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Happy National Wattle Day!
We hope your gardens are in full bloom and continue to bring you and the native wildlife joy throughout the month of Spring. This years Wattle is Acacia linifolia or Flax Wattle, it flowers from Summer through to Winter. Changes are afoot this month and we have some some exciting announcements which we thought worthwhile…
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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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What to Plant for Poorly Drained Soils
Wet Weather Gardening After yet more rain on the east coast many plants in many gardens are suffering water-logging. Even in reasonably well drained soils the inundation has been too much for some plants. Physically, the force of rain, streams and puddles of water have caused their own damage and with the increased humidity comes…
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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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Summer Scents: Hymenosporum flavum
The scent of a frangipani marks Summer for many people, when I used to live in Sydney the frangipanis and jasmine filled the inner city streets in Summer giving off a potent scent in the warm weather. What many people don’t know is that there is a native equivalent, yes a native Frangipani! The native…
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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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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…
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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…
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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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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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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…
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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.…
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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 🤩. 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…
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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…
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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 Mount Kosciuszko. And here it is! Lomatia myricoides is a large shrub which grows naturally on a…
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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…
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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…
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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…
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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…
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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…
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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…
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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 😉 I say it is on trial or has been on trial for a while as it does have a couple…
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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…
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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.…
Category: Screening plants