[Photos] Lechenaultia formosa and the wolf spider burrow.

[moonvoice]

Two photos today,
the garden is starting to liven up again,
as it moves into Winter.
Three of the grevilleas are starting,
and three of the Acacias look like they're gearing up,
and the Lechenaultia formosa has already started to flower.


Lechenaultia formosa - Really that red.





Wolf Spider burrow. I see the (very pretty) wolf spider sometimes in the evenings when I'm watering. Wolf spiders make burrows like these in stabilised dunes or sandy substrates in Perth, which is basically what we have. The raised 'fence' of web prevents wind-blown sand easily entering the burrow, and deters other ground predators like centipedes and millipedes.

Comments

[silverjackal]

Your flowers are lovely (and I like the statue as well). I also really like the photo of the spider burrow. I should try to get a photo of the funnel spider webs we have here. In the early morning they glisten with dew drops.

[moonvoice]

I'd love to see the webs! I find them wonderful, though the messy red-back webs always make me cringe a little bit (silly Ellenbrook and its red-back infestations).

[spider_fox]

Heh, it's so odd to think of plants blooming more as Winter comes closer. But they're really pretty flowers, so I'm glad they do. Plus that wolf spider's home decor is really ingenious, you don't see the lycosids doing that around here (for logical reasons, there's no blowing sand where I live except for the dunes, and the lycosids live in rock crevices there instead).

Btw, I finally saw a pair of Black swans at a local zoo (2 females, but one behaved as a male). They're so TINY for being swans! The dominant female kept getting ruffled up and coming after me with posturing, and I'm like "dude, really? You're pretty and making cute noises, you cannot scare me!".

[bunny_m]

They're so TINY for being swans!

Really? The black swans around here are pretty big, IMO. They're at least goose-sized. (Maybe our geese are small too?)

Of course, we don't get white swans around here to compare them to...

*ponders*

[Edited to add:]
Heh, it's so odd to think of plants blooming more as Winter comes closer.

Well, around here at least, Summer is when things die off, aestivate/lower activity so as to survive the heat and dry of Summer.

Winters are pretty darn mild*, and late Autumn/Winter/early Spring is when we get the vast majority of our rain.

(*) We never get snow, nor much in the way of ice, even in the depths of winter, so there's not a lot of the killing cold that large chunks of northern hemisphere Western/First World countries have as an integral part of their seasonal cycle.

[moonvoice]

If you've ever seen a cape barren goose stalking around, you wouldn't say our geese our small! *g*

[fred_mouse]

They might be small, but they can leave nasty bruises.

[moonvoice]

bunny_m answers really well about why our native plants tend to bloom as Winter approaches. Summer is when my natives in particular just stop flowering (with one or two exceptions, as I have snakebush in my garden, and that's one of the few that is like 'Summer! YEAH!' It's also prickly as hell though.)

Wolf spiders don't make burrows everywhere, not even everywhere in Australia. It tends to be really substrate dependent. And, for example, we have very few natural rocky outcroppings here in Ellenbrook, because we're on fossilised sand-dunes - so like... further inland there's granite outcroppings suitable for wolf spiders to live a more nomadic existence, but here it's just saaaaaand. So they make their homes in it.

On average, there's only about a 20cm height difference between black and mute swans, which isn't a great deal. It could have been that the ones you met were female, or alternatively, that they were malnourished not being in their natural environment; which happens sometimes. I mean yes, they're smaller - but a male black swan is comparable in size to an average to large female mute swan.

[goddess_incarnate]

Oh, that photo of the spider burrow is really nice!! So the spiders ever pop out when you come to take a photo? That would be awesome if a spider was just hanging out and you snapped a shot!

[moonvoice]

No, the wolf spider is lovely and very shy, and I don't want to disturb it by luring it out or anything. Any footsteps or shadows over the burrow and it disappears. Sometimes it'll slowly creep out again while I'm watering the garden, but that's about it really. :)

[citrakayah]

I like the flowers. Any idea if they'd grow in the Midwest?

And I didn't know wolf spiders made burrows like that.

