Scottish Rock Garden Club Forum

General Subjects => Flowers and Foliage Now => Topic started by: fermi de Sousa on October 11, 2010, 08:51:08 AM

Title: Flowers by the Roadside 2010
Post by: fermi de Sousa on October 11, 2010, 08:51:08 AM
I think we had a thread with this sort of title awhile ago but thought I'd start a new one after taking some pics a bit over a week ago.
We stopped along the roadside at a coupe of places on the way back from Bendigo. I posted pics from here last year of these "wild" Sparaxis outside a garden fence. Alas they mowed the area before the seeds were ripe!  :'( Maybe this year they'll be lazy! ;D
cheers
fermi

Title: Re: Flowers by the Roadside 2010
Post by: fermi de Sousa on October 11, 2010, 09:09:19 AM
Next we got pics of more "feral South Africans" - gazanias by the thousand!
Title: Re: Flowers by the Roadside 2010
Post by: Gerdk on October 11, 2010, 09:15:10 AM
Next we got pics of more "feral South Africans" - gazanias by the thousand!

Great - much better than our dandelions by the million!

Gerd
Title: Re: Flowers by the Roadside 2010
Post by: Arykana on October 11, 2010, 09:17:14 AM
 :o I have to pay a fortunes fot those gazanias here  :o  :D
Title: Re: Flowers by the Roadside 2010
Post by: fermi de Sousa on October 11, 2010, 09:20:31 AM
Erika, we can send you seeds! ;D
Gerd, more colourful but almost as wide-spread!

Later we found some of our native flowers as well!
Acacias,
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Hibbertia
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Pink Lady Fingers Orchid (Caladenia sp)
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and in purple
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"Early Nancy", Wurumbea sp,
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"Wax-lip Orchid" Glossodia sp.
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cheers
fermi
Title: Re: Flowers by the Roadside 2010
Post by: mark smyth on October 11, 2010, 09:22:17 AM
My first love was the Gazania. I have never had seed on mine
Title: Re: Flowers by the Roadside 2010
Post by: fermi de Sousa on October 11, 2010, 09:27:45 AM
My first love was the Gazania. I have never had seed on mine

If you like some, Mark, I can collect a few...hundred/thousand!

We also found a "Donkey orchid" - Diuris sp.
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Disappointingly, some people don't see the beauty of the bush along the roadside - it's just a place to dump their rubbish >:(
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This colony of a few dozen Wax-lips were growing up through this trash.
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cheers
fermi
Title: Re: Flowers by the Roadside 2010
Post by: Arykana on October 11, 2010, 09:41:15 AM
Erika, we can send you seeds! ;D

can you? I think you not, because the Australian law  :(
Title: Re: Flowers by the Roadside 2010
Post by: Maggi Young on October 11, 2010, 09:50:49 AM
Erika, we can send you seeds! ;D

can you? I think you not, because the Australian law  :(
Take heart, Erika.... the Australian restrictions are for seeds going into Australia, not out f the country!  :)
Title: Re: Flowers by the Roadside 2010
Post by: Arykana on October 11, 2010, 09:58:07 AM
good news!  ;D
Title: Re: Flowers by the Roadside 2010
Post by: cohan on October 11, 2010, 07:25:39 PM
I think we had a thread with this sort of title awhile ago but thought I'd start a new one after taking some pics a bit over a week ago.
We stopped along the roadside at a coupe of places on the way back from Bendigo. I posted pics from here last year of these "wild" Sparaxis outside a garden fence. Alas they mowed the area before the seeds were ripe!  :'( Maybe this year they'll be lazy! ;D
cheers
fermi

you have a better class of weed than i do--mine are nearly all escaped forage crops or imported agricultural pests (there are escaped garden plants, but not much around here).
nice to see a few natives have managed to survive!!
Title: Re: Flowers by the Roadside 2010
Post by: Lesley Cox on October 11, 2010, 07:51:47 PM
They're beautiful Fermi, whether native or not. When I had a Dactylorhiza seedling appear in the grass outside my gate a couple of years ago a fellow-Forumist was worried in case it spread and became a noxious weed. Either someone took it or it died a natural death as it hasn't appeared since.

