Check out the flowers on this baby, it was absolutely covered, I have never seen anything like it before and was suitably impressed. This is Banksia marginata ‘Bright’. A compact of the Silver Banksia, it grows as a dense shrub to 2 metres high and 2 metres wide – this one looks like it has been planted for a while.

I spotted it whilst I was taking photos of a beautiful nature strip garden in Mt Keira (more photos of that later). These people obviously has green thumbs as everything they had planted was bursting with health and vitality.

Banksia marginata ‘Bright’ is Summer flowering, with large pale lemon spikes that are great for nectar eating birds such as the honeyeaters. The Tawny-crowned honeyeater especially loves the bright flowers, as do Yellow-tailed Black Cockatoos.

It will grow on heavier soils as long as they don’t become waterlogged, and will also grow in part-shade, however it will be a more open shrub. The under-sides of the leaves are a stunning silvery-white giving it an overall lightness.

In the image above you can see how thick and bushy it is all the way down to the ground, making it a wonderful screening and hedging plant. Banksias love being pruned so it could be kept much narrower if necessary.