A bit unexpected, although it had at least three rounds of bug attack, so maybe that was “a sign”? Anyway, it appears to have croaked, which is a shame because it was one of the “Feature” trees in the back garden; a Key Structural Element (as a professional Garden Designer might put it (!)).
As it was and as it is now…it wasn’t until I put these pictures together that I realised how attached I was to this plant, I have a tear in my eye as I reflect on how glorious it was. I really miss it.
Fortunately I did a late season planting (in September) of an E. Erythrocorys, and it’s going along nicely, so I’ll just have to shift my gaze back and left a bit, though I’m not sure it’s the ideal place for a structural tree: back fence. The E. Forrestiana occupied pride of place: right and centre.
Eucalyptus erythrocorys taken about six weeks ago, it’s grown a bit more since then. It has the most amazing eucalyptus (obviously) oil smell when I rub the leaves.
One thing about these sudden, unexpected deaths, is that I never know what caused them? I’m honing my forensic pathology skills…slowly.
I don’t think it was lack of water, because it got plenty of that, Mr. Hose was a regular visitor, and on the odd occasions I stuck my fingers in, the soil was damp.
Which I guess, leaves disease (hard to say, nothing visible), bug attack (hadn’t had any since it got ferociously hot), congenital weakness…? Maybe. We are 700 km from it’s natural environment.
Map showing where E. Forrestiana occurs naturally. A long way away, but still in Western Australia. Map from Florabase. We’re a touch south of Perth.
Whatever, it is dead and it’s not the first healthily growing plant to suddenly turn up it’s toes and go for no apparent reason. Hakea Lissocarpha is another recent example. And let’s not get into the “inexperienced gardener slaughters delicate Western Australian plants” list, actually let’s, it’s pure masochism: there was the gompholobium scabrum massacre, the kunzea baxteri poisoning tragedy and anigozanthus favidus mass extinction event…to name just three…there are others!
I’m on a learning curve; floundering in the “don’t know what I don’t know” box at the moment…there’s much more to this than met my eye, which is what’s making it so damned engrossing.
Anyway, I’m considering a re-plant of the E. Forrestiana, except I’ll assume the CoD was “species unsuitable for environment” and try something else that’s more local. E. Forrestiana was an exotic experiment. Although, Mandurah City Council (my local council, just thought I’d mention that in the unlikely event that someone other than me is reading this bit) does list E. Forrestiana as a tree that is suitable for this region, so I wasn’t too far off the mark, but still, I’m aiming for a garden that can survive with no artificial watering at all, so I’m looking for something that’s hardier.
Haven’t decided what yet…maybe a Banksia Menziesii, which is local, or maybe Ill just re-shape the layout of the garden with some smaller shrubs, where a bit of die-off isn’t so noticeable. My local MOTT (Men of the Trees…argh, that name! Forgive them, they do good work, but are a bit you know…“old fashioned”… and do actually include Women too) branch has a fine selection of candidates.
Time will tell. Meanwhile, I must go an turn the hose off…or maybe on…
“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…:-)
___
p.s If you’re into this sort of thing, you might like these other posts:
I spotted this on the highway near our house in Mandurah (Western Australia, south of Perth).
Oh look it’s a big bush
The very nice purple flowers caught my eye.
ShowyThe blue sky is real, not Photoshopped in later.Wow, who wouldn’t want a back garden crowded with that?
The very attractive bark appealed to, and also gave me some ideas as to which genus the bush might be from…
Collectively the Melaleucas are often called “paperbarks”…”gosh, I wonder what Genus it could be?”
So, I got to thinking…”It’s about 250 m from our house, is clearly thriving and a few early deaths in the garden have left some gaps. How nice one of these would look in the gap left by that Agonis Juniperina that’s turned up it’s toes on the back fence…!”
The “problem” was I didn’t know which melaleuca it was.