On the Mt Macedon road we saw dead (large) kangaroos on the side of the road. Someone had spray-painted them with the words "slow down." Being so big, it was like seeing a large dog, a labrador say, having been hit by a car. Perhaps commonplace for country Australians but I found it very sad.
Title: Re: Flowers by the Roadside 2010
Post by: daveyp1970 on October 11, 2010, 08:18:46 PM
i wouldn't mind some of the Sparaxis seed fermi if you managed to get any love the dark ones they are stunning,what a weed? ;D
Title: Re: Flowers by the Roadside 2010
Post by: angie on October 11, 2010, 08:47:47 PM
Really lovely, wish our roadsides were like that, instead we have prickly bushes ( brambles ) and nettles.
I planted my Gazanias in my chuckie paths, they have done well. 

Angie :)
Title: Re: Flowers by the Roadside 2010
Post by: fermi de Sousa on October 11, 2010, 11:10:35 PM
Hi Erika,
send me your address in a PM and I'll try to remember to collect some gazania seed for you and Mark.
Davey,
likewise for the sparaxis seed, though more likely from the home garden!

This morning I stopped on the way to work and got these pics of vinca and iris; the iris are known locally as "Settlers' White" (probably Iris albicans) and "Settlers' Blue" (? Florentine iris?) and date back to the Gold Rush period of the 1850's.
cheers
fermi
Title: Re: Flowers by the Roadside 2010
Post by: Ezeiza on October 12, 2010, 12:09:58 AM
Fermi, those irises are there from seed?
Title: Re: Flowers by the Roadside 2010
Post by: fermi de Sousa on October 12, 2010, 02:37:37 AM
Hi Alberto,
I've never noticed any seed-pods on these - but I can't say that I'd been looking for them, either. I think they have just spread by vegetative increase and possibly from the area being cultivated/ploughed which might've spread the rhizomes around. A lot of people in the area also grow them in their gardens, mostly "harvested" from these feral populations.
cheers
fermi
Title: Re: Flowers by the Roadside 2010
Post by: Ezeiza on October 12, 2010, 03:17:17 AM
Thanks, Fermi, I was thinking of obtaining Iris albicans and I. "florentina" virus free!
Title: Re: Flowers by the Roadside 2010
Post by: Rogan on October 12, 2010, 08:28:52 AM
I love your "weeds" Fermi - I wish they would naturalize to the same extent in this country!

These two species of Albuca grow in fair numbers alongside the roads in the southern Cape. They grow unmolested so must be unpalatable to livestock. I have yet to identify the species:
Title: Re: Flowers by the Roadside 2010
Post by: Arykana on October 12, 2010, 10:16:35 AM
Hi Erika,
send me your address in a PM and I'll try to remember to collect some gazania seed for you

Thank you!

is there a lucky somebody to have Zantedeschia as weed in the neighborhood?
Title: Re: Flowers by the Roadside 2010
Post by: fleurbleue on October 12, 2010, 10:40:09 AM
Yes, me ! but not as a weed  ;D I send  to you a PM  ;)
Title: Re: Flowers by the Roadside 2010
Post by: fermi de Sousa on October 12, 2010, 11:07:22 PM
These two species of Albuca grow in fair numbers alongside the roads in the southern Cape. They grow unmolested so must be unpalatable to livestock. I have yet to identify the species:
Hi Rogan,
the first one looks like A. maxima which we have growing in our garden; it's still in bud here.
cheers
fermi
Title: Re: Flowers by the Roadside 2010
Post by: Arykana on October 13, 2010, 06:36:02 AM
Yes, me ! but not as a weed  ;D I send  to you a PM  ;)

