Month: August 2013

  • Backyard Festival Wollongong Botanic Gardens

    Backyard Festival Wollongong Botanic Gardens

    This Sunday Mallee Design will be at the Wollongong Botanic Gardens for the Sustainable Backyard Festival. I will be selling Australian Native Plants, probably more hybrids and cultivars as the Botanic Garden will be selling indigenous species, and giving advice on their care and garden maintenance. I am also donating an Australian Native Garden Design…

  • Yellow, Cream and White Orchids: Dendrobium speciosum

    Yellow, Cream and White Orchids: Dendrobium speciosum

    It is a most fabulous season for the Dendrobium speciosums this year, there is no other word for it, they are putting on a massive show whenever I see them, and they seem to be everywhere all of a sudden, many of them in non native gardens which is always great to see.

  • Soft Feathery Grass: Baloskion tetraphyllum

    Soft Feathery Grass: Baloskion tetraphyllum

    I tend to use a lot of grasses in my gardens, I am not totally reliant on them and can manage without, however I mostly use plants with a weeping, soft appearance, and grasses are valuable in creating texture and contrast in a garden. This is Baloskion tetraphyllum, one of my favourites for its vibrant…

  • Native Bees

    Native Bees

    All winter long, on warm sunny days I have been able to step into my garden and hear the low humming from the bees in my Eucalypts, at times the noise has been breath takingingly loud. It has been a wonderful reminder on another one of the roles that the indigenous trees on my block…

  • Fish and frogs eggs

    Fish and frogs eggs

    I have noticed a distinct lack of frogs eggs in my pond over the last 6 months, this image is of my Villarsia exaltata full of eggs over the summer. This particular plant was the favoured plant by the frogs for laying there eggs. It seems to have a nice branching height above the water to…

  • The Wonder of Wildflowers!

    The Wonder of Wildflowers!

    This is a little class/chat/presentation I am giving in September, with Wild Rumpus all about Illawarra’s wonderful wildflowers that are starting to flower now! I will be chatting about where you can see a good range of spring flowers around Wollongong, where the best bush walks are, what you might like to try growing yourself and…

  • Favourites for Shady Planting: Leionema ‘Green Screen’

    Favourites for Shady Planting: Leionema ‘Green Screen’

    I collect a lot of favourites for shady planting, it has become somewhat of a hobby to find natives that will grow in difficult shady spots. Dry shade, moist shade, windy shade, winter shade and summer sun…..screening for shade, you get the picture. So this is one of my new discoveries, Leionema ‘Green Screen’ I…