia) included in this book and be given credit as an 'Australien'.

Now if only there was a bit of demand for Palmarosa plants locally as I failed to shift more than a few units of it over last summer.

A couple of  Aussie plants which are making an impact in Europe, included in the book are, 'Teebaum', Melaleuca alternatifolia , or what we know as tea-tree oil, and Cajeput from Melaleuca  leucadendron var. cajeputii.

Springboarding

 Teaching the sport of springboarding

 In Germaine Greer's book 'White Beech - The Rainforest Years' (Bloomsbury 2014) we are given a remarkable historical account of the timber getting industry in South East Queensland as recalled by Bernard O'Reilly of 'Green Mountain' fame and the dangers associated with the use of the springboard which came to be used because trees were unable to be cut down from the ground owing to their flanged or buttressed trunks, a characteristic of many rainforest trees. The springboard is made of light wood, four foot long and a foot wide and it has at one end a steel tip which is inserted into a horizontal slot cut into the tree and "on this narrow rocking perch the settler swings his razor-edged axe, sometimes twenty or even thirty feet from the ground, then as the tree begins to go, he must descend swiftly, bringing not only his axe but his springboard."(O'Reilly) Many lost their lives or were seriously injured in the process. As Greer explains, "the O'Reilly boys all at one time or another sustained terrible injuries from their own axes. Ped and Herb both severed leg tendons; Pat buried his axe in his abdomen; Norb stitched a cut on his leg with needle and cotton.' By way of variation on the self-injury theme, Mick fell from his springboard and was impaled on a spike."

The wood chopping events held at Agricultural Shows across Australia are a reminder of these timber industry pioneers.

 White Beech timber from the rainforest tree Gmelina leichhardtii (Lamiaceae) It is 'highly resistant to decay in ground contact or in persistently damp or ill-ventilated situations' and in the early 1900's it was used for building frames, as well as flooring, lining, mouldings, joinery and cladding.'

'There is now no White Beech timber to be had anywhere' (Greer)

By Ashley Sewell

Department of Natural Resources Queensland, 1997

Garden as a character in Patrick White's 'The Aunt's Story'

 The Aunt's Story by Patrick White

1958 (2nd edition) Eyre and Spottiswoode, London

Cover design by Sidney Nolan

'Tis the season for reading Australian fiction and if the novel includes descriptions of plants and gardens it is always a bonus for those with a horticultural bent. When writers get their plant descriptions wrong however it can leave a jarring note. In Christos Tsiolkas' barracuda a character picks a bunch of blue Snapdragons. Nup! No such colour in 'Snappies' but I think he might have meant Penstemon which have a similar flower structure and come in a blue colour range. A piece of trivia you might say but in the poetic prose of Patrick White there are no such errors, as the gardens and the plants they contain reflect the mood of the characters and become an integral part of the story. 'Aunt' Theodora Goodman grows up in a country house set in a landscape of black volcanic hills and dead skeleton trees with a garden as grim and as unsettling as the personality of her mother. There is a 'solid majority of soughing pines' which are always 'stirring, murmuring and brooding with vague discontent' while on the south side of the house where Mrs Goodman wanted roses she had 'clay carted specially from a great distance' to create 'an artificial rose garden so untidy it looked indigenous'. The roses 'remain as a power and influence in themselves' over the life of 'Aunt Theo' for the rest of the novel. They follow her to the Cote d'Azur and on arrival in her room at the Hotel du Midi, maroon roses 'shouted through megaphones at the brass bed' and even 'retreating from the jaws of roses' into the jardin exotique of the Hotel where 'she hoped the garden would be the goal of her journey' she instead finds herself surrounded by cactus spines before resignedly taking a seat on a bench 'beneath a crimson elbowed thorn' indeed not unlike one found on the 'water shoot' of a growing rose bush.
The 'jardin exotique' is 'completely static, rigid, the equation of a garden' and 'it is all that a garden ought to be, neat and not native, resourcefully planned as opposed to dankly imaginative'. It wears the 'colourless expression of glass' and even the air is 'dry ,motionless and complacent' 'full of sad sounds of no distinguishable origin'.'On the trunk of a cactus flies had discovered a wound' and 'Theodora watched their invasion of the cactus sore.' There are no flowers here, 'sudden and scarlet like Spanish bombs' and even in the rooms of other guests she is confronted with a 'tangle of undergrowth, feathered, musky, tarnished, putting out tendrils of regret and hope, twitching at her skirt' while the indoor potted Monstera deliciosa has fruit 'eaten when black and almost putrid'. When the Hotel burns down Theodora is flashed back to her childhood garden as in the flames she sees 'the revival of roses' and 'how they glowed, glowing and blowing like great clusters of garnets on the live hedge'. Even after the fire the plant forms of the jardin exotique remained 'stiff and still, though on one edge, where they had pressed against the side of the Hotel, they were black and withered' as if 'their zinc had run into a fresh hatefulness'.
In the final chapter which is set in Taos, New Mexico, the dusty sombre pine trees return as does a black rose, a flattened fabric one pinned to her hat. As White explained "I gave Theodora the black rose because it was at the point where she had been finally reduced .....charred and purified" and decidedly unhinged.