thank you so much!  but I just was envious, green and jealous to have such an expensive and beautiful weeds you have there  ;D
Title: Re: Flowers by the Roadside 2010
Post by: Arykana on October 13, 2010, 06:40:29 AM
(http://i69.photobucket.com/albums/i76/arykana/zslya.jpg) this is my offer  from June ;D
Title: Re: Flowers by the Roadside 2010
Post by: fleurbleue on October 13, 2010, 08:25:42 AM
It's not so bad Arykana  ;D !
Title: Re: Flowers by the Roadside 2010
Post by: Onion on October 13, 2010, 09:19:02 PM
Arykana,

is this a Salvia nemrosa? A secret love of mine  ;D
Title: Re: Flowers by the Roadside 2010
Post by: Arykana on October 14, 2010, 06:28:39 AM
realy? Salvia pratensis, growing all over the field
would you  like a bite of root?
Title: Re: Flowers by the Roadside 2010
Post by: fermi de Sousa on October 14, 2010, 11:09:51 PM
I got a few more pics last evening.
Firstly there are a few embankments along the way home where the "pink bells" are a blaze of...purple!
Tetratheca ciliata
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Here the tetratheca is growing through a mat of Pultanea pedunculata which will later be a solid mat of yellow/red or orange,
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Further along in a sunnier area, but still damp underfoot, the sad glad, Gladiolus tristis is building up to a nice colony!
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cheers
fermi
Title: Re: Flowers by the Roadside 2010
Post by: Maggi Young on October 15, 2010, 10:09:53 AM
With roadside like these to admire I wonder you folks ever get anywhere.... I'd be sitting on the verge just looking at the flowers!
Title: Re: Flowers by the Roadside 2010
Post by: Paul T on October 15, 2010, 01:25:44 PM
Good grief, Fermi.  You have fascinating weeds in your area.  Nothing like that here, although the Gazanias colonise nature strips all over the place around here (and I love them).  I too can contribute seeds if people are looking for them, as they seed happily around here all over the place and providing no-one mows them I should be able to collect seed.  Yours are a better range of colours though I think..... I do like the pinks in there.  And those wonderful orchids...... I would love some of each thanks.  ;D ;D ;D ;)

Fascinating to see the Tetratheca as well.  Both times I've been down to visit Victoria I've seen things in the area that I find fascinating to see in the wild.  This time it was the Epacris impressa flowering madly in the burnt out areas that remain from the big fires in the last few years.  And of course along the highway as we were heading down to Melbourne.  I would have loved to have seen the orchids in the wild.  So cool.

Thanks for showing us your local weeds. :)
Title: Re: Flowers by the Roadside 2010
Post by: Onion on October 16, 2010, 09:50:15 AM
realy? Salvia pratensis, growing all over the field
would you  like a bite of root?

Arykana,

I know Salvia pratensis from the meadows here around, but only single ones.
Not in this wonderful blue cushions. Is there a heavy, nutrient-rich soil in your area? We have only light, sandy and nutrient-poor soil, so this is the difference.
Title: Re: Flowers by the Roadside 2010
Post by: Arykana on October 16, 2010, 01:35:43 PM
the soil  is calcereous and clayey - all the Salvias and sages love here - I took a bush home
Title: Re: Flowers by the Roadside 2010
Post by: Onion on October 16, 2010, 06:03:35 PM
So I'm not surprised to see blue cushions of Salvia growing on the meadows.
But we all dream of what we not have and see in other places.
Title: Re: Flowers by the Roadside 2010
Post by: Arykana on October 16, 2010, 06:40:02 PM
yes, this is how we are working ;) my weeds are your wish and the same is beck   :D I just wonder if somebody would like to buy the dandelions from my garden. they are cheap   ;D  ::)
Title: Re: Flowers by the Roadside 2010
Post by: JPB on October 27, 2010, 02:00:24 PM
I enjoy these southern hemisphere roadside pictures so very much!!
Never been there and now at least I have an impression! It is almost like driving there in my own car!!
Thanks a lot! Keep them coming! :) :)
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