Luckily Debbie, whose nursery I’m caretaking, named it for me: melaleuca nesophila. (She also told me that other people have had A Juniperina doing the “sudden unexpected death” thing this year, which was reassuring.)
So, Melaleuca Nesophila, there’s a name to conjure with. Common names “Showy honey-myrtle” or “Pink myrtle”. I like the former best. Showy it certainly is.
And, guess what, Debbie grows them here at the nursery. What a happy coincidence!
The only slight downside is that it’s not endemic to our local area. It originates on a very small stretch of the south coast (of WA, map here on Florabase if you’re interested). How is it something so unique evolves and stays in such a small area, even though it’s so obviously adaptable to elsewhere?
Anyway, given that my plan to plant only species endemic to our local area has gone the way of the A. Juniperina, I’ve put aside the M. Nesophila that will be joining us in Mandurah. It’s getting special personal attention and daily admiring glances; along with the other potential “newbies” to the garden. I knew it would be dangerous coming here. You wouldn’t believe how many justifications I’ve come up with for taking more plants home…
In a previous post I reflected on the Eucalypts (and Corymbias) that are available in the nursery I’m caretaking and that would make a good windbreak on sandy soil. I chose sandy soil because the area I live in (Mandurah) is all sand.
And using Eucalypts alone in a windbreak would be missing an opportunity to indulge in the wonder of Western Australia’s truly stunning native flora.
For example, there are some very nice Acacias that could be added. Fast growing, hardy and spectacular flowers. For example:
All these pictures were lifted off the web…
Acacia cyclops (Grows to about 3m x 3m and forms a nice dense hedge, tolerates salt, endemic to the WA coast. We’ve got two of these in the garden at home.);
A. Rostellifera (Great name, goes to around 5m and, again, forms a nice dense bush, like A. Cyclops, endemic to SW WA coastal areas. Two of these in the garden too.);
A. Saligna (seemingly to around 6 or 7m, more of a tree than a shrub, endemic to coastla areas and nice to look at too. I didn’t put any of these in at home as it’s got the potential to get a bit big and there are other trees I prefer. That said, we have a self-sewn acacia in the front garden and I have a feeling it might be A. Saligna…could get a bit crowded out there!);
A. Acuminata (Comes from inland WA, so probably hardy enough for a coastal site and doesn’t mind salt. Goes to about 5m and forms a tree. Common name is Raspberry Jam Wattle, because, apparently, that’s what the wood smells like…how odd.)
They seem to be the mainstays of the acacias in a windbreak (that are endemic to WA and available in the nursery…it’s by no means all the acacias one might put in a windbreak). Some others that are smaller and might be good for under-storey are:
Most of these pictures were lifted off the web.
A. Myrtifolia (to about 2.5m, nice and bushy, don’t mind a bit of shade, apparently the flowers have a nice scent. We planted three in the garden.)
A. Drummondii (Fast growing to around 2 to 3m, supposed to be showy when they flower. Two in the garden.)
A. Littorea (From WA’s south coast, looks like it forms a nice bushy shrub to 2m.
Those seem to be the acacias that get bushy. A few others that I’d include for show are:
A. Pulchella (Prickly Moses, flowering in the bush right now, lovely yellow flowers. Gets to about 1 to 1.5m.)
A. Glaucoptera (Good ground cover to about 1m, nice flowers and very unusual leaf shape.)
A. Extensa (to about 3m, but has a very open habit, and no real leaves to talk of so I’m not sure how useful it is in a windbreak. It’s just finished flowering here…stunning.)
Well that’s that for the acacias. Don’t they look nice?
What a cracking title for a blog post that is…a dead cert for drawing in readers. I think I’m getting on top of this blogging thing.
(Ooops, I digressed before I’d started.)