'

'There were the evenings when red roses congealed in great scented clots, deepening in the undergrowth'.
"I see perfection in the rose, both of the flesh and of the spirit " Patrick White (1912-1990)

Cooking with Michael Pollan

This is the time of year when all the new books hit the shelves in time for the Christmas market and when you start to think about the relaxing days of summer ahead with reading or dozing in the shade of a tree during the hottest time of the day high on the list of the day's agenda. Earlier this year the thought proving American author Michael Pollan released a book called 'Cooked: A Natural History of Transformation' It is on my must read list having sampled the PDF introduction available online. The quote I always remember from Pollan  is "Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants.", and in this new book he deals with the philosophy behind four elements which have shaped culture through cooking and food, namely fire, water, air and earth. In fire he writes about cooking whole animals over an open fire. In water he deals with cooking in a vessel by boiling or braising. Air is about baking and earth is about fermenting, the process used for cheese making and brewing.

So my humble poached chicken from the other night has taken on a whole new meaning when it is described thus :"The pot dish, lidded and turbid has none of the Apollonian clarity of a recognizable animal on a spit but is a primordial Dionysian soup" as the "marriage of plant and animal foods in a liquid medium is preferable to cooking either food over direct fire" with the added "onions, garlic and herbs containing powerful antimicrobial components  which are able to survive the cooking process" and which are therefore very beneficial to health and well being. While I am on the right track here and enjoy cooking I am also an eater of the microwavable frozen convenience meal, the very thing Pollan rallies against in his books, because they have been made by a huge corporation and you have absolutely no idea what is in them and where those ingredients come from, for, in the long run "You are what you eat eats".

Neem tree, Azadirachta indica

I have been using Neem oil as an insecticide on and off for years.

It sticks to the leaves and continues to work for some time after spraying. It is especially good to repel white fly which congregate on the underside of cabbage or broccoli leaves.

 Recently I came across this book, Neem: A tree for solving global problems which was published in the early 1990's by The National Academy Press in Washington D.C. It is a comprehensive guide to the use of Neem worldwide up to the date of publication. 

 Now it seems that the current opinion is that the Neem tree has serious weed potential in most regions of the dry tropics where it has been planted, including Australia. Birds find its fruit desirable and thus spread the seed far and wide.

 Pest plant risk assessment:Neem tree—Azadirachta indica - IPA-Neem-Tree-Risk-Assessment.pdf

Une Saison en Enfer

Clouds of smoke from fires in the distance

 'Et le printemps m'a apporte l'affreux rire de  l'idiot

Ah! j'en ai trop pris:----- Mais, cher Satan, je vous en conjure, une prunelle moins irritee!'

And spring brought me the idiot's frightful laughter.

Ah! I'm fed up:-----But dear Satan, a less fiery eye I beg you! 

