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The constantly evolving beauty of Ozothamnus diosmifolius
This small to medium native shrub is a hard one to capture both in an image and in words, I have been documenting these three specimens in my garden since they were planted a couple of years ago. It never seemed the right time to photograph them as the flowers are always changing colour and…
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Emu Bush Challenge No. 10: Eremophila ‘Meringur Crimson’
And so it continues … documenting my Eremophila discoveries, I will get to 12 one day! As we approach the end of another La Niña Summer, where heavy downpours are common and the humidity is high, it is a great chance to reflect on hardy, flexible native plants. Amongst the surprises are many species of Eremophilas…
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Australian Native Plants in Japan
It was inevitable that I wouldn’t be able to turn off my native plant nerd brain whilst overseas in Japan last month…. I tried, I really did. I took photos of Japanese plants, seed pods and flowers and researched after visiting the gardens and temples. BUT every Australian plant seemed to call out to me…
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Merry NSW Christmas Bush: Ceratopetalum gummiferum
I am a bit of a Grinch when it comes to Christmas and often one of the things which pulls me our of my un-festive slump is our Ceratopetalum gummiferum or native Christmas Bush. This year I was a little late, as many have finished thier show by the time Christmas actually arrives. However, I…
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Kangaroo Paw Care – Get the Pruners Out!
The Kangaroo Paws in this Bundeena garden are a rainbow of colour, they were planted three years ago in a swathe to test Angus Stewarts ‘Anigozanthos ‘Landscape series’ range. They have a striking effect mass planted and it was a delight to go back and visit them in full bloom a couple of weeks ago.…
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Chorilaena quercifolia: Another WA toughie
I can’t help myself, I seem always to be drawn to the unique foliage and flowers of the native plants which grow naturally in Western Australia. Which then leads me to buy many grafted native plants or grow them in pots or try the ‘see how she goes’ test in my garden. This is Chorilaena…
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Try not to dismiss Callistemon ‘White Anzac’
I have often included this hardy little shrub as one of my least favourite native plants, it can be spotted unkempt in the gardens of petrol stations or nature strips, languishing leggy and forgotten. But if given a little attention it can become a stunning floriferous show stopper! Callistemon ‘White Anzac’ is a low mounding…
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Walks for winter-spring flowering plants on Dharawal Country
In our temperate climate the winter wildflower season is magnificent making it one of the best times for walking in and around the escarpment – or at least when it’s not too muddy! – and many of the winter flowerers continue to bloom through spring. Fingers crossed La Niña doesn’t hit too us too hard…
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Native flowers in the deepest dark of Winter
It has been a long cold, wet Winter here on the southern NSW coast, off and don’t forget windy! In fact my garden experienced a mini tornado a month ago, a micro weather event which sent someones garden shed and contents flying into my garden and uprooted apparently wind break natives. So a couple of…
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Bird Nerd-ing in a Mallee Birdbath
Our friend Angus Stewart in Tasmania (from Gardening with Angus) recently captured all these wonderful birds making use of his Mallee Dish – including a few that we’ve never seen before since they only occur in Tasmania. In this video you will see: Yellow-throated Honeyeaters (endemic to Tasmania) Eastern Spinebills New Holland Honeyeaters A Black…
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Gardening for Wellbeing
Stress Relief, Connection to Nature, Community involvement, Mood lifting, Physical Health, Personal Growth ….just to name a few! Words by Kath Gadd and Hannah Preston at Mallee Design In times of great social and economic upheaval gardening can offer multiple benefits. As we are living through one of those times right now, where many of…
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Luscious, Dense and Green: Xanthostemon chrysanthus
This showy small to medium tropical tree was flowering its head off on my recent trip to Brisbane and northern NSW. It was such a welcome sight after the damp, soggy Summer we have had, finally a species revelling in all the rain! Xanthostemon chrysanthus is also known as ‘Golden Penda’ and comes in a…
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Happy Eucalyptus Day! Eucalyptus risdonii
This is a Eucalypt species very close to my heart, you can see it in my banner at the top of the website. Yes, I took photos of it almost 10 years ago and have recently revisited the vegetation community where it can be found. Eucalyptus risdonii grows only on the eastern shore of Hobart…
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Native Nurseries Across Australia
This is a collection of nurseries I’ve visited, bought from and love. I’ve written about some of my favourite Native Nurseries in blogposts before but it’s handy to have one reference list to come back to isn’t it?! It’s by no means exhaustive and I encourage you to get in touch with local growers when…
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Inala Conservation Reserve: Bruny Island
Forty Spotted Pardalote Image above by Alfred-Schulte The Inala Reserve on Bruny Island was the highlight of my recent trip to Tasmania, we spent two nights staying in the cabins inside the reserve bird watching and exploring this natural wonderland. I had wanted to go to Inala for years after finding out that is is…
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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…
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Wildflowers of the Illawarra
This wildflower season I have stayed local due to travel restrictions, which has meant I have walked the Illawarra escarpment a lot more than I normally would. Usually in the winter wildflower season we would travel to the Blue mountains or further west or even north for outdoor adventuring and bush exploring. So it has…
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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…
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Instagram #INeedABirdbathHere Winner and Entries!
We’ve been simply blown away by the beautiful garden entries we received in our most recent birdbath competition #INeedABirdbathHere. We asked our followers to send us photos of their gardens for the chance to win a Freshly Spun Medium Copper Dish and couldn’t be happier with the result. It’s always inspiring to see wonderful native…
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Portfolio: Haberfield Landscape Design
The brief for this front garden in Sydney’s inner west was to create a modern native garden which is sympathetic to the era of the house and show cases an Art Deco water feature passed down through the family. The front garden now addresses and interacts with the street and also provides a sense of…
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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,…
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Garden Photo Competition – Win a Medium Dish!
This Winter we’re running a garden photo competition on instagram, your chance to show off your gardening skills to us and win a Medium Spun Copper Dish valued at $545.00!! Take a photo of the spot in your garden that needs a birdbath and share it to your instagram page with the hashtag #INeedABirdbathHere. Make sure to tag @mallee_design…
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Habitat Gardening
My eye is repeatedly drawn to this delightful photo of a father Tawny Frogmouth and his hatchling. Tawny Frogmouth fathers look after their baby birds until they fledge and require wide branches or large forks in old trees to nest. The photo was taken by Darren Broughton from BIBY TV, a Youtube channel with many…
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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…
Category: Bird attracting