Towards the end of November, everything is growing well and some plants have come into flower. Notably: our first Anigozanthus flavidus has flowered. I love these, especially when massed. I was surprised this one flowered in it’s first year, so I’m hopeful others might be coming through too.
Anigozanthus flavidus, common name: Kangaroo Paw. Stunning.
Verticordia densiflora is flowering too. This is a small shrub that is native to this region. The shrub is still pretty small and has the most amazing floral display. I can’t wait to see this display as the shrub grows, it’s going to be incredible, especially if it’s kept quite dense through pruning.
Verticordia densiflora. A small shrub, native to South Western Australia.Verticordia densiflora, detail of the flower.Verticordia densiflora, even more detail of the flower.
Finally, on a different note I caught this insect (I assume it’s a wasp) basking in the morning sun on a melaleuca incana. It was pretty sluggish, so I had time to get a picture of it…
Gardening in Western Australia. We get hot, dry summers; cool, moderately wet winters (about 900mm of rain per year, the bulk of it over Winter). The soil is sand with a thin layer of top soil in well established areas. The topsoil seems to disappear into the sand pretty quickly, especially once it’s disturbed. So drainage is “excellent”!
So, water here is an issue; not that you’d believe it to see the way the sprinklers go all through Summer. Not just go, but go messily. It’s not unusual to see water flowing down the gutters from suspect irrigation systems. But anyway, let’s stick to gardening.
Our intention has always been to have a “waterwise” garden. I’m going off again: “Waterwise” seems to be in danger of going the way of “Sustainability”, i.e. a meaningless label that’s been hijacked by consumer culture. So let’s be clear, by “waterwise” I mean: uses no more water than falls from the sky. That’s an aspirational goal at the moment, because the garden is young.
During the planning stage of the garden I spoke to quite a few experienced gardeners (e.g. several people who run the more “hardcore” Australian Plant nurseries, a volunteer Master Gardener at King’s Park Perth) and read quite a few books that were about establishing Australian Gardens, rather than exotic ones.
The advice is to water the newly planted garden well through the first summer and then stop once the rains come. I’m told, repeatedly, that after that there will be no need to water. Which makes sense really, because the Bush seems to do pretty well without irrigation.
So, how to water? The best advice I received was to use a hose and take the time to water each plant individually (which has obvious advantages for checking for weeds and pests). And, to give each plant a really good soaking, rather than sprinkling; about once a week, depending on the weather.
This also makes sense because there’s no point in putting in an irrigation system that I’m going to turn off after the first year.
However, not everyone agrees on this. The people who run the “Beyond Gardens” workshops advocate drip irrigation systems. And they also advocate adding clay to the soil (see my views on that here) to improve water-retention.
Similarly, a professional “industrial” gardener who I worked for tells me I need to gradually reduce the water over a few years.
So, I may be wrong about turning off the water after the first year. However, I’m prepared to take the chance, mostly because of a “feeling in my gut” about who’s opinions I value most. Not very scientific.
Things are growing, it’s a miracle! Well, it’s not that miraculous to be honest, but still, it feels like one. I hadn’t appreciated just how satisfying it was going to feel to watch the garden grow.
So spring is here and already we’ve had a run of pretty intense Western Australian days: hot, glaring sun, dehydrating winds, low moody clouds that fail to deliver on the promise of rain. I’d forgotten what it’s like.
My partner’s burgeoning succulents collection
The intense sun has begun to sort out the plants as well: the weak are perishing and the strong are thriving. So far the deaths are less than 10% but when they come it happens quickly. We lost a perfectly healthy looking astartea fasicularis in less than a week; three of the four gomopholobium scabra have gone west (and the one survivor is very touch and go)…
The one surviving (just) Gomopholobium scarbrum. The bricks are to protect it from an load of wood chip we’re hoping will be delivered this week.
…and a large number anigozanthus flavidus at the front are hanging on the brink; to be fair I didn’t give them much of a start, I’d run out of compost at the time and just stuck them straight into sand.
The truly sad anigozanthus flavidus patch…peer closely to spot the green stalks in the foreground. There are twelve separate plants in there…
So this week I pulled back the mulch and “top dressed” (if that’s the expression?) them with some nice fresh compost and plenty of water. I’m hoping they pull through because the front continues to look a bit sparse. I’m not sure why…I suspect it’s a mixture of the two very large agonis flexuosas (WA peppermint tree…whoever gave them that name was clearly in a “peppermint-deprived” state) sucking up most of the moisture and the fact that I spend more of my time in the back.