Arthur Rimbaud (1854-1891)

from A Season in Hell/Une Saison en Enfer

Carex elata 'Bowles' Golden'

Carex elata 'Aurea' syn 'Bowles' Golden'

In the chapter on 'Aquatics', in his book My Garden in Summer (1914), Edward Augustus "Gus" Bowles (1865-1954) leads us on a 'boy's own adventure' along rivers and reed beds across the Norfolk Broads where he happened upon this plant one hundred years ago. 'I noticed two or three shoots of a sedge with a fine gold band on their leaves, so dropped on my knees and severed them from the main tuft with my pocket knife, brought then home, and planted them where they have formed this fine specimen.' His 'home' was Myddleton House in Enfield where he established a remarkable plantsman's garden which is now restored and open to the public.

At this time of year, Bowles' Golden Sedge awakes from winter dormancy and puts on a fresh display of bright yellow leaves, eventually reaching a height of about 40cm and spreading to form a clump of 90cm. It is ideal as a pond edge plant or in a spot which is constantly moist and though it will tolerate full sun I find the foliage burns easily if not given some protection.

It could be planted around the base of Fuchsia 'Canary Bird' which has contrasting red stems to its equally bright yellow leaves.

 

 Front cover photograph shows Rosa moyesii 'Geranium'. This book was published in 1914 by T. C. and E.C. Jack, London and reprinted by Timber Press. Portland. Oregon in 1998.

It is available online as a free digital download.

Gus Bowles: Gentleman Gardener

1865-1954

Photograph: 1910, Florence Darrington

Coecogyne cristata

 Coecogyne cristata

About eighteen months ago I was given this pot containing an unidentified orchid as a thankyou for doing a plant delivery. I placed it in a semi shaded spot, and, apart from the occasional watering, it hadn't received much attention. Then a week or so ago I noticed a couple of long stems hanging over the side of the pot, two streamers of flower buds. The buds were enclosed in a curious coffee stained envelope which made me think it had been sunburned or damaged by the wind. Then this 'keel' fell away and lovely fragrant white flowers emerged. It turns out to be a cool climate epiphytic orchid from the Himalayas and a 'good variety for beginners' which is just my ticket. Apparently it flowers when winter snow is melting and can tolerate quite a wide range of climates, being popular as a houseplant in Europe for that reason. In Germany it goes by the name of schneekonigin or 'snow queen' which makes it sound like a brand of ice-cream.
While I am not about to bitten by the orchid collecting bug, it is nice to have a few varieties in the garden as part of the spring flower scene especially as they demand so little attention to make them look fabulous.
 I don't have any 'how to grow orchids' books but I can recommend these two as good 'who-done-it' adventure style mystery books on the subject. Susan Orlean's funny and sad The Orchid Thief was made into the terrific movie Adaptation which had Meryl Streep playing journalist Orlean and is a must see for anyone who collects plants or who runs a plant Nursery.

Eric Hansen's Orchid Fever is a real eye-opener into the bureaucratic world of 'CITES' plant conservation/protection and the obsessive world of plant collectors who pay big dollars for the truly rare and exotic.

Norman J Sparnon

 Norman James Sparnon OAM (1913-1995)

Ikebana Master

 Norman Sparnon was born in Melbourne and is remembered there by a plaque in Jells Park, Glen Waverley, where he planted a tree in 1984 to celebrate 25 years of Ikebana International in Australia. As a young man he became absorbed by the learning of written and spoken Japanese and following his service as an Army Major during World War 2, he went to Japan to serve in peace time redevelopment, eventually living there from 1945 to 1958.
One day he went along to an Ikebana class his wife Mary was attending, to act as an interpreter, and became hooked on all aspects of Japanese floral art. "I was captured by the art right from the beginning. I felt I'd found something that matched up with my personality" he recalled later at the launch of one of his books. On return to Australia he lived in the Sydney suburb of Darling Point where he had a studio and ran an Ikebana school in the 1960's and 1970's , teaching both the classical Ikenobo and modern Sogetsu styles of the art. For Norman it was always far more than just flower arranging,"You become so very close to nature and understanding it." he said.
These days his timeless  books are fetching high prices and his last from 1970 The Poetry of Leaves sells for about $250.00. Trouble is you may just have to go to New York City to buy a copy, such is his influence outside this country.

