A Pose Between Two Thorns

Everything In Nature Serves Its Purpose

Photographs copyright: DAVID McMAHON

About 10 years ago, Mrs Authorblog and I were buying a rose bush to give to a friend who loves gardening. As we browsed around the nursery, I suddenly noticed that there was a sign proclaiming a new variety of thornless roses.

I was intrigued, for a variety of reasons. Why would anyone want to breed a rose without thorns? More to the point, would the cost of the research and the experimentation actually result in commercial success?

Then I remembered what had happened about 18 years ago, when nurseries bean stocking a new variety of ground-cover rose called the Flower Carpet rose. I was lucky enough to get one of the first, as a special promotion - and it was an incredible success.

Over the years, I have bought several more of the Flower Carpet roses. They fall into my special category of PNF plants - Plant N Forget, because they take care of themselves, need no attention at all and provide great colour for most of the year.

But as far as I know, the thornless roses haven't been a huge seller here. Guess why? Because roses have thorns for a very simple reason. The large, sharp thorns protect the huge, scented blooms. Roses without thorns, I guess, would be susceptible to just about anything.

I haven't yet found a creepy-crawly that is brave enough to tackle a rose bush. Ever wondered why rose thorns point downwards? To deter pests, that's why.

Visit Luiz Santilli Jr for the home of Today's Flowers.

Daisy, Daisy, Give Me Your Dancer, Do

I'm Half Crazy, All For The Sight Of You

Photographs copyright: DAVID McMAHON

Here in Melbourne as we enter our third week in the six-month period of daylight saving, the weather is starting to hit the 30-degree mark (and we’re talking Celsius here). The long evenings are bringing out the best in the garden and with our severe water restrictions, I’m glad we planted wisely.

When we built this house, I spent hours happily sketching the garden out of nothing. I planned the sweeping, curved driveway to take in the gentle arc of a pathway leading to a gate that existed only in my imagination.

As the house took shape, so did my sketch-pad garden. Fortuitously, I chose hardy plants that would provide vivid colour but that would require little or no water. The northern perimeter of our property is a fairly long frontage and at the moment it is a riot of colour.

The first photograph shows the mature bushes of soft pink African daisies. The second shows the giant white daisies that are interspersed among the flower-carpet roses, azaleas and a mixture of ground cover.

You’re wondering what the background colour is, aren’t you? You’re curious about the intense scarlet splashes, right?

Here they are, up close. The distinctive colour that is coaxed by the sun into a wide, striking carpet is a simple little plant that we call "pigface". I call them PNF plants. That's not scientific jargon. If you want to know what it signifies, it's simply "plant 'n' forget" - because you smply plant it and then forget all about it.

At this time of the year, with the Spring Racing Carnival in full swing, the pigface is the gardening equivalent of a neon sign.

Visit Luiz Santilli Jr for the home of Today's Flowers.