re: Easter at Walnut Hill

WALNUT HILL gardens at Easter

The Easter long weekend and time to wander outdoors to see what the garden holds now that autumn has arrived. There have been several heavy falls of rain in recent weeks and the garden is coming back to life after a long summer sleep. The yellowed grasse
s that make up our `lawns' and grassy paths are slowly greening and the walnuts are beginning to drop - those that haven't been nibbled by the flocks of screeching Crimson Rosellas and Sulphur Crested Cockatoos that descend on the trees at dawn and dusk.
 Flights of tiny Blue Wrens and Eastern Spinebills are busy all day working the salvias, abutilons, kniphofias and Silver Eyes duck and weave industriously everywhere taking herds of aphids from their sheltering spots under leaves.

There are comparatively few flowers at this time but many signs of growth emerging from below the ground. Winter bulbs are well away - sparaxis, freesias, babianas, watsonias, muscari etc. Amaryllis belladonna in several shades of pink bloom along the la
ne and the creamy white HATHOR blooms in a patch I refer to as the yellow garden. Once again Brunsvigia josephinae hasn't favoured us with a tall stem or two of deep pink trumpets arranged cartwheel fashion but there are good displays of Nerine sarniensi
s and Acis autumnalis (syn Leucojum aut.) Best of all are drifts of Cyclamen hederifolium established from a wide variety of sources. The largest flowered sort, pink and white 75:25% came many years ago from a collection made by Paul Furse. I've lost the
 notes but I think they were from Anatolia. There are at least four scented forms collected by expeditions of the Cyclamen Society and 6 silver leaved forms from the same source. Some are pink, others are white and in all cases the batch
es of seedlings need to be rogued for less than wonderful examples of their kind. In my seed pans and trays Cyc. persicum, C. graecum, C. coum are appearing by the hundreds. In the garden they are a bit slower, maybe because the soil doesn't warm as fast
 as it does in the pots. Cyc. graecum under trees has plenty of flowers - much like hederifolium but with more succulent leaves tinged reddish on the reverse. 

Colchicums are out too - Waterlily, autumnale Album, The Giant, bornmuellerii, nothing rare or exceptional. My only plants of Merendera and Colch. luteum have expired. Perhaps it is not enough like their alpine meadow homes here in summer? Crocus specios
us has put up early blooms of a very pale, almost white form. Later, after a bit more rain has soaked to the root of the drought the more usual darker lilac form will spring up in the grass under the walnut trees.

Rose hips everywhere look great - Rosa moyesii, GERANIUM, EOS, HIGHDOWNENSIS, macrantha, setipoda, sweginzowii, alba semi-plena, MME GREGOIRE STACHELIN, IRISH RICH MARBLED, MARY QUEEN OF SCOTS, WILLIAM 3rd, virginiana, woodsii-fendleri, and all the rest.
 

There have been a few odd flower heads on hybrid Rhododendron vireya but these seem so sporadic one could never reliably predict their appearance in autumn, or at any other season. Still, they make excellent pot plants - a bit rangy (some might say scraw
ny) and are easy verandah plants with boldly coloured flowers - vivid orange, hot pink, a huge cream and a tubular pale pink. All named but how many hundreds are there of those? And so many propagated and sold in flower without their names.

High in an old holly tree the white form of Plumbago capensis (caerulea) is flowering strongly. It got that dish-rag look after the heavy rains but has since opened a swag of fresh flowers that are flung out from the tree in great cascades of pure white.


Here and there clumps of perennial Sedums are between flowering and browning - a stage at which many favour but as we get few frosts here and hardly ever any snow there is not a lot of point in leaving them about all winter in a vain hope for a rare mome
nt of photogenic beauty. Chances are that I'd have left for work in the dark and missed the show anyway. So I will cut them back soon to better show off the myriad easy bulbs that I am encouraging everywhere. Mostly South African and all winter growing k
inds they are too often overlooked as commonplace by gardeners who yearn for greater rarities - even if they can't get them to flourish or even flower well; fritillaries for instance. The sedums have had very little summer watering and all look good, tho
' many will soon collapse. We have AUTUMN JOY, BRILLIANT, telephium (rather lack-lustre alongside the hybrids), MUNSTEAD RED (dark red), PURPLE EMPEROR, HESTOR, SUNSET CLOUD, VERA JAMESON, BERTRAM ANDERSON and RUBY GLOW. There are others
 too that I do not (yet) have.

Seeds of Muscari gathered at Sparoza (near Athens) are coming up as are assorted but unknown crocus from the same place, and a tulip from near Petra - or so I was assured by the relative who collected the seed pods and sent it. Seedlings of Mandrake (Man
dragora autumnalis) are up too, a real excitement for me. With their strong root systems they should thrive in my no-summer-watering regime.

We have been busy cutting back dead peony foliage and that of spuria irises and other tough perennials so that by early winter all the hard chores will be done and the winter flowers will show to best advantage. I'm not talking of the big European hybrid
 peonies like ALBA MAXIMA and MME FELIX CROUSSE, SARAH BERNHARDT etc but of the herbaceous species which have wonderful foliage, lovely but fleeting flowers, fine seed pods, sometimes autumn leaf colour and amazing tough, far reaching, drought tolerant r
oot systems like horseradish. I have a picture in my head of a massive exposed root at thick as my wrist snaking its way for a metre or so down a sun exposed cliff face at Torre de Ariant on Mallorca. About 30m from the Mediterranean shore line and open 
to all weather the plant grew in `rude' health - a stunning example of Peonia cambessedesii. I have a few seedlings to prompt my memory of it. From the ferny leaved kinds (which may never flower here) to the finger-like P. emodi and the 
rounded forms of P. mollis there is variety enough in the clumps of leaves that last well all summer long. Happily most species do flower readily enough.

No leaf colour yet but big things expected of the Tupelo, Pistachia chinensis and sundry maples and cherries - all chosen to accentuate the red autumn colours rather than the yellows and browns that predominate here. The Gingko will, of course, be a foun
tain of gold.


kind regards

trevor n
-----------------
Trevor Nottle
Garden Writer, Historian,     
Lecturer and Consultant 
       
    'Walnut Hill'                          
     5 Walker St       
     Crafers SA 5152 
     AUSTRALIA

Phone: +618 83394210
Fax:   +618 83394210
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