 His first book from 1960

The illustrations below are of his use of camellias. In 1968 he wrote a book called The Magic of Camellias with E G Waterhouse

 Modern 'moribana' arrangement of quince and camellia

 Window arrangement with camellia and fasciated willow

 Red-lacquer plate with lichen covered pine and camellia

 Shoka arrangement of Ikenobo School

Single flower 'Ichirin' with incense burner

 Nagiere arrangement of quince and camellia

by Sofu Teshigahara founder of the Sogetsu School

 Pine and camellia in 'shin' arrangement

'tsubaki' = Camellia japonica

'to-tsubaki' = Camellia reticulata

'sazanka' = Camellia sasanqua

To prevent camellia flowers from falling in an arrangement, apply damp salt to the base of the stamens by means of a match.

The Bogan Fuchsia

The inclusion this year of the humble garden gnome in the RHS Chelsea Flower Show could be seen as a sign that any expression of gardening from whatever class or background you come from is justified and should not be judged on matters of taste. In Australia the celebration of the suburban bogan is certainly welcome on our TV screens.

In Australian literature, Patrick White had great affection for bogan characters in his dusty suburban Sarsparilla of the late 1950's and early sixties. In the short story Down at the Dump, the garden of Wal and Isba Whalley has a big Camphor Laurel tree (Cinnamomum camphora) which is 'lopped back every few years for firewood', its trunk scarred by son Lum who slashes at the bark with a knife 'because it was something you did'. Out back standing in knee high paspalum grass is the two-tone Ford Customline...'it looked stolen and almost was ...the third payment overdue' while the twins Barry and Garry, looking like a couple of 'taffy brumbies', play in a rusty boiler they use as a cubby.

Across the road in a liver-coloured brick home with a cream Holden Special in the driveway lives Councillor Les and Myrtle Hogben and their daughter Meg. On the cool side of the house grow tall fuchsia bushes with a ground cover of aluminium plant (Lamium galeobdolon) Meg, dressed in her brown school uniform, is thin and freckly with the eyes of a 'mopey cat'. She hides from her mother, 'standing amongst the fuchsia bushes looking out from their greenish shade. Her skin was green except where the war between light and shade worried her face into scraps: and the fuchsia tassels trembling against her unknowing cheek, infused something of their own blood, brindled her with shifting crimson. Only her eyes resisted.'

White wrote later of these characters in 'Letters' (edited by David Marr) ....but Meg Hogben and Mum Whalley are the pure, the truthful, those of whom we may have hopes in the future.' 

The Victor Lemoine Fuchsias

2011 poster from an exhibition to celebrate the life of renowned French nurseryman and plant hybridist, Pierre Louis Victor Lemoine (1823-1911) in Nancy, France.

 1849 was a good year for Victor Lemoine. He was 26 years old and he had persuaded his father to lend him the money to set up a nursery on the Rue de l'Hospice in Nancy. On his bookshelf he probably had a copy of Felix Porcher's Le Fuchsia: son Histoire et sa Culture, La description ou l'Indication de 520 Especes et Varietes', the second edition of which had appeared that year, and, from his Belgian friend and mentor Louis Van Houtte he had no doubt received a copy of the horticultural magazine La Flore des Serres et Jardins de l'Europe which contained the van Houtte illustration below of Fuchsia venusta, a Colombian species first collected and described by those intrepid plant hunters Humboldt and Bonpland.

 During the course of his working life he went on to release some 400 garden Fuchsia hybrids including two derived from this species 'Gerbe de Corail' and 'Corne d'abondance' in 1905 , a first for horticulture. Many of the varieties are still around today and over the course of a century have found their way to Australia. The Lemoine bred 'Lord Byron' is readily available from specialist growers.

Fuchsia x 'Lord Byron'

While regarded as a taciturn man and a poor keeper of records, the names he chose for his Fuchsias speak volumes about his tastes, interests and which people commanded his attention in the world of politics, the arts and sciences. 