The anigozanthus flavidus have a spectacular flower. Many in the neighbourhood are in full bloom and this one in the back garden is a “thriver” and is just coming into flower:
Anigozanthus flavidus flowering in the back garden
Another flowerer at the back is this billardiera ringens.
Billardiera ringens in full bloom. It’s a (supposedly) scrambling ground cover/climber that hasn’t been doing that well up till now. I’m trying to imagine what a scrambling mass of these flowers will look like…pretty spectacular.
And of the many robust plants, this acacia myrtifolia is one of my favourites:
Acacia myrtifolia in the front garden. This one has a lovely shape and looks os healthy. It’s got lots of fresh growth coming through.
And the pests are springing too! The eucalyptus forrestiana, which is one of the two big trees in the back and hence “structurally” important, is getting mauled by a small white caterpillar. I didn’t notice soon enough and the apical growth got chewed up. The tree still seems healthy and plenty of replacement shoots are coming through. It’s going to be interesting to see how the shape unfolds, the damage done now will, I assume, develop into a multi-branched mature tree. I’m not going to spray, so I’m doing regular “pest patrols” and squashing the bugs by hand.
Eucalyptus forrestiana, photo from above, it’s about half a meter tall. Notice the leaf damage and the brown areas on the growing tip…that’s a dead bud.On the eucalyptus theme…this is E. erythrocorys. It’s a real baby and has only been in the ground two weeks. I put it in to fill the gap left when the agonis juniperina on the back fence had apparently died….I say “apparently” because it did a “rise from the dead” thing while I was away. Anyway, I moved the a. juniperina along the fence and put the e. erythrocorys in it’s place. The mature tree looks spectacular, so I’m very excited that it seems to be off to a good start with some new growth already. And the A. juniperina seems to be doing OK too.
I bought a hose last week, which was a huge relief as bucketing water round the garden was becoming somewhat arduous. The hose is awesome because it gives me an opportunity to crawl round the garden individually watering each plant, checking it’s mulch, inspecting for growth and insects, and having a little chat. I hadn’t appreciated how many types of spider there are.
Melaleuca incana…this is my “prize plant” in terms of growth. It’s rocketing away, and I don’t really know why. Maybe because it’s close to the tap and it gets any drips from the tap? (The rather ugly bit of carpet in the background is from the compost heap.)
I’ve also been getting into a bit of tip-pruning and “shaping”. I’m trying to shape this melaeuca incana.
“You will obey”…I’m trying to bend this melaleuca incana to my will. Talk about “living n harmony with nature”.
I’m not sure how it will respond to being shaped in this way, but the same technique works well with fruit trees, so why not Australian shrubs? I’m trying a similar thing with an agonis parviceps at the back as well.
Earlier in the week I was marvelling at the way this melaleuca scabra grows. It’s absolutely ripping along and I was noticing the way it seems to grow in clusters of about seven or eight branches from a node. Each branch seems to run for a bit and then shoots out another cluster of branches, one of which appears to become the lead…it’s a fascinating “growth habit”. I was trying work out how I could tip prune it for maximum density…in the end I decided to let it develop a bit further before interfering!
Melaleuca scabra…interesting growth habit, if that’s your thing.
Coming up next, it looks like we’re going to have another spell of mulching. I rang up a tree contractor, Dean of Hamilton Tree Services, last week to see if I could get a load of mulch for nothing. Turns out he has a lot of requests in, however, he will drop round 18 meters cubed for $80…that is such an outrageous bargain. The load is due late this week or perhaps early next week…18 m3 is a huge amount of wood chip and should be enough for us to cover most of the back of the back garden. I think we’ll need one more load of that size to complete the mulching…or maybe two? We’ll see. It will be so nice to get wood chip down on the remainder of the garden, the “green waste” is gone now and the back is feeling a bit exposed to the sun, and it’s still only spring…!
Things are growing! Well, it’s not that miraculous to be honest, but still, it feels like one. I hadn’t appreciated just how satisfying it was going to feel to watch the garden grow.
So spring is here and already we’ve had a run of pretty intense Western Australian days: hot, glaring sun, dehydrating winds, low moody clouds that fail to deliver on the promise of rain. I’d forgotten what it’s like. When it hit the low thirties last week I ended up snoozing the afternoons away in an awful state of lethargy!
