Tree Search Completed

I found a tree at Going Going Green in Hawthorn.  

I decided against umbrella trees on the basis that they are an evil profligate weed type thing in Queensland.  Thanks for the tips Anita and Littlemissairgap.

I decided against a palm on the basis that every time I looked at one I had an uncontrollable urge to listen to Willie Nelson and Neil Diamond (my mother's favourite singers to play during her 1970's parties) and eat lots of pineapple chicken and salmon mousse and steak Diane.  

I decided for ficus on the basis that it was the only tree suitable for indoors in the whole nursery, and you know how I hate to leave any place to which I have made a Special Trip empty handed.  Plus which, Rouge told me that Sydney is crawling with fig trees at the moment so I thought I would follow the crowd (it's easier and less risky than setting trends).  

Here it is, Woody Allen, in his sunny little corner.   They don't like the cold so I figure it will at least last until next April.   There is still quite a lot of room above for it to grow up and indeed out if it needs to.   

This room is in the front of the house and I may be spending some more time in here, because this is what I have to confront every time I leave the children to their own devices in the back of the house for more than 5 minutes:

(Explanation: this highly engineered and delicately balanced construction comprises almost all of the couch cushions which have been flung off willy nilly and used to construct a dungeon in which my son can sit and make his Lego robots.  And you may not be aware of this but Cushion Dungeons MUST remain intact for all of the daylight hours, unless you want to be subjected to banshee screaming and floods of salty tears.)

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A hankering for an inside tree

I wonder when exactly it was that indoor plants fell out of fashion?  I know that people still have them but do you remember exactly how ubiquitous they were?  Palms especially.  And maidenhair ferns.  And what about those hanging baskets made of some kind of barky moss?

I really like the idea of an inside tree.  It must be sculptural and dramatic.    I think it is one of those 'I had one in my childhood home therefore must have one now' impulses.  I will try to control it for a few days I think.

Grant K Gibson

Ellen Pompeo's house in Hollywood.  

Some musician's room (I assume) 

This tree is thriving.   To say the least.

Awful blatherglam name check living room in Reed and Delphine Krakoff's home.  But I like the plants.

 

Most of the big leaved trees above are figs.  Not sure how available they are in Australia though.  I went off to the nursery yesterday and found these:

Umbrella Tree.  Grows outside in Queensland.  Inside in Melbourne.   Nice big leaves. Maybe a bit spindly? 

Palm.  Pretty basic.  But nice big leaves.   And unkillable.

And this is the spot I have in mind.  Once the lamp and chair are moved.  Stay tuned for the purchase. 

 

(Images; (1) Grant K Gibson interior design (2) (4) Elle Decor (3) Design Sponge (5) Vogue (6)(7)(8) Jane)

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Eight happy grass trees and a mirror for the garden

There were five things in the front garden when we bought our house.   An enormous liquid amber, thirsty for the water in our sewerage pipes, a hyacinth tree which made me think of Elvis Presley films, a magnolia tree which was magnificent in bloom but otherwise twiggy and sticky, an expanse of lawn and some brownish deadish azalea plants.

Nine years later, nothing remains.  The tree went, removed following speedy Star Chamber style trial and conviction by a jury of two on the charge of trying to pull down our front fence with its pushy roots.

The lawn died, also murdered by the tree (and truth be known, by the drought we have had for years).

The azaleas had to go.  I don't care what anyone says. I am not having them in my garden until I am over 60.

And the hyacinth and magnolia were at the end of their lives, so they went off to sunny plant heaven.

This is our attempt at a drought resistent desert garden.   We are no longer fighting nature and our environment, but working with it.  A lot of these ideas we actually got from travelling in New Zealand, where they seem to have a lot of grassy gardens.  

We planted blueberry ash around the border of the garden and also lots of grassy  plants and little bumpy plants (called Hebe), craned in two huge rocks, one for pointing to the sky (see shot above) and one for sitting on with a glass of wine in the evening (out of shot) and built a low stone wall for small children to run along over and over again.    We then put down a pale browney yellow gravel to replace the lawn, which needs ocassional zen raking.

And most importantly, we planted 8 rather large grass trees.

They are also known as black boys, but I believe one is no longer allowed to use that term.

These plants grow native in many parts of Australia.   I have noticed them on the drive from Melbourne to Adelaide and also at my mother's farm.

They are sensitive souls.  They suffer replanting badly.  To address this we planted them, still in their little bags, in a raised pile of soil.  That way they don't need to suffer the indignity of immersion in Someone Else's Ground.

They are so happy in this garden, we cannot believe our luck.

I secretly thought they would die within 6 months and yet here they are, growing away (2 millimetres a year - they live forever, like turtles or Californian redwoods), flowering with their pointy bit, and generally enjoying life in Melbourne. 

Now I need to work on the verandah which looks over the garden. It is an austere space, and really needs work.  ('Austere' here being an elegant way of saying hard, plain and not very attractive).  No photos, it would be a bit too depressing.