Going through his catalogue has given me an insightful french history lesson. To mention but a few, there is Pierre Beaumarchais (1732-1799) who was a playwright, fugitive, spy, horticulturist, arms dealer and revolutionary; the radical left wing politician Pierre Joigneaux (1815-1892) who managed to write a few gardening books while imprisoned: L'art de produire de bonnes graines...... 'The art of producing good seed' amongst them; and President Felix Faure (1841-1899) who is now remembered for dieing whilst engaged in la pompe funebre with his thirty year old mistress. (another untranslatable French pun)
Lemoine was obviously a big opera fan as Charles Garnier (1825-1898), the architect of the Paris Opera, Palais Garnier, and stars Lucienne Breval (1869-1935) who is remembered for her performance of Rameau's 'Hippolyte et Aricie' as well as the soprano Emma Calve (1858-1942) all have fuchsias named after them.
A year or so after his death, and with his family continuing the nursery business (It operated till 1960), a fuchsia is named in honour of Mrs Jacques Feuillet (nee Marie Hout) (1864-1912) a causality of War who died while working as a Red Cross volunteer. It is a sad reminder of our own involvement in The Great War which began just two years later.

 French writer Marcel Proust, who had a keen interest in gardening and plants was probably familiar with Lemoine's Nursery when writing his A la recherche...Remembrance of Things Past, and, a keen eyed plant detective ,with way too much time on their hands, could probably identify the lusty and impious variety growing in the window-box of Mme Loiseau's house which stood cheek by jowl to the Combray village church 'Saint-Hilaire': 'In vain might Mme Louiseau deck her window-sills with fuchsias, which developed the bad habit of letting their branches trail at all times and in all directions, head downwards, and whose flowers had no more important business, when they were big enough to taste the joys of life, than to go and cool their purple, congested cheeks against the dark front of the church, to me such conduct sanctified the fuchsias not at all; between the flowers and the blackened stone against which they leaned, if my eyes could discern no gap, my mind preserved the impression of an abyss'......

The Carl Bonstedt Fuchsias

 Fuchsia triphylla from Curtis' Botanical Magazine

Joseph Hooker (1817-1911)

The German botanist and gardener, Carl Bonstedt (1866 -1953) was a man in the right place at the right time. In the early 1880's he managed to secure a plant of Fuchsia triphylla while working at Kew Gardens. The plant had been given to Kew by Henderson's Nursery of the Edgware Road and they had originally obtained it from New York nurseryman Thomas Hogg Jr. who had connections in Haiti and the Dominican Republic where this species is found growing in cool mountainous terrain. So on return to Germany, Bonstedt, who worked briefly at the Botanic Garden in Rostock from 1892 to 1900 and then at the University Botanic Garden in Gottingen, developed and produced some fine hybrid Fuchsias based on the F triphylla species. 

While often used as summer bedding plants in Europe, they thrive in a mild winter climate like ours and will flower their heads off all through winter and spring.They have the added bonus of attractive olive green, purple backed leaves and as their flowers are terminal racemes on reddish stems they are always visible and not shy at being showy. 
The main varieties available and their original release dates are: 'Mary' 1905 ,a rich scarlet colour; 'Gottingen', 1905 vermilion; 'Traudschen Bonstedt' 1905 pale salmon pink; 'Thalia', 1905 pale orange; 'Koralle' 1906 rich salmon orange; 'Gartenmeister Bonstedt' 1906 glowing orange to brick red. A terrific book which has these photographed as individual flowers to show the difference is the Plants for Warm Gardens book by Roger Phillips and Martin Rix (Pan Books)

Carl Bonstedt retired in 1931 and left us with these wonderful hardy fuchsias which are still popular and easy to grow today.

