Long ago, when I started out gardening and imagined my spring flower shows to be like beautiful musical symphonies, I discovered that the hardest thing to do is to get the timing right.
I realised that symphonies were out, and jazz was in. While I'm not a jazz music aficionado, I realised that the way flowers do their thing each spring is much closer to jazz soloists taking their turn on stage while the rest of the band plays along behind them.
Right now, sticking to the jazz theme, my garden's musical band consists of yellow clivias on trumpets, pretty poppies on percussion and flannel flowers chiming in on vibraphone.
They look great and if only I had special ears that could hear what they're singing, I am sure it'd be a wonderful tune.
The yellow clivias are at their peak right now, and each year the clump is growing, with more trumpets playing for many weeks in spring.
The flannel flowers have been teasing Pammy and me with their "about to open" phase lasting a week now. There's lots of them, all so soft and furry, with pale green tips at the end of each petal.
They're growing in a largish pot and I consider it a job well done to have sheltered them through a whole cycle of Sydney seasons starting in winter last year. These native blooms thrive in light sandy soils, and we definitely don't have that in our garden, so a pot filled with native potting mix is my next best option.
Every year I plant poppies for Pammy, patiently waiting for punnets of Iceland poppies to appear at my garden center in autumn. The only thing I have learned is to crowd them in a bit closer than it says on the label, and to pinch out any early baby poppy flower stems and fertilise the daylights out of them so the leafy bases of the plants grow big and strong. Then, and only then, do I let them flower. I think it produces a slightly better show.
It's not quite true when I say I grow the poppies just for Pammy. I grow them for me, too. But as well as loving how they look in full bloom, my favorite sight is tired wet poppies in the morning. They look like pretty girls who've partied too hard but had a good time anyway.
And so that's this week's jazz band. Coming soon we'll enjoy solos put on by the Louisiana iris, New South Wales Christmas bush and half a fence full of mandevillas. They all do their own thing in their own good time, and I'm content playing my small part in keeping them happy and healthy, then sitting back and enjoying the show.
