Category: Screening plants

  • White or Pink? How do you like your Blueberry Ash?

    White or Pink? How do you like your Blueberry Ash?

    Elaeocarpus reticulatus is one of the Spring flowering native tree species which really knocks itself out during its flowering season. It consistently covers itself in the little white fairy skirt like flowers to the point that it gives the whole tree a light hue. There are two flower colours in the Blueberry Ash and as…

  • Powerful Pollinators: Leptospermums

    Powerful Pollinators: Leptospermums

    We are mid the Australian Annual Pollinator Week and I have been admiring our our native tea trees all Spring so I thought I would bring them to your attention this week as they are wonderful plants to grow for our native pollinators. “Australian Pollinator Week acknowledges our important and unique insect pollinators during our…

  • Portfolio: Helensburgh Consult

    Portfolio: Helensburgh Consult

    Front gardens play such an important role in most streetscapes but especially in suburbia where the repetition of built form and front lawns can become almost claustrophobic. These clients wanted something different to look out on from inside of their home but also a welcoming garden on arrival home from work. The new native garden…

  • Portfolio: Gardening in Wind

    Portfolio: Gardening in Wind

    This is my sisters garden on ‘Windy Hill’ as we like to call it, it gets so windy here the rubbish bins get blown down the street, gates are blown off their hinges and plants find it tough! Her front garden bears the brunt of the Westerlies and southerlies and used to be bare lawn…

  • A Portrait of a Flower: Hakea francisiana

    A Portrait of a Flower: Hakea francisiana

    Look at this thing! is it not one of the most spectacular flowers you have ever seen? I have been impatiently waiting for this moment in my Hakea francisiana Grafted life cycle since I planted it 6 months ago. It began flowering a couple of weeks ago, just as we went into COVID lockdown again,…

  • Portfolio: St Ives Landscape Design

    Portfolio: St Ives Landscape Design

    This garden in the leafy north shore suburb of St Ives was designed last year and built only 7 months ago, by Ash from ‘Living on the Hedge’. Part of the brief for this garden was to have plenty of year round flowers for bees and birds and given these photos have been taken in…

  • Portfolio: Bundeena Tree House

    Portfolio: Bundeena Tree House

    This an amazing house which spills over a sandstone outcrop and is placed underneath a giant fig tree. It is sheltered by a stand of Casuarinas and hidden from the street by its rapidly growing native garden. The garden has been in for a couple of years and benefitted greatly from our recent wet Summer.…

  • Finger Limes loving the shade – Citrus australasica

    Finger Limes loving the shade – Citrus australasica

    My friend has the magic touch when it comes to growing all things edible and so of course her fingers limes are abundant in the Autumn ๐Ÿคฉ. She has two varieties one is Citrus australasica ‘Rainforest Pearl’, a grafted form. Which in my humble opinion is the sweetest and juiciest of them all and the…

  • Portfolio: Woolooware Rejuvenation

    Portfolio: Woolooware Rejuvenation

    This native garden in Woolooware has a new owner, someone who is keen to be the new caretaker of the space and is looking forward to maintaining the native plants and learning more about them along the way. Someone who also recognised it was in dire need of renewal to bring it back to its…

  • The very versatile Lomatia myricoides

    The very versatile Lomatia myricoides

    I have been wanting to tell you all about the River Lomatia for some time but have been waiting to find some fully grown shrubs to photograph and I finally found them on my recent Summer trip to ย Mount Kosciuszko. And here it is! Lomatia myricoides is a large shrub which grows naturally on a…

  • Bee Friendly Gardening

    Bee Friendly Gardening

    Bees play an important role in our ecosystem and we rely heavily on them to pollinate our food crops and our native bushland, not to mention supply us with delicious honey. There are over 1,500 native bee species in Australia with a whole host of interesting shapes and forms. Bees feed on nectar nestled within…

  • Small Scented Shade Tree: Leptospermum petersonii

    Small Scented Shade Tree: Leptospermum petersonii

    I finally found a mature Lemon Scented Tea Tree to photograph which shows off its stunning weeping habit and shapely trunk and branches. Leptospermum petersonii really does make a wonderful small feature shade tree in the garden, the strong thick branches spread the canopy wide making it an excellent climbing tree! The soft, pendulous branches…

