Welcoming the Chamelaucium: The Start of Waxflower Season in California

Like clockwork… just before the winter solstice, we’re seeing first hints of spring begin to grace the fields, one of our favorite seasons is upon us: Chamelaucium season! This aromatic beauty, often referred to as waxflower, bursts onto the scene with a delightful array of colors and fragrances that signal the arrival of a new season.

Originating from Australia, these delicate, cup-shaped accent flowers ranging in hues from soft pinks, whites to deep purples and even bi-colors. Beyond their aesthetic appeal, waxflowers are also cherished for their unique waxy petals, which create a stunning visual while providing longevity in floral designs.

Waxflowers typically begin their bloom in early winter and continue to flourish through the spring, making January to June a particularly delightful time for designers. As temperatures rise, we see a flourishing of color across the fields. The warmer inland valley provides ideal growing conditions for these resilient plants.

Whether used as the star of the show or simply mingled in mixed bouquets, waxflowers bring a fresh, earthy scent and texture that’s simply irresistible. Their compatibility with other spring blooms, such as protea, pincushions, and leucadendron, makes them an ideal filler flower for creating lavish bouquets and centerpieces that celebrate the season.

In the language of flowers, waxflower symbolizes a love of fortune and a yearning for independence. Given its delicate yet resilient nature, it’s often associated with hope, freedom, and new beginnings. Whether you’re using it for a wedding bouquet, an event, or a thoughtful gift, waxflower can add a layer of meaning to your arrangements.

Care Tips for Waxflower 

To get the most out of your waxflower arrangements, it’s essential to understand how to properly care for these delicate blooms. Here are a few tips: 

• Hydration: Always re-cut stems at an angle before placing them in water. This ensures proper hydration and longevity. 
• Temperature: Keep arrangements in a cool environment away from direct sunlight, which can quickly wilt the blooms. 
• Cleaning: Change the water regularly and remove any wilting flowers or foliage.

Waxflower, with its delicate petals and fragrant aroma inspires creativity and adds depth to your work. With the right care and a thoughtful approach, Chamelaucium can elevate floral creations, leaving a lasting impression on all who encounter it.

So next time you’re looking to add that special touch to your floral designs, don’t overlook the charm of waxflower. Embrace its beauty and versatility.

Leucadendron Harvest

We cheerfully brave the frigid start to winter knowing the promise of bright, colorful Leucadendron are on the way. Each year, this hardy, long-lasting foliage puts on quite a spectacular winter display. Day by day, the show gets better and better as the plants take on warm hues of white, cream, yellow, orange and red. Over 80 known varieties of Leucadendron exist, and all share the same emphasis: the beauty of their foliage. Today’s inspiration: Leucadendron Harvest!

Harvest is an Australian-raised cultivar that originated from an ‘accidental seedling’ of L. stelligerum. And it is obvious why this Leucadendron is reveled for its colorful ‘daisy-like’ blooms that are so flamboyantly displayed. The sheer volume of the flowers makes for a delightful winter show. Harvest’s colorful petals or bracts take on soft creamy-yellow and white hues with a splash of rusty-orange on the edges surrounding the rich yellow, orange + green cone that is nestled among the bracts.

Leucadendron Harvest has a way of eliciting oohs and aahs not only in the field but in floral designs as well!

Simply Gorgeous!

Protea Pink Duke

Spring is a long way off, but if you could use a winter pick-me-up, we have the perfect antidote. Pink Duke… a bright, cheery and vibrant protea. This lovely cultivar produces large, rose-pink blooms with a light pink central dome and white feathery tips. Pink Duke has the soft green leaves of the P. magnifica (queen) and the clear velvety, pink flower of the P. Trish Compacta.

Pink Duke blooms winter through early spring, delivering a bounty of beauty, love and joy from new years, right into Valentine’s Day.

There is no doubt that Pink Duke brings an abundance of winter cheer in the fields. But once harvested, arranged, and mixed with an array of other gorgeous florals, they are simply contagious!

Creating Magical Holiday Ambience: Proteas & Candles

What do you get when you pair seasonal proteas and the warm glow of candles? The perfect holiday ambience, of course. Together, they evoke not just elegance and romance, but they unite the powers of the mind, body and spirit. The proteas’ textural styles and colorful bracts add an interesting contrast to the subtle lighting created by candles. There's definitely a seasonal seduction, too. When you use an array of winter proteaceae, like Serruria, Leucadendron, Protea, Grevillea and Banksia, you're celebrating the glories of nature. Plus, festive scented candles provide winter-like aromas (cinnamon, gingerbread, vanilla and pine) that enhance your mood and feelings of calm and tranquility.