Fuchsia x 'Gartenmeister Bonstedt'

 

A Fuchsia Survey

 A Fuchsia Survey by W P Wood

Cover Illustration by Elizabeth Sorrell

Published by Williams Norgate 1950

You have to feel sorry for Mr Wood. He wrote this book as a history of Fuchsia growing, covering the time of discovery of the various species in South America and other parts of the world, to the development of the breeding programmes in the 19th Century and release of hundreds of new cultivars over the years from 1830 to the time of his writing. The War years dealt a blow to his passion for them and even by 1948 he was mourning their non appearance at the Covent Garden Market in London, as the production of fruit and vegetables instead of flowers was still at a premium. I think he wistfully longed to pack up and move to San Francisco, such is his praise for that city and its ideal Fuchsia growing climate, as Californian botanist Professor Phillip Munz (1892-1974) had published his great monograph, A Revision of the Genus Fuchsia in 1943 and America was the new centre for their research and development. 
Though there is no mention of Fuchsia growing in Australia in this book, they have always been a part of the garden scene here since the time of first settlement.
British grower Thomas Thorne, he, a descendant of the famous Lye family of Fuchsia hybridists,  gave a rundown of all the Australian bred varieties in his book Fuchsias for all Purposes in 1964. Against all the Australian entries however there are the words 'date and origin unknown'. Were we suffering from some sort of horticultural cringe? most likely. Some are still available today such as 'Canary Bird' and 'Crimson Bedder' but it would be nice to know who introduced them to horticulture. At the time there was no Australian Fuchsia Society, as that did not come till 1970 after a "call to arms" by A G Puttock (he was an ex Army officer after all) in his book on The Australian House and Garden Book of Fuchsias. Many garden books tell us much about social history and his suggestion of enclosing a verandah to make a sun room for growing Fuchsias was very much the way some older hoses were modernized at the time. Deborah Law's more recent book Growing Fuchsias published by Kangaroo Press (editions 1987 and 1990) is one of the best reference books we have on the local scene.

It is sad to report that the Australian Fuchsia Society, which had been based in Adelaide has been disbanded and the Fuchsia Club of New South Wales is in limbo. Where to now for the promotion of these hardy and delightful plants?

Colette on Hyacinths

The brief spell of spring like weather last week sent my pots of hyacinths into a spin and out they came before really having time to develop a proper stem. 

As I am always interested in how garden plants are described in literature, I thought I would share a perspective on hyacinths held by the great French writer Sidonie-Gabrielle Colette (1873-1954). In 1947/48 a Swiss publisher, Mermod, commissioned a small book, Pour un Herbier ,the writing of which was based on the weekly bunches of flowers sent to her by Mermod to her apartment at 9 Rue de Beaujolais , Palais-Royal in Paris. At this stage of her life Colette had become severely crippled by arthritis but by all accounts was still a bit of a "looker" with her frizzy reddish hair, alley-cat eyes rimmed with kohl and thin as wire lips painted a brazen hussy scarlet. Particular flowers jog her memory and she recalls hyacinths  in Parisian life during wartime Occupation when florists slyly offered a way to be seditious by selling potted bulbs 'from which there issued forth three gallantly chauvinistic flowers, one blue, one white and one red'. However the hyacinths she received in 1948 tell a different story. 'Today my gloomy privilege has fetched me a bouquet of white hyacinths. Their thick spikes, swollen with water, ooze where cut, like a snail, and bear little bells , heavy and opaque, as white as peppermint candy.' It seems that these 'fat, white, cultivated, well padded little city dwellers' were not really to her liking as they sparked an image for her of younger more mobile years when she was able to enjoy the wild type with their 'blue forest flourish, spontaneous and fragile, in numbers so great, to draw from it the illusion of standing on the edge of a lake'.

It is well documented that Colette received the 'gardening gene' from her beloved mother Sido, who was the subject of a memoir/novella published in 1929. The garden in the family home in the Burgundian village of Saint-Sauveur-en-Puisaye is described in terms like a French Impressionist painting: 'The warm garden nourished itself in a yellow light with trembling reds and violets, but I couldn't say if this red, this violet came from, if they still come from, a sentimental happiness or an optical dazzle'. It is a garden represented in shimmering heat and light, a dazzle of colour, children and cats playing, happiness (Sido has a 'garden face') rather than details of plants and design.