  • As delicate as a rose: Archirhodomyrtus beckleri

    As delicate as a rose: Archirhodomyrtus beckleri

    This small feature tree really would fit in nicely in a garden full of roses, lavender and other English cottage style plants. The tiny flowers remind me of the blooms on climbing rose bushes and this pretty rainforest tree has the sweetest common name of ‘Rose Myrtle’. Archirhodomyrtus beckleri flowers profusely with plenty of pale pink…

  • The pretty prickly Grevillea acanthifolia

    The pretty prickly Grevillea acanthifolia

    There aren’t really enough spikey Grevilleas in my opinion, when it comes to planting for birds and to create habitat especially for small birds Grevilleas are a wonderful lure, if they are spikey they can also provide shelter as well as food. This is Grevillea acanthifolia a large shrub reaching upto to 3 metres high…

  • Front garden makeovers

    Front garden makeovers

    One of my ‘dreams’ is to walk down a suburban street and be able to admire one native front garden after another. I am always on the look out, when walking or driving, and the well-loved gardens (especially the native ones) always pop out at me. Gardens where people have made an effort and show…

  • Screening with Hardenbergia violacea

    Screening with Hardenbergia violacea

    This climber always surprises me every year with how aptly it lives up to its common name of Happy Wanderer. The little pea flower spikes really do have tiny smiling faces with bright green eyes. Hardenbergia violacea is a local native climber or scrambler to most of the east coast of Australia, growing naturally on…

  • Trialling Banksia ‘Sentinel’

    Trialling Banksia ‘Sentinel’

    This is a favourite coastal hedging plant of mine which I have been including in my planting designs for the past 7 years or so….sorry, I’m finding it difficult to keep track of time ๐Ÿ˜‰ I say it is on trial or has been on trial for a while as it does have a couple…

  • Luscious green screen: Myoporum acuminatum

    Luscious green screen: Myoporum acuminatum

    Some native plants are just so useful and practical I really don’t understand why we don’t see them being utilised everywhere…. and Myoporum acuminatum is one of them. It is a mystery to me why this very fast growing , dense small tree or large shrub is not used more often in our residential streetscape…

  • Portfolio: West Wollongong Revisit

    Portfolio: West Wollongong Revisit

    The images in this blog post were taken of a local garden I designed a few years ago which has been filling out beautifully. The requested privacy is beginning to really take shape, the front garden has been reclaimed as a relaxing outdoor space which can be utilised more often by critters and humans alike.…

  • Portfolio: Norah Head Consult

    Portfolio: Norah Head Consult

    A couple of years ago I made a trip to the central coast to Norah Head for a garden consult. I was intrigued by the description of the garden, which runs alongside a small patch of native bushland and curious to meet the client who has been looking after the restoration of the bushland but…

  • Health Benefits of Gardening

    Health Benefits of Gardening

    Stress Relief, Connection to Nature, Connection to Community, Physical Health, Personal Growth ….just to name a few! I am no stranger to “stress weeding” or “stress pruning” for that matter. There is something indescribably satisfying about pulling unwanted weeds out of a garden bed or giving a straggly plant a much needed “hack back” ๐Ÿ™‚…

  • Portfolio: Stanmore Landscape Design

    Portfolio: Stanmore Landscape Design

    This small garden in the inner west of Sydney is a sight to behold after the recent rains. It is hard to believe that most of these plants have only been in for 6 months, that is the beauty of gardening with native grasses, they fill out so quickly and provide structure and form in…

  • Portfolio: Garden Design West Wollongong

    Portfolio: Garden Design West Wollongong

    “In short, canโ€™t thank you enough for the difference your design and expertise have made to our street frontage, never mind our well- being during lockdown.” September 14th 2021 The brief for this garden was inspired by another Mallee Design garden two doors up the street, which always helps ๐Ÿ˜‰ The clients wanted to get…

  • Softly softly: Eucalyptus ficifolia ‘Fairy Floss’ Grafted

    Softly softly: Eucalyptus ficifolia ‘Fairy Floss’ Grafted

    These soft, gentle pink flower clusters belong to another grafted Eucalyptus (Corymbia) ficifolia dwarf grafted gum, this sweet small tree is called ‘Fairy Floss’, isn’t the name just perfect? This small feature tree flowers in the warm summer months between December and March like many of the ‘Summer’ series grafted gums. It makes a wonderful…