Wattle? Mimosa? Or Acacia?

"Wattle?" "Mimosa?" "Acacia?" Call it what you like, it's gold and it's Australia's national floral emblem.  In early August the hills surrounding our valley are splashed with gold and with over a dozen local Acacia species growing on the property the spectacle goes on for weeks.

Increasing numbers of wattles have regenerated in the bushland areas of The Drip since we fenced cattle out of these once-degraded areas. The extreme damage of the past is slowly being undone and the land is healing.

The grove of wattle in this photo is on the track that leads to The Cliff Top Walk.  For more information on this 3-hour  bush-walk click here

What's Blooming This Week?

Though  jonquils of course have blooming for a few weeks already, these daffodils are the first to flower of many varieties that we have planted in The Old Orchard.

They began almost a fortnight ago, way ahead of any other. 

We are not sure what variety they but have tagged them for division this season.

Propagating Box for the Parterre Garden

Our original stock of Dwarf Box, Buxus sempervirens suffricticosa, is being increased by cuttings in The Shadehouse.

In order to complete Clive's design for the new parterre garden we will need 400-500 new plants, so this represents a substantial cost saving for this project.  And of course we have many other projects, needing many, many new plants.

Propagation has been made much more reliable by recent improvements Clive undertook  in The Shadehouse,  particularly the installation of a new watering system with drip trays and timers. Delicate young plants will die in a few hours without water and in the past we have lost many hundreds of plants because of this.  The timers should help avoid similar catastrophes in the future.  It is important however to check the batteries regularly as these can go flat quite rapidly.  To see more on propagating plants in The Shadehouse click here

Axial Design in The House Gardens

The Long Axis running through The Espaliery,  The Cut Flower Garden, The West Wing Garden and The Western Terrace intersects with the Minor Axis that runs though The Main Courtyard, The Water Walk and The West Wing Garden.  These two axes underpin the entire design structure of The House Gardens

The Minor Axis terminates with this "eye catcher" in the West Wing Garden which will feature a beautiful old bas-relief plaque and a wall basin with a water spout.

To see more about axial design in the House Gardens click here

Laying out The Parterre Garden

Clive has been designing a new parterre in the West Wing Garden.  A "parterre"  is a formal garden construction on a level surface consisting of planting beds edged in tightly clipped hedging.   Strictly speaking a parterre will feature gravel paths, but in this garden we might maintain the grass paths.

Marking out the parterre with bricks before planting the dwarf Box, Buxus sempervirens suffriticosa, that will form the final design is enabling this garden to be created with a high degree of geometric precision.

This parterre will be such a strong feature that perhaps we should change the name of this garden to The Parterre Garden? To see more about this garden on our website click here

Is the Pollarded Plane Tree OK?

The Plane tree in The Main Courtyard that was pollarded in early June is showing no signs of life yet. When will it develop new buds to replace those it lost during pollarding?.

If all goes according to plan we will see up to two metres of growth in the coming season.  This will create  a dense, shade-giving canopy by mid-summer.

The branches will also begin thickening up and the characteristic knobs of a pollarded tree will beginning forming on the ends of the branches enhancing the dramatic sculptural form of the tree for next winter.

What's Blooming This Week?

The camellia tree in The Old Cottage Garden has just started to bloom. The huge old tree can be seen on the right of the path in the photo posted in yesterday's blog entry. There are literally thousands of buds this year and soon the entire tree will be covered with blossom.  With a few unseasonably warm days, the bees are out and about and loving the blooms.

This tree was planted here in the late nineteenth century and local legend has it that it was a cutting from the first camellia in Australia.  This seems unlikely but has inspired us nonetheless to develop an historically themed collection of camellias in The Camellia Grove.

We need someone to identify the original variety in The Old Cottage Garden.   Help please.  A few bottles of excellent Mudgee red wine will go to whoever can correctly identify it first. For more on The Camellia Grove at The Drip click here