The parade has begun. My snowdrops have started to flower.
I’m talking here, of course, about the true snowdrop of the genus Galanthus – short, and one pendulous flower to a stem – and not the much taller snowflake (Leucojum sp.)
The most evident of them here, by dint of their number, is the double ‘Lavinia’ of which the late (and great) Otto Fauser gave me a few bulbs about thirty years ago. There are now hundreds of their hanging aeroplane-propeller heads scattered around the garden. Click here for more on a comparison of snowdrop forms and species – including a note from Otto about his 80 or so different forms for 2012.
But they’re the first of a long and joyous march of bulbs that starts slowly, builds to a great fortissimo peak in October, then slowly fades as summer sets in.
It’s a cycle of which I’ll never tire. And it has started. Again.
What I’m doing in the garden, and why now?
What I absolutely must do, if not today then tomorrow, is implement my crocus preservation procedure. Every few years the crocuses in the lawn attract the attention of sulphur-crested cockatoos, or their companions, the long-billed corellas, that dig for their bulbs like they do the Romulea rosea in the surrounding paddocks, leaving the thinly-grassed surface like a rumpled doona. They’re welcome to the romulea (sometimes called onion grass, and a terrible weed of pastures), but I’m keen to keep my crocuses.
My only strategy, which has so far worked on all but one occasion, is to fill a two litre milk bottle (being the approximate size of an adult cocky) with water, wrapping it in a white plastic bag, and leaving it near the emerging bulbs. Call it deterrence, or call it terrorism – call it what you like – but it has so far mostly worked to keep the cockies away. But I must do it now, when the first flowers are just starting to show.
Do you have to protect your bulbs from birds? How do you manage it? (Comment below).
Do you grow any of those giant-flowered magnolias, like Vulcan, or Black Tulip? I find it curious, and strangely pleasing, that they were bred in New Zealand, though, of course, of northern hemisphere parentage. The garden of the breeders (above), just out of New Plymouth, was described to me by Rachel Matthews (@hedge.garden.design.nursery) as ‘like Ninfa, without the ruins’. I managed to see it a few days later, and her description was magically accurate, with crystalline creeks winding their way through tree-studded meadows. I had to talk the owner into letting me bring a group this year, as for several reasons they’re pulling back from opening it. But I managed it, and can’t wait to get back there!
You really should be there with us. Click here for more info.
Have a great week
Michael
Main pic – Galanthus ’S. Arnott’
I, too, have problems with cockat0os nipping off the developing flower heads of Tall Bearded Irises & shredding the leaves. I’ve found by experience that leaving rough grass around the plants stops the cockatoos from landing. It doesn’t look pretty but it works.
fascinating. I wonder what worries them about long grass? I actually kind of like the image… tall irises apparently arising from grass…
Years ago, when I did gardens in the Midwestern USA my clients would often want drifts of daffodils/crocus/scilla in their yards. To protects them from digging squirrels and chipmunks I would pin chickenwire into the lawn. It always worked.
So it’s just pinned flush, and then becomes invisible (or at least invisible-ash?)
Very invisible.
Most of my bulbs are in pots and when they are newly planted I put upturned, empty, wire hanging baskets (usually verge finds) over them. This stops the birds and also puts the rats off digging for bulbs.
grand idea. I used hanging basket frames to protect young ornamental grasses, that were pure caviar to kangas and rabbits. I loved that they’d mow them off into the perfect dome of the protective covering, but not be able to get at the growing points.