My partner’s burgeoning succulents collection handily positioned on the kitchen/lounge window sill, so even when I’m snoozing on the couch I can still look at nice plants.
The intense sun has begun to sort out the plants as well: the weak are perishing and the strong are thriving. So far the deaths are less than 10% but when they come it happens quickly. We lost a perfectly healthy looking astartea fasicularis in less than a week; three of the four gomopholobium scabra have gone west (and the one survivor is very touch and go)…
The one surviving (just) Gomopholobium scarbrum. The bricks are to protect it from an avalanche of wood chip we’re hoping will be delievered this week.
…and a large number anigozanthus flavidus at the front are hanging on the brink; to be fair I didn’t give them much of a start, I’d run out of compost at the time and just stuck them straight into sand.
The truly sad anigozanthus flavidus patch…peer closely to spot the green stalks in the foreground. There are twelve separate plants in there…
So this week I pulled back the mulch and “top dressed” (if that’s the expression?) them with some nice fresh compost and plenty of water. I’m hoping they pull through because the front continues to look a bit sparse. I’m not sure why…I suspect it’s a mixture of the two very large agonis flexuosas (WA peppermint tree…whoever gave them that name was clearly in a “peppermint-deprived” state) sucking up most of the moisture and the fact that I spend most of my time in the back. I’m so less fond of the front: I think it’s the traffic (which isn’t that heavy) and that I don’t sit and gaze longingly at it all the time.
The anigozanthus flavidus have a spectacular flower. Many in the neighbourhood are in full bloom and this one in the back garden is a “thriver” and is just coming into flower:
Anigozanthus flavidus flowering in the back garden
Another flowerer at the back is this billardiera ringens.
Billardiera ringens in full bloom. It’s a (supposedly) scrambling ground cover/climber that hasn’t been doing that well up till now. I’m trying to imagine what a scrambling mass of these flowers will look like…pretty spectacular.
And of the many robust plants, this acacia myrtifolia is one of my favourites:
Acacia myrtifolia in the front garden. This one has a lovely shape and looks os healthy. It’s got lots of fresh growth coming through.
And the pests are springing too! The eucalyptus forrestiana, which is one of the two big trees in the back and hence “structurally” important, is getting mauled by a small white caterpillar. I didn’t notice soon enough and the apical growth got chewed up. The tree still seems healthy and plenty of replacement shoots are coming through. It’s going to be interesting to see how the shape unfolds, the damage done now will, I assume, develop into a multi-branched mature tree. I’m not going to spray, so I’m doing regular “pest patrols” and squashing the bugs by hand.
Eucalyptus forrestiana, photo from above, it’s about half a meter tall. Notice the leaf damage and the brown areas on the growing tip…that’s a dead bud.On the eucalyptus theme…this is E. erythrocorys. It’s a real baby and has only been in the ground two weeks. I put it in to fill the gap left when the agonis juniperina on the back fence had apparently died….I say “apparently” because it did a “rise from the dead” thing while I was away. Anyway, I moved the a. juniperina along the fence and put the e. erythrocorys in it’s place. The mature tree looks spectacular, so I’m very excited that it seems to be off to a good start with some new growth already. And the A. juniperina seems to be doing OK too.
I bought a hose last week, which was a huge relief as bucketing water round the garden was becoming somewhat arduous. The hose is awesome because it gives me an opportunity to crawl round the garden individually watering each plant, checking it’s mulch, inspecting for growth and insects, and having a little chat. I hadn’t appreciated how many types of spider there are (nor how enjoyable talking to plants is: they don’t answer back!). My favourite spiders so far are the albino ones living on the acacias near the back fence…they look a bit creepy!
Melaleuca incana…this is my “prize plant” in terms of growth. It’s rocketing away, and I don’t really know why. Maybe because it’s close to the tap and it gets any drips from the tap? (The rather ugly bit of carpet in the background is from the compost heap.)
[On a related, to the spiders, note I saw two snakes this week, not at home though. We’re caretaking a “dog hotel” and I disturbed a very large brown snake in one of the runs last week and came toe-to-nose with a small black beasty emerging from under a cat pen yesterday. They both gave me a bit of a start! Beautiful creatures, I love the way they move…especially when it’s away from me.]
I’ve also been getting into a bit of tip-pruning and “shaping”. I’m trying to shape this melaeuca incana.
