Philotheca myoporoides and Philotheca ‘Bournda Beauty’, both in full sun in my garden and so so hardy are next on the list. My Philotheca myoporoides is 3 years old and about a meter tall. Not the slightest bit phased by the heat or dry. The ‘Bournda Beauty’, just a couple of months old, is 20cm high and also showed no signs of stress. What troopers.
Correa Candy pink, now a year and half old and at full height of around 0.75m, didn’t once ask for more water. It was as fresh as a daisy throughout the heat and just glancing at it gave me hope for my garden. Dodonaea sp. Low has lovely deep green shiny leaves. My main plant is a well established plant at 1 ½ years. Its leaves stayed deep green and shiny. I have 4 new plants which I planted right in the middle of that crazy hot dry weather and they not only survived they grew like crazy. Admittedly they were getting additional water but they had just been planted from 70mm tubes when the heat hit. As I walk around my garden now and count up all the plants which simply continued performing come what may there were actually a lot of them. Add to the above Rhagodia spinescens, Carpobrotus glaucescens, Brachyscome multifida, Dianella (several species), Swainsonia galegifolia, Grevillea curviloba, Crowea exalata, Hakea (several species) Lotus australis, Westringia longifolia (grew like crazy) Westringia Zena and Westringia ‘Smokie’, Hardenbergia violacea, Indigofera australis, and Calothamnus quadrifidus. I wonder what you would add to this list……………what performed exceptionally well this summer in your garden? We are always happy to hear your stories. In the mean time I hope you are getting ready for Autumn planting, preparing to fill the empty spots, make new garden beds or replace plants which didn’t perform well this year. At IDP nursery we have already submitted our list of plants to the ANPS for the Autumn sale at the Botanic Gardens and I am excited because I get to go shopping again soon.
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In my garden three years ago there was Agapanthus, Nandina, Elms and seedling Elms (hundreds of them), a Daphne on the north side of the house and a huge Mulberry tree which lost all its leaves in the first summer after we arrived. Then there was more Agapanthus. There were few native birds. The previous owners told me that nothing grows well in Murrumbateman apart from Agapanthus. Sad. But you can, you really can have a successful garden in our harsh climate and you can do it without emptying the underground water aquifers onto your plants. Not only that you can have a nice garden relatively quickly if you are willing to put in the ground work. So how can you have success in the garden with natives? Here are the methods I used. Choose the right natives; frost hardy, drought hardy, heat hardy. Some which will grow fast to create micro climate. Remember that many of our natives, if chosen correctly, have unique coping mechanisms for our particular climate. You can chose colour, texture, leaves, and plants for flowers, there is so much variety. Chose the right site for each plant. The Daphne (not a native of course) in my garden was planted in full sun. It loves shade and would have given me many more flowers with glorious fragrance had it been planted on the south side of my garden. Other plants will not flower or do well unless planted in the sun. Do the ground work. Sure natives grow naturally in our area but most often we want a lusher look than can be found in the bush so adding compost and/or improving the soil in other ways prior to planting makes sense. Build saucers around plants to direct water into the root zone for those first couple of summers and/ or put in a simple irrigation system so that you can water strategically without spending all day at it. Don’t water lightly and often, water deeply so that roots grow deeply, well away from the surface of the soil. This way they are better equipped to keep their roots moist when the soil surface is dry or hot. If you are watering by hand use a bucket or watering can so you know for sure how much each plant has had.
At IDP Nursery we have the know how to help you have success in your garden. We can tell you how to expect your plant to perform. We can help you understand how best to irrigate your plants. And after three years you can have a garden that is starting to look special like mine.
 What a fabulous time of year spring is. Flowers and bees after a long cold winter; brings a smile to the heart and hope to warm the bones. But after that the hot summer sun hits, the flowers dry up and the garden goes into survival mode. If you have good hardy natives they will do the whole survival thing quite well because they are designed that way.