[fred_mouse]

Not sure what weather is implied by 'mid west', but the plant likes dry conditions and while it will tolerate a mld frost, I don't think it would be classified as frost tolerant, so if you get snow, you would need to have it in a pot that goes indoor for the winter or some other climate controlled situation.

[citrakayah]

In this case, northeast Missouri.

Could it be an inside plant, and is it toxic to cats or dogs?

[moonvoice]

Alas no. Even in Western Australia, with access to the right sand and drainage, they still require deep substrate for their fragile, but deep-seeking root systems (this particular Lechenaultia has roots that spread very disproportionately deep in proportion to its surface size); outside of issues with finding it in north-east Missouri, it's not a very hardy plant in different conditions, unfortunately. :/

It might be worth looking at other Lechenaultia, though if it's that startling red you want, it might be difficult. I was told by George Lullfitz himself (the owner of Lullfitz nurseries in Western Australia which specialise in endemic Western Australian natives) that Lechenaultia formosa is even very difficult to grow in Western Australia, because its habitat is so specific and its nutrient requirements means that fertiliser and nutrient-heavy soils kill it.

[fred_mouse]

ah. I was making the mistake of generalising from other Lechenaultia, which I have seen potted. I was pretty sure my mother had grown L. formosa when I was a kid, which given that we were in the hills, we are talking gaps in the ?granite? cap. However, given your descriptions, I'm pretty sure I've misremembered. Although, given that Xanthorea nursery is a place I remember as a favourite playground, if they ever had it in stock, she may well have acquired one to see how it went.

[moonvoice]

Lechenaultia formosa is not frost or snow tolerant, requires impoverished soils (particularly soil low in phosphorus), and requires a sandy substrate with - preferrably - a deep layer of limestone about two or three metres down (though the latter is not absolutely necessary, it just helps for abundance of flowers).

They're also exceedingly difficult to get outside of Western Australia, let alone on other continents. If you're in an arid, sandy region however, with nutrient-poor soil that has not been fortified by fertiliser, then it might be worth looking into see if it's possible to get some. They don't propagate well from seeds.

They also have a very deep rooting system (despite looking like shallow plants) and so don't tolerate potting well. Some of the other Lechenaultias do though, like biloba - which has very pretty blue flowers. There are a few Lechenaultias that have been bred up to be much hardier than Lechenaultia formosa but none - unfortunately - have the striking red flowers. They're quite fussy, and most local, native plant specialists won't even stock them in this state for that reason.

[citrakayah]

Darn. Our soil is clay, not sandy.

And I mean clay, not having a lot of clay.

[moonvoice]

I can't even imagine. We live on something approaching fossilised beach sand, and while we do have some clayish areas, they have entirely different native plants growing on them.

The only thing I can think of, is a large pot with sterilised sand (i.e. the kind you can get for kid's sandpits), and then adding some slow-release phosphorus fertiliser to the sand (and maybe a handful of mulch to just get a bit of extra depth to the sand) about three to four months in advance? That could possibly work.

[kehleyr]

Cool burrow... are those spiders poisonous?

[moonvoice]

Yeah, they're venomous. Very painful bite, and a neurotoxin to boot, BUT, they aren't really aggressive, and don't bite that often. For example, I've had a wolf spider run over my hand while gardening, and it was way, WAY more interested in getting away from me than attacking.

[redsixwing]

That spider made a fence! \o/ Spiders are so cool. (Except when they're biting people. That is not cool behavior, spiders.)

You have such lovely flowers.

[moonvoice]

It did make a fence! And thankfully wolf spiders don't really like biting very much.

It was hard to find Lechenaultia formosa, but I'm glad I did! I'm not sure we'll get as full a flowering year this year as last year, but I didn't lay down slow-release fertiliser six months ago so I only have myself to blame!

[unaspenser]

I love your photos of small things, it's so neat to see the detail. I have lots of wolf spiders in my garden. I recently lifted up a tarp and found a very similar nest (though mine was made out of dirt/sand instead of pine needles) with a mama inside carrying her eggs on her abdomen. I am always careful to let them be, they're good to have around!

[ariestess]

Oh, that spider burrow is neat!