“You will obey”…I’m trying to bend this melaleuca incana to my will. Talk about “living n harmony with nature”.
I’m not sure how it will respond to being shaped in this way, but the same technique works well with fruit trees, so why not Australian shrubs? I’m trying a similar thing with an agonis parviceps at the back as well.
Earlier in the week I was marvelling at the way this melaleuca scabra grows. It’s absolutely ripping along and I was noticing the way it seems to grow in clusters of about seven or eight branches from a node. Each branch seems to run for a bit and then shoots out another cluster of branches, one of which appears to become the lead…it’s a fascinating “growth habit”. I was trying work out how I could tip prune it for maximum density…in the end I decided to let it develop a bit further before interfering!
Melaleuca scabra…interesting growth habit, if that’s your thing.
Coming up next, it looks like we’re going to have another “mulching madness” spell. I rang up a tree contractor, the delightful Dean of Hamilton Tree Services, last week to see if I could get a load of mulch for nothing. Turns out he has a lot of requests in, however, he will drop round 18 meters cubed for $80…that is such an outrageous bargain I had problems standing still. Anyway, the load is due late this week or perhaps early next week…18 m3 is a huge amount of wood chip and should be enough for us to cover most of the back of the back garden. I think we’ll need one more load of that size to complete the mulching…or maybe two? We’ll see. It will be so nice to get wood chip down on the remainder of the garden, the “green waste” is gone now and the back is feeling a bit exposed to the sun, and it’s still only spring…!
Well, after six weeks “in the hills“, care taking a native plant nursery I’m finally back at the house and, hooray, in the garden.
The back garden….weeks of rain and it still looks dry as a bone. The heap of wood on the “lawn” is green waste ready to move out front next week.The back from the other side…looks even drier!The front. Oh dear I seem to have created a desert.
It was a bit of a shock at first, my eye had become adjusted to “mature” bush and gardens, so I couldn’t really see anything in the garden…it all looked so small…and dry. Despite a couple of months of pretty persistent and heavy rainfall the garden “looks” dry. Maybe it’s just the sand, but I sort of expected the mulch to look wet…it doesn’t. However, once I dig under the dry top layer it’s nice and moist below, and, best of all, we’re making some nice soil.
It took me a couple of days of crawling about on my hands and knees to get over the despair at the artfully created “badlands” look, and rekindle my passion. The plants are there and they are growing…it’s just going to take a couple of years before they start to look like the bush. And its not as bad as all that. My “living mulch” idea is working…
The petals are dry as a bone, like rice paper, and they open and close each day.
And the compost I made before going is fabulous. It’s coming in very handy for the *new plantings*…we brought back another fifty or so plants from the nursery and I got another ten from MOTT yesterday. I got a Eucalyptus Erythrocorys for the back fence and a Eucalyptus Presissiana for the gap left by the now defunct NZ Xmas Tree. Both are smaller eucalypts with nice flowers.
The very gnarly compost. Its got really good texture once I sift the sticks out.
I also got a E. Lehmanii but I’m not sure we’ve got the space now that I’m back. It’s label says three to four meters, but Wrigley and Fagg say up to 6m. I don’t think we want another tree that big, but I’ve got a couple of possible spots around the neighbourhood in mind for it.
The eucalyptus outbreak is the result of learning about them while I was caretaking the nursery. I posted about them, in detail, here.
The other new plants are a couple of big shrubs, melaleuca nesophila (photos of a mature one here) and melaleuca microphylla (more on melaleucas as hedges here); and, the bulk of the new plants, a selection of small shrubs and groundcovers. I’m hoping to fill out the basic structure made by the large shrubs and trees.
So, they all got planted this week. Perfect weather for it: occasional heavy rain, sunny spells. It’s beginning to warm up and things are really beginning to take off.
The vege patch is doing well. Actually, the cherry tomato in the vege patch is doing amazingly well and other stuff is OK. You have to like lettuce to enjoy our vege patch. It’s small isn’t it…I can’t get excited about the vege patch at the moment because I know we’re going away again in May and can’t be sure whoever is renting here will make use of a vege garden.
I did a bit of tip pruning today to try and encourage bushiness. Notably, the melaleuca hueglii at the back was getting leggy; and the astartea fasicularis, which looked a bit yellow (maybe that’s just the colour of new growth?) and were drooping in places; and the melaleuca lateritias. Only one is looking really healthy (and it’s really healthy) so I hope the others are going to be OK.
