If ever there’s a season when gardeners can have their cake and eat it too, it’s spring. Carpe diem, as my Latin teacher used to say, long before I had a clue what she (or the poet Horace for that matter) meant.
Horace goes on to tell us to disregard the future, but we gardeners have it both ways at this time of year. We love the garden as it bursts into life, but we can also enjoy the anticipation of beauty to come.
I’m currently seizing the day with my mahonias, which are all plastered with sprays of golden yellow flowers, crawling with bees and smelling of an overflowing pot of honey.
I have several of these tough, hardy shrubs, of which the earliest to bloom is an unnamed seedling I bought from a long ago school plant stall that I think is a hybrid of M. bealei - it has the characteristic upright branches and scented flowers in brush-like clusters. It grows on top of a dry stone wall to about waist height, suckers mildly and is happy in sun or shade.
My favourite mahonia is the Oregon Grape (M. aquifolium), similar in height but with glossier leaves and flowers in sprays. This shrub comprehensively disproves my theory that Australian gardeners struggle with plants from the wetter regions of the north-west USA, as it rarely falters other than in extreme drought.
Some mahonias (e.g. M. lomariifolia from Myanmar and western China) have weed potential so you may like to check with your local authority before investing in one.
Also flowering now and echoing the theme of gold is a lovely weeping small wattle, Hairy Wattle, (Acacia vestita). It has small, greyish leaves (technically phyllodes) currently almost invisible under the thick clusters of primrose yellow, scented flowers. It reaches around four metres, grows in most soils and is frost- and drought-hardy, what’s not to love?
All country gardens need at least one flowering may bush (Spiraea), they come with the territory. I specially love S. prunifolia ‘Plena’, partly because it grew in our first garden at Rockley and I was highly delighted with myself when I managed to identify it. This double flowering may is a slender, upright, deciduous shrub (1.5m) with stems wreathed in small, double white flowers before the glossy, oval shaped leaves appear. In autumn they turn brilliant orange and red. Happy in sun or shade, it makes a pretty hedge and is quick and easy from cuttings.
Having seized the day I’m now cautiously looking at what’s to come. Roses, lilacs and Beauty Bush (Kolkwitzia) are in bud, burgundy stems of peonies are pushing through the ground and my Californian Lilac (Ceanothus arboreus) is looking very chirpy. Let’s hope it rains soon.
Headsup: Fiona and Bill’s garden at St. Anthony’s Creek, near Bathurst will open as part of Bathurst Spring Spectacular (www.bathurstgardenclub.org.au/) October 27/28, 9.30am to 5pm. Entry $20 includes 10 gardens proceeds to local charities. Refreshments, music. Tickets available at all gardens or at Bathurst Visitor Information Centre. Details Heather, phone 0427470135.