the library jacarandas

The local library building is painted a vibrant shade of burnt orange and has contrasting Jacarandas planted as street trees outside as well as in the adjacent park. They are at their peak right now.
2017 update: Trees have been removed by Council and not sure why?

Versicolor

 Prunus persica 'Versicolor'

In the nursery industry it is often difficult to describe, in layman's terms, the exact colour of a flower, but it is even more difficult when a shrub has flowers which undergo a colour change from bud to bloom or present different coloured flowers on the same branch as is the case with the Prunus pictured above. I come unstuck when labeling the Brugmansia below as pink when actually the blooms start out as acid yellow. The customer naturally feels duped at the appearance of these yellow flowers but only has to wait a couple of days before the colour changes to dark pink. It's versatile versicolor........

 

Erysimum 'Bowles' Mauve'

 

Erysimum 'Bowles' Mauve'

Earlier this year this small shrubby perennial was a contender in the 'Plant of the Centenary' at the RHS Chelsea Flower Show in the UK, so when I saw it recently at a plant market I thought I had better give one a go. I have grown these perennial wallflowers before and they are very hardy shrubs which are good over a range of climates as long as they are given a spot in full sun and have free draining soil. The trouble with them is that they never know when to stop flowering and though their peak flowering time is mid winter to spring the flower stems hang on into summer and become quite elongated. I gave the flower heads the chop yesterday and am pleased to say that the form of the growing plant is very pleasing , it being neat and compact with its grey green foliage. If it grows to a metre by a metre as indicated on the pictorial label it could make a nice low hedge or path edger and would certainly be a welcome addition to any garden for its mid-winter flowers. The other mauve variety is called 'Winter Joy' and this is possibly a select form of that one. 'Bowles' Mauve' has been around since the 1980's and was named for the great gardener E.A.'Gus' Bowles

Verbena x hybrida

Verbena x hybrida 'Flagship' (Verbenaceae)

During the 'hottest October on record' I thought it best to choose and plant out summer annuals which are better able to cope with dry and hot conditions. One of the most adapted to these conditions is Verbena. I am nostalgic for the old spreading kind with the highly perfumed flowers which I used to grow in my youth but the best on offer these days is the compact growing sort such as this variety 'Flagship'.The disappearance of the spreading kind once sold as bedding plants in punnets may have more to do with economics and fashion than anything else. Verbena can be slow and difficult to grow from seed and as they are susceptible to mildew if they stay congested in a container for too long, they have been perhaps passed over in favour of the more reliable Petunia. 

It is the flower colour range of Verbena which holds a lot of appeal for me. Most of the blooms have a white contrasting eye which makes the surrounding colour stand out even more and included in the range is a navy blue, though this deep dark blue is probably closer in reality to a dark purple. 

Tweedia caerulea

 Tweedia caerulea syn Oxypetalum caeruleum ( Asclepiadoideae, Apocynaceae)

Neither a shrub nor a climber, Tweedia is hard to place in a garden. It grows as a few lax stems to about 90cm topped with the most beautiful cerulean blue flowers from spring to summer. Though worth growing for that unique flower colour alone, it is the soft as velvet arrow shaped leaves and stems which make it a candidate for inclusion in a garden for the visually impaired, perhaps as an 'edger' spilling over a garden wall where visitors are able to stroke the leaves. In some parts of the world Tweedia is grown as a summer bedding plant. It is frost tender and though mine did not lose its leaves, I kept it in a warm spot out of the cold and a little on the dry side over winter. It is one of those plants which tolerates dry conditions quite well, having milky sap, though it shares this characteristic with a couple of trouble maker cousins, namely the dreaded Moth vine (Araujiia hortorum) and Balloon or Swan plant (Asclepias physocarpa). It originates from southern Brazil and Uruguay

 The colour, pale Cerulean blue, was made famous in the film The Devil Wears Prada when  Miranda Priestly, played by Meryl Streep, corrects her assistant Andrea Sachs, played by Anne Hathaway, over this far from ordinary shade of blue.