No matter what the occasion… Christmas, Hanukkah or Just Because, striking centerpieces adorned with candles cast a lovely light over the table and deliver all the merry-makings for a magical day.

In the Field: Leucospermum Spider

As protea season winds down at the end of winter, Leucospermum ‘Pincushions’ take center stage in the fields offering up vibrant blooms that put on a quite a show from now into May.

While we all love the more traditional Leucospermum cordifoliums like Sunrise, Succession and Flame Giant, the Spiders have a few of their own advantages. They start blooming in winter which means more of us can enjoy them with a mix of other proteas. And since they produce flowers in masses on long, straight stems, you’re pretty much assured a blooming great show. Finally, it’s one 'Spider' that won't give anyone the creeps!

This lovely hybrid Leucopermum with its delicate hues is a mix of L. tottum and formosum, with the tottum parentage especially obvious. The salmon-pink to mauve flowers and with red tipped stamens are 5 to 6” wide. Spiders are a wonderful alternative if you’re color palette calls for blooms in shades of pink long after protea season has finished.

Spiders are being harvested right now and as you can see... they’re simply stunning in seasonal bouquets and arrangements.

Prettying-Up Your Winter Haven

If there is ever a season to create your own arrangements, it’s winter. You can easily take the chill out of the day by selecting stems of seasonal flowers and foliage and displaying them in a simple container. Creating a warm and cozy ambiance is effortless when you have the pick of fabulous florals, like Protea, Banksia, Leucadendron, Grevillea, plus lush, textural greens. Need a few additional tips to help boost your winter bliss? 1. The brighter the better 2. Choose an array of interesting shapes and textures.

Some of my favorite centerpiece ideas don't require you to go out and buy a new container — utilizing an old ceramic planter, a galvanized bucket, or even a cardboard flower box will help you create an eye-catching arrangement. Winter arrangements call for awesome blossoms, which means you can feel good about using ordinary elements to help style your centerpiece.

Cheers to prettying-up your winter haven!

Leucospermum – Pincushion Blanchito

It is that time of the year once again when our pincushion fields start to look like fireworks displays that were pulled right out of the sky and tossed onto the steep hillsides. And when it comes to the most ‘Eye-Catching’ display, there’s no doubt Leucospermum Blanchito takes first prize for its dazzling color and texture.

There’s nothing more breathtaking than a field full of blooms in rich reddish-orange and golden hues, each flower, large with a diameter of almost 6 inches. This pincushion is one of the new hybrids from the University of Hawaii's research project on Maui. A gorgeous selection that is a mix of 75 % Leucospermum lineare, and vestitum making up the balance of its family line. Blancito is extremely prolific, long stemmed and has a very good vase life.

In the Field: Protea Trish Compacta

Spring may be a long way off, but if you could use a winter pick-me-up right this minute, we have the perfect antidote. A gorgeous protea cultivar that’s certain to boost your spirits and take the chill out of a cold winter day.

Trish Compacta! Think Pink and so velvety soft (don’t you just want to reach out & feel those satiny petals?). This protea is a wonderful mix of compacta and laurifolia with the classic flawless-colored floral bracts in a rich pink (like compacta) and silvery-white highlights that surround the same pink colored center dome. Trish Compacta blooms winter through early spring… which means you should be enjoying them, umm right now!

When harvested and mixed with other proteas (and some textural Berzelia), there’s no doubt Trish Compacta delivers nature's best remedy to cure the winter blues.

Leucadendron Senorita

New year, new preferences! There's no better time to switch up your Leucadendron favorites than at the start of a brand-new year. If you have been sourcing the same varieties for years (like Safari Sunset or Jester), and you want step outside of your comfort zone and experiment with something new… winter through early spring is the best time to do it. As the weather gets colder, Leucadendron seemingly ‘wake up’ and make superb winter flowers in a variety of colors and textures. With the season’s abundance of this fabulous foliage, we turn to a ‘newbie’ here on the farm.

Leucadendron Senorita… a simply stunning and mesmerizing hybrid! The flowering bracts go through a succession of color stages as they mature, from crimson blushes on a creamy hue to bright pink-burgundy tones. Masses of breathtaking blooms are displayed on very long straight stems.

And for a little history… Senorita is thought to be a combination of Leucadendron salignum and discolor. This amazing plant was developed in South Africa in the 1990’s by Gail Littlejohn, a protea pioneer, and named by a New Zealand farmer who cultivated it for the floral industry.

It’s no secret that we think Leucadendron should definitely be receiving a lot more LOVE this year… after all, switching up your favorites it a great way to boost your mood and inspire even more creativity.