There’s been a bit of death as well. The gomopholobium scabra have suffered, one survivor of four and it’s looking pretty ropey. Hakea lissocarpha (got excited about them in the bush) have also fared quite badly: two dead, one OK, one OK but not doing much.
The eucalyptus forrestiana is belting along though, as are all the acacias. And the verticordia plumosa flowered this week: the smell!
I also dragged out a lot of dead wood this week. We have a “green waste” collection coming up, so we decided it was time to get some of the dead wood out. It’s been good to have it down as a mulch, the leaves of the NZ Xmas Tree are now all dropped on the ground and form a good mulch, but the bigger branches were making it look a mess at the back and were a bloody nuisance to walk on. Plus the remains of the fake banana simply refused to rot down and even started to sprout…oh dear, invasive weed!
Talking of invasive weeds: the Couch grass is coming back. It’s fascinating to see it reappearing: Glycophosphate wasn’t as successful as I hoped, but that may have been because I used it in Autumn. I’m spot spraying again now it’s spring. Other than that the cardboard/mulch combos are doing a good job on the whole.
The cuttings frame…brick and glass table top. Under the shade of the unknown callistemon, the only large thing in the back garden. The branches on top are to provide extra shade. John Wrigley reckons 60% shade is required.
I also built a cuttings frame this week from brick and glass; my plan is to take cuttings of the smaller ground covers to fill out the area at the back. I have dense understory in mind and not too much worry about what survives. I got some cuttings from the local bush this week as well, a good source of locally adapted ground covers (obviously). I don’t think I have my cutting mix right though. I used one compost to one sand. Too heavy. I’m told one sharp (i.e. grainy) sand to one of perlite is all that’s needed.
Well, after six weeks “in the hills“, care taking a native plant nursery I’m finally back at the house and, hooray, in the garden.
The back garden….weeks of rain and it still looks dry as a bone. The heap of wood on the “lawn” is green waste ready to move out front next week.The back from the other side…looks even drier!The front. Oh dear I seem to have created a desert.
It was a bit of a shock at first, my eye had become adjusted to “mature” bush and gardens, so I couldn’t really see anything in the garden…it all looked so small…and dry. Despite a couple of months of pretty persistent and heavy rainfall the garden “looks” dry. Maybe it’s just the sand, but I sort of expected the mulch to look wet…it doesn’t. However, once I dig under the dry top layer it’s nice and moist below, and, best of all, we’re making some nice soil. The sort that makes me grin, rub my hands together and make yokel type noises…I’m not sure why, maybe because I was brought up in rural Oxfordshire.
It took me a couple of days of crawling about on my hands and knees to get over the despair at the artfully created “badlands” look, and rekindle my passion. The plants are there and they are growing…it’s just going to take a couple of years before they start to look like the bush. And its not as bad as all that. My “living mulch” idea is working…
Looks at those lovely flowers! The petals are dry as a bone, like rice paper, and they open and close each day.
And the compost I made before going is fabulous. It’s coming in very handy for the *new plantings*…we brought back another fifty or so plants from the nursery and I got another ten from MOTT yesterday. I got a Eucalyptus Erythrocorys for the back fence and a Eucalyptus Presissiana for the gap left by the now defunct NZ Xmas Tree. Both are smaller eucalypts with nice flowers.
The very gnarly compost. Its got really good texture once I sift the sticks out.
I also got a E. Lehmanii but I’m not sure we’ve got the space now that I’m back. It’s label says three to four meters, but Wrigley and Fagg say up to 6m. I don’t think we want another tree that big, but I’ve got a couple of possible spots around the neighbourhood in mind for it! I might do a bit of guerilla gardening…hee, hee.
The eucalyptus outbreak is the result of learning about them while I was caretaking the nursery. I posted about them, in excruciating detail, here.
The other new plants are a couple of big shrubs, melaleuca nesophila (photos of a mature one here) and melaleuca microphylla (more on melaleucas as hedges here); and, the bulk of the new plants, a selection of small shrubs and groundcovers. I’m hoping to fill out the basic structure made by the large shrubs and trees.
So, they all got planted this week. Perfect weather for it: occasional heavy rain, sunny spells. It’s beginning to warm up and things are really beginning to take off.
