It’s cold enough for snowflakes in Paluma! …and Peaches

Its been a pretty cold winter so far in Paluma and the flowers in our gardens are showing it. The weather app on my phone indicates that temperatures have been well below 10°C with a few nights below 5°C. Jonquils and Tulips are two of the cold loving flowers that can be seen growing and occasionally flowering in Paluma, but Len Cook has made me aware that we can grow another bulb normally found in southern climes –Leucojum sp or “Snowflakes”.

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Len has had a steadily growing clump of these for several years that he recently replanted them as a row along his fence and they have produced sprays of gorgeous white flowers. They are often misnamed “Snow Drops”, which are nearly identical, but Snowflakes can easily be distinguised by the small green dots near the end of each of the 6 petals. They are more tolerant of warm conditions compared to Snow Drops (Galanthus sp), but both are sufficiently cold tolerant to be seen poking out of the spring snow in full flower in temperate regions.

Snowflakes are native to central and southern Europe but have become naturalised in North America and Australia)

Len’s snowflakes appear to be the Spring Snowflake (Leucojum vernum). The other species found in southern gardens is the larger Summer Snowflake (Leucojum aestivum).

In addition to temperate bulbs, Paluma is also able to grow stone fruit in the form of “tropical” peaches which, despite their name, require at least a short period of cold weather to flower and bear fruit. There at least 3 residences which have flowering peach trees in Paluma at present. While the beautiful pink flowers are a delightful addition to any garden I am told that birds and native rats benefit the most from any fruit that are produced. However I gather one resident has been able to harvest enough to make peach jam one year.