In a previous post I reflected on the Eucalypts (and Corymbias) that are available in the nursery I’m caretaking and that would make a good windbreak on a hypothetical twenty acres of sandy soil. It’s a “hypothetical” twenty acres because our garden is a mere 500 m2 in an urban environment, no room for more than a single Eucalypt (E. Forrestiana) and one Banksia (Grandis). So, it’s mostly dreaming (and learning).
I chose sandy soil because the next market I’m going to (this Saturday) is in Vasse in Western Australia’s South West (drop by if you’re in the area), a region notorious for it’s nutrient poor sandy soils. I’m hoping a customer asks me to recommend plants for a windbreak so I can leap up out of my deck chair and appear all knowledgable. (Sadly, I do crave attention and do like to have my ego petted on a regular basis; which goes some way to explaining why I’m blogging too.)
Anyway, where I’m trying to get to is that using Eucalypts alone in a windbreak would be missing an opportunity to gawp in wonder at Western Australia’s truly stunning native flora.
For example, there are some very nice Acacias that could be added. Fast growing, hardy and spectacular flowers. For example:
All these pictures were lifted off the web…
Acacia cyclops (Grows to about 3m x 3m and forms a nice dense hedge, tolerates salt, endemic to the WA coast. We’ve got two of these in the garden at home.);
A. Rostellifera (Great name, goes to around 5m and, again, forms a nice dense bush, like A. Cyclops, endemic to SW WA coastal areas. Two of these in the garden too.);
A. Saligna (seemingly to around 6 or 7m, more of a tree than a shrub, endemic to coastla areas and nice to look at too. I didn’t put any of these in at home as it’s got the potential to get a bit big and there are other trees I prefer. That said, we have a self-sewn acacia in the front garden and I have a feeling it might be A. Saligna…could get a bit crowded out there!);
A. Acuminata (Comes from inland WA, so probably hardy enough for a coastal site and doesn’t mind salt. Goes to about 5m and forms a tree. Common name is Raspberry Jam Wattle, because, apparently, that’s what the wood smells like…how odd.)
They seem to be the mainstays of the acacias in a windbreak (that are endemic to WA and available in the nursery…it’s by no means all the acacias one might put in a windbreak, oh no!). Some others that are smaller and might be good for under-storey are:
Most of these pictures were lifted off the web.
A. Myrtifolia (to about 2.5m, nice and bushy, don’t mind a bit of shade, apparently the flowers have a nice scent. I think we planted three in the garden.)
A. Drummondii (Fast growing to around 2 to 3m, supposed to be showy when they flower. I’m not sure why, but we didn’t plant nay at home…?)
A. Littorea (From WA’s south coast, looks like it forms a nice bushy shrub to 2m. Again, none at home, possibly because it’s from the far south coast and I was trying to be anal about planting only species endemic to the local region…which has gone completely by the board now, but the intention was there at the start.)
Those seem to be the acacias that get bushy. A few others that I’d include for show are:
A. Pulchella (Prickly Moses, flowering in the bush right now, lovely yellow flowers. Gets to about 1 to 1.5m.)
A. Glaucoptera (Good ground cover to about 1m, nice flowers and very unusual leaf shape.)
A. Extensa (to about 3m, but has a very open habit, and no real leaves to talk of so I’m not sure how useful it is in a windbreak. It’s just finished flowering here…stunning.)
Well that’s that for the acacias. Don’t they look nice? They are flowering in the bush here right now and those yellow flowers are a joy to see. Some posts with pictures here, here, here and at my other blog here.
I’ve just been learning about Melaleucas, another genus of bushy shrubs endemic to Australia. They (mostly) have flowers which are pink, purple and white…so with the Eucalypts flowering mostly red and the Acacias yellow, it’s only sensible to have some Melaleucas in the wind break too…hmm, at this rate it’s a “hypothetical” twenty acres of wind break…it’ll be very calm in the middle, where my two bed solar passive house is going to be…I mean might be…could be…
I’ve been thinking about Eucalypts a lot recently. The nursery stocks 38 at the moment. To make learning about them manageable I’ve broken them down into those that are native to Western Australia, and the other stuff. Given I’m living in WA, they’re the ones I’m most interested in right now.
