Month: February 2013

  • Indigenous Eclectic Garden

    Indigenous Eclectic Garden

    This is a very, very special garden that I visited last year, from the moment I walked in, the space spoke to me. It is private and secluded and quite small, but jam packed with Illawarra indigenous species.

  • Dwarf Dwarf Dwarf Banksia: Banksia ‘Coastal Cushions’

    Dwarf Dwarf Dwarf Banksia: Banksia ‘Coastal Cushions’

    Dwarf, low growing, ground cover, shrub or little Banksias are showing up everywhere, and there isn’t a plant I’m more happy to see coming into ‘fashion’.

  • Grass tree spheres

    Grass tree spheres

    Xanthorrhoea species or Grass Trees are a pretty standard ‘feature plant’ in a native garden, with their showy black trunk and perfect grass head on top they are almost a signature plant for a lot of Australian gardens. 

  • Acacia cardiophylla

    Acacia cardiophylla

    I am always on the look out for small “feature trees”, something that can be planted in front of a hedge and still be walked under. Or to be placed in a garden bed and have enough space to have some underplanting beneath the canopy.

  • Native ginger: Alpinia caerulea ‘Red Back’

    Native ginger: Alpinia caerulea ‘Red Back’

    This is native ginger, Alpinia caerulea ‘Red Back’, planted in an internal courtyard, doesn’t it look beautiful? It had been recently cleaned out and cut back as it was a bit too happy. It has naturally arching canes that form a vase like habit and can get a little burnt and ratty if left unaltered.

  • Layers

    Layers

    I saw this little entrance garden to a Leisure centre last weekend and thought that the layers of different foliage were really well done. A little bit formal with the three tiered hedges of Acacia cognata dwarf, Austromyrtus inopholia and Westringia in the front.

  • Banksia as small trees: Banksia marginata

    Banksia as small trees: Banksia marginata

    Every Australian Native garden should have at least one Banksia, even if it is a ground cover or low spreading shrub, they are a signature plant. Banksia marginata grows to be a beautiful small tree with a thick canopy and often very low lying branches, therefore they can make an excellent large screening plant. The…

  • Gates

    Gates

    I love gates, a good old fashioned entrance marker that you hardly see anymore, you know the ones where its just enough space for one person to walk through, where it has nothing to do with garages or driveways, put there just for the pedestrian. This gate is hiding a secret garden behind it, looking…

  • Themeda grasses

    Themeda grasses

    Themeda australis or triandra or any of the Themeda species have highly decorative seed heads and a soft weeping habit.