Sometimes our smiles can wane a bit with what feels like an excess of heat but hope continues as we see the seeds start to ripen on our plants. On our fruit trees that means the juicy delicious hot flesh of ripe apricots or plums but on our natives it heralds the next generation of our plants that we grow from seed. In the bush it is hope of regeneration after bush fire, in our gardens it can mean that where we had one paper daisy last year we now have them lining the path. In the nursery it means full pots of tiny green leaves pushing their way out of the soil and growing rapidly in the warmth ready for sale and new homes at your place. This year we have some new plants growing from seed that we haven’t had available at the nursery before. Swainsonia galegifolia are already up and even starting to show their secondary leaves. This gorgeous plant has bright pink, burgundy or occasionally white pea flowers in abundance in spring and then sporadically through summer and autumn. A wonderfully drought hardy plant that loves full sun and doesn’t mind the frost one bit. Great for the cottage garden look or just for that splash of brightness amongst the other shrubs. Also above ground in the seed bed are the Senna artemisioides, a stunning medium sized shrub which flowers through winter with bright yellow buttercup flowers followed by long mahogany coloured seed pods. This bush likes part shade and once settled in is also very drought hardy. It is growing under a Eucalypt at my place. We have just put down seeds of this year’s Cheiranthera linearis. Let’s hope we have more germination than last year because when you see them you will want one. Cheiranthera grows naturally in my paddocks and is reputed to grow in the presence of gold. I’m hoping. It is a small shrub with linear leaves and bright blue flowers. Absolutely gorgeous. It is drought and frost hardy too though the rabbits had a go at the ones in my garden which were getting more water and were therefore juicier no doubt. Other seeds collected are Themeda triandra (we have recently sown last years seeds; they don’t germinate if they are sown straight away, so this year’s seeds will be sown in spring 2019), Linum marginale, Lotus australis, Brachyscome decipiens, Xerochrysum viscosum, Pomaderris pallida, Hardenbergia violacea, and Indigofera australis, to name just a few. And so summer rolls on and with it the joy of harvesting seeds. Happy shopping when they all grow big enough for sale.
Growing plants in containers is not something I find particularly easy. This isn’t because it is a difficult thing to do but rather that I am not particularly good at remembering to water or don’t have the water (because I am on tank water only) to maintain good moisture levels in the pots. I really do prefer to put my plants in the ground and generally let them fend for themselves once they are old enough.
However having said that I do have a really lovely Hibbertia obtusifolia in a pot and last year when I had more water I also had some gorgeous purple Calibrachoa (not natives but a beautiful gift from a friend) lounging about on my front porch. Apart from water and the right light conditions the main requirement is a really good potting mix that is suitable for the plants that you want to grow. The Calibrachoa I was growing were potted up in a premium potting mix but my Hibbertia is in a mix that I made up from various ingredients especially for native plants in pots. It is a mix that we use in the nursery for growing plants once they come out of the cutting bed. A potting mix must serve several purposes to be useful. It must have weight to anchor and stabilise the plant in the pot. It must have a source of nutrition because the plant cannot spread its roots beyond the confines of the pot to look for nutrition. It must have a fairly open structure so that the roots of the plants can take up oxygen and it must be able to retain water so that added water does not dry out too quickly. We use just 4 ingredients in the potting mix for the nursery; 400ml (we use a large 200ml plant pot for measure) soaked coco peat, 200ml course sand, 100ml (or 2 cupped handfuls) native plant fertiliser and 1 bag of general purpose potting. Mix these together and use promptly, not forgetting that if you are using any sort of composted materials or potting mix you should wear gloves and a face mask because the risk of contracting legionnaires is not worth the slight inconvenience of doing so. If you can’t be bothered making up your own mix for your natives just buy a good quality native plant mix. NEVER skimp and save by buying a second rate potting mix and NEVER use garden soil in pots. The main reason for this in the home garden is that soil usually has very small particle size which leads to compaction which in turn results in poor aeration, poor drainage and poor penetration of water to the plant roots and your plants will not be happy. |
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January 2019
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