Then within that I’ve then been thinking about where they come from within the state (Goldfields/wheatbelt; north of Perth coast; south coast and “the hills”) and their “use”.
So, if I was going to plant a nice looking windbreak/screen in well drained, i.e. sandy, soil, using only Eucalypts and capable of with standing a bit of salt spray I’d go for (in order of how easily I recall them):
Eucalytpus forrestiana (comes from the south coast, 3m or so, common name “Fuschia Gum”. Top of mind because we have one shooting away in the garden at home.)
E. ficifolia (also south coast, stunning red flower, 5 to 8m, common name “Red Flowering Gum”, strictly speaking this is a Corymbia, not a Eucalypt. I think the distinction is academic. Second in my mind because I saw one flower over Xmas in Coogee…nice!)
E. Lehmanii(south coast mallee (means it has multiple trunks), 4 to 6m, very nice green flower and foliage, common name “Bushy Yate”)
E. Pyriformis (N.E. of Perth, mallee, up to 5m, showy foliage and flowers, common name “Pear Fruited Mallee”)
E. Platypus heterophylla (what a name, although I gather it’s recently been changed to E. Utilis..how dull in comparison. South coast, 4 to 8m, yellow flowers, dense crown, common name “Coastal Moort”)
E. Torquata (“Coral gum”, apparently one of the most popular Eucalypts in cultivation, I saw a blog post from someone growing one on the south coast of the UK, so it must be pretty adaptable. It comes from the Goldfields region, 6 to 11m, long lasting, red/pink flowers, dense crown).
E. Preissiana (“Bell Fruited Mallee”, to 3m, deep yellow flowers, atractive blue-green foliage, responds well to pruning, I’m told. I’ve got one of these put aside to go back home to Mandurah for the garden.)
Eucalypts for a sandy soil screen and their flowers
That’s all the WA ones I can find that are in the nursery here and suggested as good windbreak/screen tree. Three others are of a good size for a large garden and renowned (in certain circles) for their showiness:
E. Erythrocorys (comes from the west coast north of Perth, Geraldton region, “Illyarrie”, 3 to 10 m, bit of a range that! Possibly more ornamental, than windbreak.)
E. Caesia (“Silver Princess”, originates in the Wheatbelt; like E. Erythrocorys, may be more of a “Good Lord, look at that” tree, than a windbreak. Up to 8m.)
E. Erythronema (Red Flowering Mallee, to 6m. Wheatbelt. Supposed to be very showy, but maybe not windbreaky.)
Overall these trees come from quite a range of geographical regions within WA, so as a grouping it’s not sympathetic to any one local environment. With that in mind, there are a few of Eastern states Eucalypts that seem good too…
E. Cladocaylx (“Nana” is the dwarfing variety, 5 to 7m, not to be confused with the non-dwarfing variety that goes to 35m…there’s a mistake I wouldn’t want to make. Good windbreak tree. Comes from South Australia.)
E. Lansdowneana (“Crimson Mallee Box”, 2 to 5m, South Australian, supposed to have nice flowers.)
E. Leucoxylon (“Red flowered Yellow Box”, 6 to 12m, SA and Victoria, very showy flowers and good windbreak.)
E. Sideroxylon (“Rosea”, to 15m, Queensland, NSW, Vic. Ornamental, good as a windbreak, very showy flowers, makes good honey apparently.)
Here’s how they all look:
Very nice flowers, especially E. Erythrocorys. The E. Caldocalyx, Lansdowneana, Leucoxylon and Sideroxylon are all from the Eastern states. The others are from WA and are down here because they weren’t described as good screening plants in the books I’m using…they look fine to me though, especially Erythrocorys.
Well, what a pleasent and informative way to spend a rainy Tuesday morning..anyone want to plant a wind break?