The vege patch is doing well. Actually, the cherry tomato in the vege patch is doing amazingly well and other stuff is OK. You have to like lettuce to enjoy of vege patch. It’s small isn’t it…I can’t get excited about the vege patch at the moment because I know we’re going away again in May and can’t be sure whoever is renting here will make use of a vege garden.
I did a bit of tip pruning today to try and encourage bushiness. Notably, the melaleuca hueglii at the back was getting leggy; and the astartea fasicularis’, which look a bit yellow (maybe that’s just the colour of new growth?) and were drooping in places; and the melaleuca lateritias. Only one is looking really healthy, and it’s really healthy, so I hope the others are going to be OK.
There’s been a bit of death as well. The gomopholobium scabra have suffered, one survivor of four and it’s looking pretty ropey. Hakea lissocarpha (got excited about them in the bush) have also fared quite badly: two dead, one OK, one OK but not doing much.
The eucalyptus forrestiana is belting along though, as are all the acacias. And the verticordia plumosa flowered this week: the smell! I get up close for a good long sniff every time I pass it.
I also dragged out a lot of dead wood this week. We have a “green waste” collection coming up, so we decided it was time to get some of the dead wood out. It’s been good to have it down as a mulch, the leaves of the NZ Xmas Tree are now all dropped on the ground and form a good mulch, but the bigger branches were making it look a mess at the back and were a bloody nuisance to walk on. Plus the remains of the fake banana simply refused to rot down and even started to sprout…arghhh, invasive weed! And there were the remains of the bloody lemon tree I brought in during the “industrial gardening job” fiasco. If there’s one thing I regret, it was bringing that bloody lemon tree waste in. Anyway, it’s going out again now.
Talking of invasive weeds: the bloody Couch grass is coming back. It’s fascinating to see it reappearing: Glycophosphate failed! Liars, they said two applications would kill it. I’m sticking to “mechanical means” on the mulched areas now, aka: getting down on my hands and knees and rooting it out. It’s much nicer and way more satisfying; I can vilify each piece as it comes out. Other than that the cardboard/mulch combos are doing a good job on the whole.
The cuttings frame…brick and glass table top. Under the shade of the unknown callistemon, the only large thing in the back garden. The branches on top are to provide extra shade. John Wrigley reckons 60% shade is required.
I also built a cuttings frame this week (I’m beginning to understand why I’ve been feeling tired!) from brick and glass; my plan is to take cuttings of the smaller ground covers to fill out the area at the back. I have dense understory in mind and not too much worry about what survives. I got some cuttings from the local bush this week as well, a good source of locally adapted ground covers (obviously). I don’t think I have my cutting mix right though. I used one compost to one sand. Too heavy. I’m told one sharp (i.e. grainy) sand to one of perlite is all that’s needed. I don’t even know what Perlite is, but it sounds “Bunningsy”.
Well that’s about it for this week. My goodness it’s nice to be back. It’s going to be an exciting spring in the garden…
…it’ll keep me sane while we repaint the house, fix the guttering, replace the toilet cistern, change the lights and plugs, replace the sink, do up the bathroom, change the door handles, fix the fly screens…oh no, the list looks endless, and not one item has anything whatsoever to do with living simply and sustainably…[groan!]
I just realised: a week has gone by and I haven’t posted about a plant…what!?
Mostly because it’s been raining (oh, my has it been raining) and I was doing some work (the agony) and I’ve been having identity issues (plant ones, not personal…well, not personal ones that impinge on my ability to appreciate plants…I am getting ready to move on though, which does involve a certain degree of detachment; eight days to go, see I can count them.)
So, I’m falling back on reserves…this is corymbia citriodora:
C. citriodora is the tall silver barked one on the left; aka Eucalyptus citriodora until quite recently when Johnson and Hill’s landmark paper (in Telopea, vol. 6, 2-3) shattered the eucalypt world forever. The tree to it’s right with multiple trunks is C. calophylla (post here). Gosh, look how sunny it was a few weeks ago.
I first spotted it when I was photographing the C. callophylla (Marri) beside it. I couldn’t ID it at the time, despite Ivan Holliday (I discovered this week he was a successful sportsman before becoming a plant guru) and Geoffrey Walton’s “Gardener’s Companion to Eucalypts”. They have an “identify your eucalypt” section…it’s a bit arcane. Luckily Debbie, who’s nursery I’m caretaking, told me what it is via FB.
Going up!