But one thing I am thinking about is to hang a mirror on the blank end wall, and maybe grow some ficus around it.  

It would create all kinds of exciting optical light and space illusions. 

A bit like these (but less cottagey):

 

(Images: (1) - (3) Jane (4) Holly Christian.com (5) Brownstoner.com (6) Cedric Bryant.com)

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Gorgeous Gingko

I have had quite some excitement this week. I have discovered that Marimekko makes a fabric print of my favourite tree. Here it is:

Isn't it exquisitely beautiful. Of course I can't imagine what I would do with it, perhaps cushions for the glass conservatory I don't have. But I am pleased someone out there loves the gingko as much as I do.

In my childhood home we had a gingko tree. It was tall, old and pointy. My brothers and I used to sit in a low branch, swinging our legs like peas in a pod. Sadly when we sold the house the new owners decided that they had to have a tennis court, and out went the tree. It was probably very old, because they grow slowly. I still feel just a little bit sad at the death of that wonderful tree.

Gingko fossils have been found, and it is believed that gingkos were plentiful when dinosaurs were wandering around. They are native to China but believed to be extinct in the wild. They survived only because they were planted by monks around Chinese and Japanese temples.

They are a wonderfully deciduous tree, whose leaves change from emerald green:

To bright yellow:

To blazing red:

When I was 9, in between obsessively reading Enid Blyton books, I used to lie in the sun on the grass and hold a leaf up to the sunlight and admire the beauty of the little variegated lines.

And finally, here is a gingko inspired poem written by Johann von Goethe (1749 - 1832) and dedicated to his lover. It symbolises the duality of love.

I don't think translation from German is required (what can't you read that?) - we can all just imagine the love in the lines.

Images (1) Finnish Design Shop (2) Universiteitsmuseum Utrecht (3) David GNS (4) (5) HiveMind (6) and (7) Kwanten (see 2) (who also runs a gingko blog.

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My daphne walk

Allow me a little boast.

Some plants just grow happily with no effort. Others just up and die on you without so much as a whimper or explanation. Into that latter category would fall:

1. our dwarf rhododendron plants which I think just took a set against us when they were planted.
2. the ajuga in certain shady places.
3. mint. I just can't grow it. I don't know why. People say it is basically a weed. How can I not grow a weed?
4. lavender. It seems to dry out and whither sadly, evaporating my dream of a French style border.
5. basil (actually I do know why, the snails eat it in the night).

In our garden we have nine daphne bushes planted along the right of the house next to the side pathway. I don't think I even really knew what daphne was when the gardener suggested planting them 8 years ago. We just said, oh okay whatever you think.

They have just come into flower. Such a lovely rich but astringent scent. When you walk past it wafts through the air, transporting me to another world.

People tell me daphne is hard to grow. But they just love it in our garden. We water and otherwise make no effort, and they thrive. Sometimes the stars are aligned and things just work out right.

Here they are viewed down the pathway.

And here is a close up of the lovely little budlets.

Why hasn't anyone created a daphne perfume? Or maybe they have and I just don't know about it. To answer my own question I have just googled daphne perfume and found a lovely post from March 2008 on Periodic Elements of Style where three different daphne perfumes are compared, from a Kai one to a $10 Demeter. The comparison is made, scientific-girl style, by smelling the perfume and then inhaling the fragrance of the real life plant. You can read this post here.

If there is one thing the wonderful world of the interweb teaches you, it is that if you have a peculiar eccentric or singular obsession, you are probably not alone.

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Monday Inspiration - boxwood lush green gardens

Anyone who grew up in Melbourne will tell you that it used to rain and rain and rain, for days on end.

Now, in Melbourne we are at stage 3A water restrictions and have been for more than 18 months. Stage 3A is a stage the government invented to avoid going to stage 4 (which would be quite bad electorally). It means you cannot water your lawns, use hoses to wash cars or use automated sprinkler systems. You may water your garden between 6 and 8 am two days a week.

Stage 4 means no watering of gardens at all. This would be a cruel fate for a city with lovely botanical gardens and passionate gardeners and the climate to support a wide range of amazing flora ranging from rhododendrons to kangaroo paw. Question for the government - why target gardeners, who use about 20% of the available water supply, and not industry, which uses more than 60%?

Most have got around the restrictions as we have by installing water tanks and dripper systems. We pulled up our front lawn and the huge liquid amber tree and now have a wonderful desert grass tree garden.

Our gardens have suffered much in the last few years. This was compouded by the bushfires and unbelievably hot temperatures last February, which actually scorched the leaves of our camellia trees.

Whilst I love our climate appropriate garden dearly, I miss lush green lawns. So here are some, from the US and France.

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One day, climate change notwithstanding, when and if it starts raining again in Melbourne on a regular basis, we will get all this back.

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