Sources
On-line I find Florabase very useful, and recently discovered the more descriptive Florabank. For pictures, Westflora on Flickr has it pretty much covered.
Off-line (What? Life off-line…no way!) I’ve been using:
Gardener’s Companion to Eucalypts by Ivan Holliday and Geoffrey Watson.
Australian Native Plants – Propagation, cultivation and use in landscaping by John W. Wrigley and Murray Fagg
Flowering Natives for Home Gardens by Denise Greig.
All highly recommended. The Wrigley and Fagg book is especially comprehensive, while Grieg’s has pictures of everything.
Finally, who’d plant a windbreak with only Euclaypts though, especially when there are all those Callistemon, Melaleuca, Acacia, Agonis and so on and so forth, to be considered. Did you know the Agonis family occur naturally only in WA…what about that? Anyway, that’s another story.
Oh, and I should add, I’m no expert at this, just an enthusiastic amateur.
I got it from my Dad (good excuse?). He did enjoy spending long hours at the wrong end of platforms waiting for those rare “37s” or “49s” or whatever the numbers were.
In the absence of trains, I’ve taken to the latin names of plants to satisfy my “need to geek”. They are so collectable, and the best bit is, not only do I get the name, but the opportunity to plant one in the garden as well.
Actually, that’s not entirely true, I’ve now run out of garden space and I’m coming to understand the “20 acre” thing. Twenty acres, I could do a lot of planting in twenty acres…
I’ve been thinking about Eucalypts a lot recently. The nursery stocks 38 at the moment. That’s a lot of latin! To make collecting all those names manageable I’ve broken them down into those that are endemic to Western Australia, and the other stuff. Given I’m living in WA, they’re the ones I’m most inetrested in right now.
Then within that I’ve then been thinking about where they come from within the state (Goldfields/wheatbelt; north of Perth coast; south coast and “the hills”…those regions have fancy names, a level of geekery that is currently outside my range…that’s like getting into spotting railway station cafes) and their “use”.
Ah ha, there we go: their “Use”. Let’s be honest, this obsession is not some Pagan thing about communing with nature is it? It’s about utility…I’m still a capitalist at heart.
So, if I was going to plant a nice looking windbreak/screen in well drained, i.e. sandy, soil, using only Eucalypts* and capable of with standing a bit of salt spray I’d go for (in order of how easily I recall them):
Eucalytpus forrestiana (comes from the south coast, 3m or so, common name “Fuschia Gum”. Top of mind because we have one shooting away in the garden at home.)
E. ficifolia (also south coast, stunning red flower, 5 to 8m, common name “Red Flowering Gum”, strictly speaking this is a Corymbia, not a Eucalypt. I think the distinction is academic. Second in my mind because I saw one flower over Xmas in Coogee…wow!)
E. Lehmanii(south coast mallee (I think that means it has multiple trunks), 4 to 6m, very nice green flower and foliage, common name “Bushy Yate”)
E. Pyriformis (N.E. of Perth, mallee, up to 5m, showy foliage and flowers, common name “Pear Fruited Mallee”)
E. Platypus heterophylla (what a name, although I gather it’s recently been changed to E. Utilis..how dull in comparison. South coast, 4 to 8m, yellow flowers, dense crown, common name “Coastal Moort”)
E. Torquata (“Coral gum”, apparently one of the most popular Eucalypts in cultivation, I saw a blog post from someone growing one on the south coast of the UK, so it must be pretty adaptable. It comes from the Goldfields region, 6 to 11m, long lasting, red/pink flowers, dense crown).
E. Preissiana (“Bell Fruited Mallee”, to 3m, deep yellow flowers, atractive blue-green foliage, responds well to pruning, I’m told. I’ve got one of these put aside to go back home to Mandurah for the garden…I do have space! An Agonis Juniperina on the back fence died early on, so I’m going to try this beauty in that gap. Honestly, I’m twitching with excitement.)