Beautiful tree. Comes from a small area of Queensland and is adaptable to all sorts of soils and climates. The leaves contain citronella oil, hence the name. They do smell nice, although at this scale, it’s not so easy to get close to them! Holliday and Walton reckon they grow to up to 45m. I’d say this one is close to that?
Apparently it’s notorious for dropping limbs unexpectedly in heavy winds…ouch.
“We want to plant a hedge of melaleucas…can you suggest any please?”
Music to my ears. I was out of my deckchair so fast the sonic boom scared birds three feet away. This was at the market in Bridgetown; it had been a rather slow day.
So, a melaleuca hedge…gosh, what choice. It surprises me how underrated melaleucas are. Only half an hour before I’d suggested them to a customer for a windbreak and they turned their nose up on the grounds that “they’re a bit woody and scraggly.” That can be true, if they’re left unpruned, but, as that font of all knowledge on Melaleucas, Ivan Holliday, points out: “they can be cut and pruned to any desired shape or size without detriment”. Apparently, a good chop after flowering keeps them bushy and encourages profuse flowering the next year. (Holiday’s book referenced here.)
Plus, they are hardy: wet, dry, salt, heavy soil, sandy soil, on the moon…there’s a melaleuca for any situation.
Meanwhile, back at the hedge: 10 m of roadside, heavy soils, hedge to about 3m for privacy. I focussed on Western Australian species (of course) and suggested:
Western Australian melaleucas that are large shrubs (or small trees) and sold in the nursery I’m working for. All photos stolen from the internet, except M. nesophila which is my own (post here).
Melaleuca microphylla: 2 to 4m, “an excellent shrub for hedging or screening” (Holliday). Handsome white/cream flowers. The customer was sold and bought six for the roadside.
M. Lateritia: to about 2m, dense, bushy, very pretty red flower. They went for six of those too, for the inside.
Now, personally, I’d have gone for more of a mix. Maybe creating the main, roadside hedge from m. microphylla, and interspersing with:
M. Huegelii: to 5m with a profusion of white flowers. Admittedly it can get a bit straggly, but Holliday reckons regular pruning keeps them bushy. I’d slip one into one end of the hedge.
M. Incana: to 3m, soft, weeping grey-green foliage, stunning yellow flower. Denise Greig (full reference here) lists it as a “specimen plant” by which she means one that knocks your socks off. I’d have a couple of these on the house side of the hedge for show.
M. Nesophila: a small tree to 4m, has the most beautiful purple flower and really nice bark. I’ve seen one on the road verge in Mandurah and it’s dense and bushy despite the lack of attention. I’d definitely have one or two of these mixed in with the m. microphylla on the roadside.
Smaller melaleucas, WA and from this nursery. Pictures from the internet, except the m. violacea bush…I’m still waiting for it to flower…post here.
Okay, that’s the basic hedge. Now, a hedge like that really deserves to be continued into the garden. After all, who’d want that to end at a lawn…does anyone in Australia with any sense still value lawns? Bloody useless things. So, if I was going to butcher the front lawn and continue the melaleuca theme, I’d bring the size down a bit and then go to some ground covers, you know for that pleasing, banked up, sort of look. Thus:
M. Fulgens: woody shrub to 1.5 to 2m. Very showy red flower. I imagine about five of those dotted across the front of the hedge. Intermixed with:
M. Spathulata: compact shrub to about 1.5m. Profusion of pink flowers; “A beauty for the garden” (Holliday – I like this man’s attitude, he’s got a lovely smile too.) plus Greig lists it as a specimen plant. So, better have about five of them too.
M. Scabra: small woody shrub between 0.5 and 1m, profuse pink flowers. Five or so near the front of this area.
And in front of all this, a nice mixture of:
M. pulchella: low, spreading shrub to about 0.5m, lovely pink flower.
M. violacea: wide spreading, prostrate shrub that grows up in layers. It develops a look almost like a cumulus cloud. Absolute stunner even before it flowers; reddish-pink when it does. One here is about to flower and I’m on tenterhooks.
And that’s only WA species suited to a 3m hedge. There are also bigger melaleucas that are suited to wetter ground – m. cuticularis: salty swamps, to 12m; m. preissiana: to 10m, likes swamps; m. rhaphiophylla: to 10 or 25m, likes wet feet too.
