These Sarracenia pitcher plants sit in a window planter that otherwise would hold only white stones. The location is good as they catch insects that might otherwise fly in to the living room (like most eastern Sydney housing we don’t have screens and the doors are open most of the time while we are home). They are also interesting to look over, with their form and red veining. Potting is crucial for all the carnivorous plants. Sarracenias like to have cool wet roots, and fertilizer or salt buildup is certain…
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Salad Burnet
Maybe it’s because we don’t have a hard winter to kill it back, but the salad burnet ends up being a thick mass of old leaves, which are too coarse to eat. So a month ago it was time for a hard trim. A week later it was coming back with plenty of fresh leaves. And now at four weeks there is enough to start using for salads, and it is sending up flower scapes, which I should probably trim too. The flowers are insignificant and i don’t want it…
Read MoreLast Phalaenopsis
The Phals have been rewarding this year, now that I’ve found the secret to flowering is to keep them indoors for June to August. With the oldies augmented with a couple of newbies that were too good to pass by, they’ve been giving indoor colour for many months, and should continue till Christmas. Next up will be the burgundy Oncimium, I’m guessing in January.
Read MoreSage
The sage is coming back after winter dormancy, always keenly anticipated by me because I like it so much. First we get the pretty blue flowers, then the new shoots and the leaves that are so useful. It’s certainly a strongly flavoured herb, and it’s toned down by cooking, but I like just to chew a leaf off the bush occasionally. It’s pretty tough in Sydney, can suffer a bit from the wet in Summer, so a pot with sandy mix is good. Mine is a bunch of plants, just…
Read MoreOrange Phalaenopsis
Orange flowers seem a little unorthodox for a Phalaenopsis, but they’re lovely just the same. I might try crossing with a standard pink and white, a long-term project but who knows what would result? This year this one is flowering on a new winter spike, and off last year’s spike at the same time. It seems that these flowers are always relatively small.
Read MoreThyme and chives
Two herbs that are essential to have on hand to pick, thyme and chives do well together in a big tub with full sun. Both are over the late winter dormancy now, and the thyme is full of flowers which bring bees when the day warms up. I divided the thyme from a big seedling pot from a nursery, and got one upright plant, with the rest low spreading. The chives grow happily in the middle.
Read MoreDendrobium nobile
I’ve finally sussed this orchid, and it’s responded with a mass flowering, just coming on now with faintly hyacinth-scented blooms. It’s got an unusual growth habit and wanes slowly if it’s not maintained. The new stems shoot from the base in Spring, grow with handsome leaves for 18 months, then drop their leaves and are bare, but succulent, through their second Winter. They need a slight chill, then in late Winter the bare stems send out flower spikes. The secret to them seems to be that they need to be…
Read MorePitcher plants
These pitcher plants (Sarracenia) are an interesting feature for a window planting box. In early spring they send up these uniquely shaped flowers, which get a lot of comment. I’ve got two types; a tall thin pitcher (the classic type, flower below) and a large, low, ‘huntsmans cup’ type (flower above). The flowers come as the last season’s leaves are dying back, so for best effect I would cut all the old pitchers back. I’m a little surprised they do so well in this warm climate, but they’re easy with…
Read MorePhalaenopsis, blotchy purple
Now the spring flowers are starting, on new stems that shot in early winter. The first winter in the mini greenhouse seems to have given big flowers, although a few buds fell. I wonder whether losing buds is due to the occasional over-warm day in there. I like this one for its semi-random, asymmetric blotches.
Read MoreDendrobium kingianum, large form
Although very different in form to the little pink rock orchid, posted a few weeks ago, this seems to be just a different cultivar of Dendrobium kingianum. It has striking tall stems and is beautiful just as a foliage plant. The flowers are only a little bigger than the pink form, and they come a little later. It sends up a new set of stems after flowering. Very easy going. This year it will fill the pot, so I’ll see how it responds to crowding.
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