Visit to the gardens of St Erth in Blackwood Victoria Australia.

St Erth gardens in Blackwood

A quick entry this month on a recent visit to the gardens of St Erth in Blackwood Central Victoria. The St Erth gardens are one of several gardens operated by the diggers club which is basically a company that specializes in selling heirloom seeds and plants. They are located on Simmons Reef Rd in a small and charming town named Blackwood which is in between my hometown Macedon and Ballarat. For those not acquainted with the diggers club I recommend you have a look at their webpage www.diggers.com.au. You can find some really rare plants there. If you are into growing your own produce you will find the gardens of St Erth amazing. They are decked out with all sorts of edibles and have a large assortment of espaliered fruit trees. It also features an arboretum and several ornamental beds.

What a fantastic tree in bloom. If it wasn't for the hose in the bottom right of the picture this would look like a scene from the Hobbit.

I thought the new bean frame I made at home looked great and then I saw this one. So much more artistic than my standard design.

The Hellebores were still in bloom.

More incredible trellising.

Below are some examples of how in St Erth they use edible plants as ornamental features.

A border of chives.

Garden art / functional grow frame with a fellow friend gardener (you know who you are :) ) spying something in the background.

Espaliered fruit trees are in abundance in St Erth. They must get a large yield come harvest time.

View looking back at the house (circa 1860s) from the arboretum.

Lots of Dafs.

A view from inside the house looking out onto a part of the ornamental garden. I love the plant that is climbing the post on the left.

Visit to Marysville and Lake Mountain Australia

Lake Mountain bushland and Marysville town plantings 2013

Just got back from an overnight stay in Marysville after a day trip to Lake Mountain to see the snow. Marysville is a town 99km out of Melbourne which, along with several other old Victorian rural towns, was established as stopping point between Melbourne and the goldfields (in this case the upper Goulburn goldfields). It also attracted loggers as it is still surrounded by massive Mountain Ash trees which were once touted as Australia's tallest trees. In 2009 the destructive 'Black Saturday' bushfires ripped through the town causing massive damage. 90% of Marysville's buildings were destroyed and 45 people died in the fires. I visited in 2010 and the town was still badly damaged. I remember seeing that the shops on the main street were destroyed and were temporarily operating out of shipping containers. There was also burnt buildings and trees everywhere. It was a great pleasure this time, to see the town basically fully rebuild and with all services up and running. The great thing was that such a great job had been done during the rebuilding process. The main streets buildings were all up and running and the streetscape planting was magnificent. The main street was lined with hellebores, grape hyacinth and daffodils. Also a new park named 'Gallipoli Park' was build with state of the art planting (a mixture of Australian natives and exotics) and play equipment. The visit to Lake Mountain was both shocking and beautiful. The mountainside was full of ghostly dead snow gums that were also destroyed in the bushfires. As sad as it was to see them in that state they did look striking with the fog drifting through them. The other pleasing thing to see was all the new growth  starting to rise up from the ground level which was once shaded out by the canopy that was lost to the fires.

Several pictures below of Lake Mountain's dead snow gums and new growth appearing over snow.

This is a man made river bed near the new 'Gallipoli Park'. I wish I took some pictures of the park itself. The seeing the park's native plant scheme has reinvigorated my interest in the use of native plants for ornamental purposes. 

The next 3 pictures are of street side plantings on the main street of Marysville. They are all good choices in my opinion. The bulbs should do well because of the cooler climate and hopefully the hellebores should thrive under the deciduous oak trees that shade them in summer.

Yay I won some roses in a competition and my bulbs are finally emerging

During my visit to the Melbourne flower and garden show this year I signed up to receive as many catalogs from plant / flower growers that I could. One supplier was from Silkies Rose Farm in Clonbinane Victoria Australia.  They have regular competitions they promote through their mailing list and I was lucky enough to win one of them. The prize was my choice of any 2 of their roses. Last year I learned how to prune roses for the first time but, until now, have never had any of my own. I chose a David Austin English rose called Munstead Wood (a shrub rose) and a hybrid tea rose called New Kleopatra. The garden bed I planted them in at my home garden in Macedon had previously had hydrophobic soil but I dug lots of mushroom compost through it some time ago and when I tested it today it was all over its fear of water. Also I have noticed that several bulbs have started to pop through the soil. Hopefully when the weather warms I will have lots of flowers.

also 

HAPPY WINTER SOLSTICE!!!   to all those in the southern hemisphere who may be reading this post.

