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Bright, Thick and Floriferous: Banksia marginata ‘Bright’
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…
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Portfolio: Centennial Park Garden Design
Thankyou so much for my garden, I really enjoy pottering around everyday and watching things slowly change, there is always something happening! This is a garden that has been totally transformed in the space of 12 months, the owner wanted a formal native garden in keeping with her home and the suburb where she…
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Attracting Butterflies to your Native Garden
I am often asked to recommend native plants that will attract butterflies, I know a few off the top of my head and have been meaning for a couple of years to sit down and do some decent research on creating a butterfly attracting garden. So I began a few weeks ago and have learned…
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My Favourite Grafted Dwarf Eucalyptus ficifolia
It is summer and we have had a lot of rain so the Grafted Eucalyptus ficifolias are in full swing, everywhere I look they are putting on a wonderful show. I have been slowly trying to collect decent photos of all the different colours and was planning to wait until I had them all covered,…
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Grevillea ‘Lady O’ the new Robyn Gordon?
This will be a short post as it is based purely on one of my un-founded theories and could potentially turn into a rant. I have a Grevillea ‘Robyn Gordon’ in my garden, it is a relic from the original gardener whom we bought the house from. Upon seeing it my initial reaction was to…
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Portfolio: Leichhardt Garden Design
This garden was finished yesterday (Hoooray!) except for three plants I am still waiting for to complete the front, then it will be something else front and back. This small terrace was renovated a year ago and after a much protracted waiting period for clean up we were able to start work on the garden…
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Small Shade Tree: Tristaniopsis laurina
I am often asked to recommend a small shade tree, something that can fit in a small garden and has a dense canopy which you can sit under. Most people also ask for a tree with lush foliage and showy flowers and perhaps decorative bark, plus they usually request it to be quick growing…..well this…
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Wombarra Sculpture Gardens
The Wombarra sculpture garden is best described by the owners own words below …a distinctive Illawarra rainforest native garden in harmony with sculpture. Gaby Porter and John Haymes bought the four hectare property in 1997 and have lovingly transformed it into a private oasis to share for art and garden lovers alike. http://www.wombarra.com The garden is…
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Silky Oaks: Peter and Margaret Olde
This is a private garden created by Peter and Margaret Olde, it is occasionally open to the public through the open Garden Scheme or organised by the Australian Plants Society. I have visited this garden twice and feel I haven’t really touched the surface of what there is to discover. It is a very large…
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Another Favourite Grafted Grevillea: Grevillea candelabra ‘Pink’
Grevillea candelabra Grafted is another grafted Grevillea that I am rather fond of, it is not as showy or unusual as some of the other grafted species, but it has proven to be an incredibly versatile and useful plant for me time and again. There are a Pink and a White form both of which…
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One of my Favourite Grevillea Groundcovers: Grevillea curviloba
I have been waiting a long time to be able to photograph Grevillea curviloba in full flower, it is a favourite of mine even when not in flower. Finally, I came across two specimens in a private garden that were both covered in blooms, and full of native bees, mind you. Introducing Grevillea curviloba! Hooorah!…
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Grafted Grevillea of the moment: Grevillea petrophiloides ‘Wild Beauty’
I am beginning to come around gradually to grafted Grevilleas, it has taken me about 5 years to slowly but surely start including them in my designs. I’m not really sure why I was so reluctant to begin with, maybe it was the local indigenous plant Nazi in me, maybe I just didn’t trust them….but…
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Shade Tolerant Grevillea: Grevillea oleoides
There aren’t that many Grevilleas that grow well in shade, let alone also flower in positions with limited sun. Grevillea oleoides is one of them, along with Grevillea sericea, sherissii and rhyolitica then you have a small group of faithfully. I love the shape of oleo ides the best though, it is un-usual how the…
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Bush Food Spheres: Citriobatus pauciflorus
I was quite taken when I saw these well clipped Orange Thorn a few weeks back in the edible section at Mount Anan Botanic Gardens, this section of the garden is kept quite manicured, bringing out the ornamental potential of all of the local Bush Food plants. And lets face it, I am a sucker…
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Lovely, Prickly…
There are many lovely pricklies, lovely because they are prickly and just lovelies that happen to be prickly, Acacia amblygona is both. This is a low growing sprawling wattle, that appears thick and luscious from a distance but then when you touch it you get a little shock, it is not as tactile as it…
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One of my favourite Mallees…Eucalyptus luehmanniana
This is Eucalyptus leuhmanniana or Yellow Topped Ash, it is a rare species to the east coast of NSW and grows in high rainfall areas on sandstone soils, it comes in a glaucous and non-glaucus form, the glaucous form is my first choice. Above you can see the whitish-silver stems and buds of the glaucous…
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Portfolio: Glebe Re-visited
I went back to this front Terrace garden in Glebe a couple of weeks ago to do some follow up work; re-mulching and pruning and I was struck again by how quickly the garden is filling out, it is still under a year old and already you can see the structure as the plants begin…
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Portfolio: Hunter’s Hill Garden Design
Thankyou so much Kath for designing our native Garden, we love it……Not sure if you realise how lightly you step on this earth, lovely to observe. This garden in Hunter’s Hill backs onto a strip of bushland that runs right down to the water, it has a towering Harry Seidler stone wall on one side…
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Soft, Luscious Screen: Acacia fimbriata Dwarf
Acacia fimbriata Dwarf has a puffy sort of look to it from a distance, it is a full bushy shrub with a cloud-like texture. One of the most useful plants that I use in a landscape, as it has enough interest to stand on its own by contrasting with other foliage and form around it…
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Ode to Banksia spinulosa
Banksia’s may possibly be my favourite Genus of Native plants and this particular species could well be top of that list. I was at a clients garden this afternoon and we were lovingly looking at his Banksia spinulosa and stroking the new growth and commenting on what a wonderful plant it is. There is something…
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Coastal Correa ground cover : Correa alba prostrate
I have been trying to wait until I have a photo of this useful low growing shrub in flower and I’m sure I do somewhere but I have become impatient! This is a ground cover form of Correa alba and I have been finding it to be a wonderful performer under the most difficult conditions.…
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Portfolio: Heathcote Garden Design
Some gardens are more like Bush Regeneration projects, and this is one of them! This is in Heathcote and it is truly a Sydney Sandstone cliff face garden, it is made up almost entirely of rock shelves, with large scribbly gums growing out of the crevices, it is home to many native birds and…
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Butterfly attracting Pimelea ‘White Jewel’
This is a low growing form of Pimelea linifolia called ‘White Jewel’, it has proven itself to me to be very hardy and versatile. One of the main reasons I like using this plant is its shape, it grows into a thick luscious looking mound about 30cmHigh x 60cmWide which has the appearance of having…
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Striking small inner city front garden
Oh so refreshing to see a small terrace garden used to maximum effect! Imagine if this was more common? how wonderful it would be to walk down an inner city street and see native birds running amok, as they were doing here in the grafted Eucalyptus ficifolia. Well lets face it to walk down any…
Category: Bird attracting