For me the most interesting aspect about this plant is that it celebrates the life of the great Scottish gardener and plant collector John Tweedie (1775-1862). At age fifty he uprooted his wife Janet and their six children from the banks and braes o' bonnie doon and set sail aboard the Symmetry, in May 1825, from the port of Leith bound for Argentina (arriving in August) with 200 fellow passengers, all having been persuaded by the enterprising Robertson brothers John and William Parish, of Kelso to help settle a new Scottish colony at Monte Grande some 30km south of Buenos Aires. (1825 was also the year Britain granted recognition to Argentina as a nation and established diplomatic relations.)
By all accounts the voyage was a bit of a hoot with much merriment and singing from Tweedie's fellow passengers who were all at least half his age and full of enthusiasm for the new life ahead at what became known as the Santa Catalina Farm. The colony was very successful for a few years until civil war broke out and the residents dispersed with Tweedie setting up shop, literally, in Buenos Aires while travelling throughout Latin America on plant hunting expeditions, the booty from which he sent back to Britain to botanical institutions and wealthy patrons, as well as describing and assessing the local flora for his growing band of Argentinean followers. He is remembered for the introduction of species of Petunia and Verbena which were used in the development of modern hybrids we know today as well as for Pampas grass which became hugely popular in Victorian England.
In Argentina, John Tweedie is much revered today for his contribution to botany and horticulture. He became known there as Juan Tweedie and has a street named after him in the district where he lived and gardened. In the English speaking world, which, in Britain at least, still remains hung up on status and class, we await the publication of Northampton University Professor Jeff Ollerton's book: 'A considerable collection of new things: the life and travels of John Tweedie, gardener and plant collector' to give us a greater insight into the life of this famous Scot.
The Santa Catalina farm where he first gardened and apparently grew the most delicious peaches is now an eighty hectare Agricultural College. The pictures below show its transformation from Juan Tweedie's time to the present day.

Burnt Orange Safari

 One of the last Ranunculus to flower this spring is the one pictured above. It is a true burnt orange colour and from my understanding of the colour palette, this is orange with burnished copper and brown overtones. It is a colour which can be used to describe aspects of the Australian landscape, especially the outback.

 It is a reminder to plant the summer annual Portulaca . They are terrific to plant amongst succulents or in planter bowls. They do well in pots which are quite shallow as they have a fairly small root system and don't need much water to keep them looking good.

 Bougainvillea 'Bambino Miski' is one of the dwarf varieties which is in flower at the moment. When not in flower it is almost leafless, but when leaves do form, this one has attractive cream and grey variegated foliage. I grow one in a pot and place it on a table in a prominent spot when it is in flower.

Azalea indica 'Magnifica'

 Azalea indica 'Magnifica'

If you live in an older suburb in a capital or regional city of Australia chances are you will see this shrub in flower at the moment. Hard to miss with those incredibly bright magenta flowers, and, as this year has given us a dry spring, they are looking very fine as rain spoils the show very quickly turning the petals brown overnight.  The big old shrub Azaleas which grow up to 2 metres are very hardy but are probably considered old fashioned these days even though they make great hedge plants or clipped specimen shrubs such as this one. Is it is their susceptibility to insect damage during the growing season that has made them less popular? If you give them regular doses of fertilizer and compost as well as consistent water they usually are less prone to bugs and look much happier.

'Our Backyard Festival'

Wollongong Botanic Garden played host today to the second annual 'Our Backyard Festival' on what was a perfect sunny warm day. It was a terrific event with lots of fun stuff aimed at young visitors and stalls promoting everything for developing a sustainable productive organic garden.