This is the tag on the New Kleopatra hybrid tea rose that I won. It has orange on the underside of its petals and red on the upper.

This is the Munstead wood rose. It is a small growing shrub rose with massive blooms and a strong perfume.

The next 2 pictures are the roses as they are planted and I hope they enjoy their new home. The soil there is looking really fertile now that I've spend some time and money improving it. I am a little worried because the location is not full sun. Hopefully there is enough sun for them to thrive.

These shoot are from some daffodil  (narcissus) bulbs my daughter planted about 2 years ago. Its amazing to see how they have multiplied and seem to be thriving in poor soil. You can see from the clay and moss that drainage in this part of my garden must be quite poor but these dafs have soldiered on nonetheless.

These shoots are nerines. I bought them at the Melbourne flower and garden show from Hancocks bulbs. Not sure what will come of them this year. You can see in the background the dormant top of another of the nerines.  I think they are possibly shooting at the wrong time (not sure why that would happen though).

 

Although not much of a picture this is a tulip bulb. I am crossing my fingers that all the tulip bulbs I planted will flower. I managed to get about 40 bulbs for free from a friend after they finished last season. They looked a little dry so I thought they may not shoot again but I have at least 1 of  them emerging. If only half of them shoot I will be happy.

 

When I received the roses Silkies rose farm also included a retail catalog. For anybody who is interested the roses there are really cheap. I have wholesale plant supplier accounts and the price of the roses from Silkies are basically the same as the wholesale supplier prices. If you are interested their website is

www.rosesalesonline.com.au

Narcissus and other florals in Macedon

All of my Narcissus bulbs in Macedon have finally fired up and I now have a flower or more from each of them. Below is the Narcissus x tazetta 'greats ballade'. It's the type of flower most people would associate with the word 'daffodil' however daffodil is just a common name for the genus Narcissus, so it actually describes all the species under the Narcissus genus. In some of these pictures the sun was shining behind the flowers making them appear they are glowing. Narcissus x tazetta is native to southern Europe.

The next two pictures are of unknown bulbs. I got them in a mixed bulb pack so I'm not sure what they are. The first looks to be Narcissus x jonquila 'paperwhite' and the next plant is called Narcissus x jonquila 'erlicheer'.

Lastly for this post is a picture of my grape hyacinths which have just strated to flower. I bought these at the flower and garden show this year thinking they had large flowers only to find out later that they are small. Anyway I love the shape of them so its not the end of the world. The botanical name for grape hyacinths is Muscari latifolium. A common name for this plant is 'Baby's Breath'. This one is only half open.



My garden in Macedon

The climate in the Macedon highlands is cooler than in Melbourne. It is 505m above sea level as opposed to 31m above sea level in the plains that are Melbourne. Today here was no exception, when I was outside at 1pm today it was 3 degrees Celsius! Below is a picture of the same hyacinths that I photographed for my very first blog entry 9 days ago. I moved this pot from Parkville to Macedon around 4 weeks ago. They are from the same bulb stock and are planted identically (ie same potting mix / same type of pot / same density of bulbs per pot). You can see how they have only just opened whereas the ones in Parkville are fully bloomed. I've learnt the hard way (several times) how the climate up here does means certain plants will not grow. On the other hand we have colder climate plants that will grow up here but not in Melbourne.

Narcissus jonquilla (common name jonquil) is a species of daffodil. They are very popular  flowers throughout the Macedon ranges. Like most ornamental bulbs they do not flower for a long time but it is well worth the wait through the year when you see them as spectacular as the ones below. After they stop flowering I may dig some up and replant them elsewhere in my garden. The daffodil festival is coming up soon in Kyneton not far from my home http://www.kynetondaffodilarts.org.au/.



 Last of all is the floral emblem of Australia the wattle which is of the genus Acacia. To be precise the floral emblem of Australia is the golden wattle Acacia pycnantha. It is known for its golden globular inflorescences and strong perfume. The wattle I have is not pycnantha as it has feathery bipinnate leaves and the golden wattle has more lance shaped leaves. Although it is quite common in Australia I thought I'd mention it as I'm now noticing its yellow flowers from the corner of my eye when I drive home on the freeway.