And from the eastern states: M. Armarillis: nice white flower, 5 to 8m, big and bushy, excellent windbreak; M Ericifolia: to 6m, hardy, good hedge; m. quinquenervia: to 12m (or more), happy in salty swamps; m. styphliodes: upto 15m, hardy and adaptable; m. thymifolia: to about 1m, spreads, lovely purple flower…if I was to let one eastern states melaleuca sneak through it would be this one; m. diosmifolia: up to 4m, dense, green flowers, great hedging/screen plant.
And that’s just the ones in the nursery here. Holliday mentions there are about 255 recorded species. His book describes “250 species, sub-species, varieties and forms”. Apparently, most of them are easy to cultivate from cuttings. Awesome!
Now, about that 20 acres of bare paddock I’m looking for…:-)
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p.s If you’re into this sort of thing, you might like these other posts:
Spotted this in the bush this afternoon while in pursuit of Pimelea (post here).
Lechenaultia bilobaLechenaultia biloba
It’s lechenaultia biloba, a member of the Goodeniaceae family, which includes several other genera including Goodenia and Scaevola. Who’d have believed that. Here are pics of the whole plant:
Lechenaultia bilobaLechenaultia biloba
My identification is based on Nevill’s photo and placement in this area, combined with Florabase (books here), and was confirmed by a friend who knows what she’s talking about.
The nursery grows some and I’ve got a couple for the garden, they look like a nice small understory shrub.
A while ago I blogged about P. ferruginnea in our garden at home here.
Then I spotted this really nice plant with an outstanding white flower and included it’s photo in this “bush bash” post, even though I didn’t know it’s name at the time…shock horror. Here’s my original picture.
Original picture
A kindly soul has now identified it for me (thanks Debbie) as a member of the Pimelea genus. So I went and took a couple more pictures of it (as you do):
Pimelea, unknown species, Jarrah-Marri forest, SW WA – excuse my hand, it’s the only way I could get the camera to auto-focus! Spectacular flowers. It’s only part flowered. There are these tiny stamens, two per little flower, each with a blob of orange pollen. Older stamens have lost their pollen…maybe that’s why it keeps flowering? I saw a black and red-striped insect on it…a pollinator? Nevill lists a possible candidate, a beetle called cockchafer…I kid not. What a weird and wonderful world.Pimelea, unknown species, Jarrah-Marri forest, SW WA – a later flowering bud. Pollen carrying stamens are easier to see.
Now, which species of pimelea is this? The leaves look a lot like the ferruginea, but according to Denise Greig, they only flower pink (a list of the books I’m using is here). I can’t make out enough of the leaves from her pictures of other species to try and match it to others.
So, hopping over to Nevill…Pimelea brachyphylla looks promising. White flowers, possibly the right leaf shape…the pictures a bit small. But then P. ciliata has white flowers too….and P. spectablis, although the shape of the flower looks different, and p. cracens, although white of flower, is totally the wrong shape and not endemic to Jarrah-Marri woodland. You see what this bloody obsession with names is like!
Onwards…P. floribunda: white flower, growth habit not quite the same, wrong regions (Banksia and Eucalypt woodland…oooh, that’s where I live the rest of time!)
P. lanata – right colour, right region, right growth habit, but petals look a bit different from the picture, which isn’t great.
And lastly, Google Images and mainly Florabase. “Images” is great, but maybe a little unreliable at the more obscure end of Australian Fauna…mainly because of amateurs like me taking guesses based on Google Images.
From Florabase though, Pimelea brachyphylla looks geographically wrong; occurs further east.
P. ciliata looks very similar though (Florabase here)…so in the interests of getting to bed sometime today, I’ll go with a tentative P. Cilata, or one of it’s sub-species…what!? There are sub-species too…awesome!
Anyway, nice flower isn’t it? A member of the Thymelaeaceae family…(Good Lord, how many syllables is that? It’s like the end of a line in a sea shanty or some rousing western ballad.)
The only other genus in the Thymelaeaceae (I’m using cut and paste for that) family is Thecanthes. A genus so obscure that even Wrigley and Fagg (the thumping door stop of a book on all things Australian and flowering) only mention one: Thecanthes punicea – not cultivated that often, but “Flowers are spectacular” during the Darwin wet-season. Well there’s one good reason to go to Darwin in the wet season.
Gosh, wasn’t that fun? A half hour well spent. 🙂 Let’s see if anyone else got this far…I noticed this really neat Polling thing in someone’s blog the other day, so I thought I’d have a go:
Mandurah Native Gardens 