Not china pink

Deep blue Hyacinth

How many of us buy seeds or bulbs which are labelled as a particular variety or colour, only to find out later at flowering time they are the complete opposite. These Hyacinth were labelled as "China Pink" and are the first of the season to flower. Not that I should complain as this deep blue is quite a rich colour and there is even a bit of ultraviolet in the mix on some petals.

pastel pink

 In warmer weather, the flowers on this Brugmansia are a strong dark shade of pink and now, in response to the short cold days they have changed to this pastel silvery pink.

2 Yellow flowered Brugmansias

 Brugmansia sanguinea 'Midas'

 Chrome Yellow PbCrO4

Brugmansia x candida 'Clementine'

When these two Brugmansia started to bloom this week I immediately associated the flower colour with my old box of paints, little tubes of cadmium yellow followed by chrome yellow, and with being in the chemistry lab, where lead nitrate mixed with potassium chromate when filtered off, leaves lead chromate or chrome yellow. So chrome yellow was the colour description I settled on though it is probably easier to describe as taxi cab yellow, that yellow with a bit of orange in it. We owe the discovery of the colour to Frenchman Louis Nicholas Vauquelin (1763-1829) who was mucking around in a Parisian lab with a mineral from Siberia called crocoite from which he extracted chromium. It seems he was a bit of a plant boffin as well and has the distinction of having the genus Vauquelinia named for him, though Vauquelinia californica is a plant I may never come across.

Maroon

Leaf: Ipomoea barbatus, Flower: Salvia involucrata x 'Timboon'

The name Maroon was originally derived from the Italian marrone and French marron, meaning Chestnut, but the name Maroon today refers to the colour here shown.

It was adopted by the State of Queensland, Australia as their official colour in November 2003 and is an especially popular colour to wear during sporting events involving rival teams representing other States.

In the garden the colour is well represented by the tall 3 metre shrub Salvia Timboon. It is in full flower at the moment and is providing a magnificent display of flowers at the ends of its long arching branches. There is some confusion as to the origin of Salvia Timboon and it is currently thought to be a hybrid between S. involucrata and S. karvinski.

A magenta coloured Aster

Magenta 'Benary' Aster , Aster novae-angliae x Aster novi-belgii

Bit of a 'State of the Union' aster this one as it is a hybrid between a New England aster and a New York aster or is what we more commonly call an Easter daisy. Like many hybrids and improved plants you get flowering for a longer season or, what could be called a cut and flower again plant. This one may well flower again in autumn when the weather cools down. As asters are long vase life cut flowers I suspect that the breeding programme may have had florists in mind and not home gardeners. I grew a batch from seed and there is quite a variation in flower colour in the mix. This is the first one out and though the centre flowers in this photo are starting to fade they still hold their colour well. It is interesting that the shaggy petals are folding themselves over the central boss of pollen once the bee's work has been done. Are they doing this to protect the developing seed from insect predation or the weather? Where are you David Attenborough.

 Magenta is a tricky colour to blend into a garden as it is so damn bright. I think immediately of the spring flowering Azalea 'Magnifica' as well as climbing Bougainvilleas which really stand out in the landscape.

The late English gardener Christopher Lloyd coined the term 'magical magenta' as he was fond of the bougainvillea which he saw spilling over white washed walls in Mediterranean gardens. He liked to team magenta flowers with lime green or acid yellow such as seen in the foliage colour of the low spreading golden bamboo, Pleioblastus viridistriatus. Perfect for the soft light of English gardens but a combination which would really scream at you under our harsh sun.

 It is early days for me and this plant. Still at the trial stage I have to see how it performs over the coming season, what it looks good growing with, while slowly building up stock before it sees a commercial light of day. Regardless of its commercial potential though the question will be does anyone really like magenta?

7 Red Camellias

Camellia japonica 'Firefalls'

Camellia japonica 'Royal Velvet'

 

Camellia japonica 'Ted Craig'

Camellia japonica 'Black Magic'

  Camellia japonica 'Bob Hope'

Camellia japonica 'Wildfire'

It is has been the weather for a nice drop of red at the end of the day,. Here is a good selection of red flowering camellias which can be grown in a full sun position.