Eucalypts for a sandy soil screen and their flowers
That’s all the WA ones I can find that are in the nursery here and suggested as good windbreak/screen tree. Three others are of a good size for a large garden and renowned (in certain circles) for their showiness:
E. Erythrocorys (comes from the west coast north of Perth, Geraldton region, “Illyarrie”, 3 to 10 m, bit of a range that! Possibly more ornamental, than windbreak, so I’d probably put it in good view on this hypothetical 20 acres of paradise.)
E. Caesia (“Silver Princess”, originates in the Wheatbelt; like E. Erythrocorys, may be more of a “Good Lord, look at that” tree, than a windbreak, so maybe one, or two, or three, it is 20 acres after all, in good view. Up to 8m.)
E. Erythronema (Red Flowering Mallee, to 6m. Wheatbelt. Supposed to be very showy, but maybe not windbreaky.)
Overall these trees come from quite a range of geographical regions within WA, so as a grouping it’s not sympathetic to any one local environment. With that in mind, there are a few of Eastern states Eucalypts that seem good too…
E. Cladocaylx (“Nana” is the dwarfing variety, 5 to 7m, not to be confused with the non-dwarfing variety that goes to 35m…there’s a mistake I wouldn’t want to make. Good windbreak tree. Comes from South Australia.)
E. Lansdowneana (“Crimson Mallee Box”, 2 to 5m, South Australian, supposed to have nice flowers.)
E. Leucoxylon (“Red flowered Yellow Box”, 6 to 12m, SA and Victoria, very showy flowers and good windbreak.)
E. Sideroxylon (“Rosea”, to 15m, Queensland, NSW, Vic. Ornamental, good as a windbreak, very showy flowers, makes good honey apparently.)
Here’s how they all look:
Very nice flowers, especially E. Erythrocorys. The E. Caldocalyx, Lansdowneana, Leucoxylon and Sideroxylon are all from the Eastern states. The others are from WA and are down here because they weren’t described as good screening plants in the books I’m using…they look fine to me though, especially Erythrocorys.
Well, what a pleasent and informative way to spend a rainy Tuesday morning. Now, to find those 20 acres…anyone want to plant a wind break?
Sources
On-line I find Florabase very useful, and recently discovered the more descriptive Florabank. For pictures, Westflora on Flickr has it pretty much covered.
Off-line (What? Life off-line…no way!) I’ve been using:
Gardener’s Companion to Eucalypts by Ivan Holliday and Geoffrey Watson.
Australian Native Plants – Propagation, cultivation and use in landscaping by John W. Wrigley and Murray Fagg
Flowering Natives for Home Gardens by Denise Greig.
All highly recommended. The Wrigley and Fagg book is especially comprehensive, while Grieg’s has pictures of everything.
*Who’d plant a windbreak with only Euclaypts though, especially when there are all those Callistemon, Melaleuca, Acacia, Agonis and so on and so forth, to be considered. Did you know the Agonis family occur naturally only in WA…what about that? Anyway, that’s another story.
Asterix’s don’t really work in blog posts do they.
Oh, and I should add, I’m no expert at this, just an enthusiastic amateur. If anyone knows better than me, the comments are open and very welcome…which of course, pre-supposes anyone but me will ever read this…best if you don’t start down that route again, Chris.
You’re so right, Chris, that way madness surely lies…:-)
In a previous post I wrote about the plants in the garden (including pics from the web). It was bit of a ramble and maybe not that accessible unless you’re really into it. This post is just a list of the plants with the number in the garden. Drier, but maybe more useful. Columns are:
Name – pretty obvious
Number – of plants we planted
Width and height – estimated from various sources and not that reliable. In meters.
Shape – a guess from various sources
Source – TN = Tintuppa nursery in Balingup, MOTT = Men of the Trees Peel Branch, ANN = Australian Native Nursery on King’s road in Perth, Nindethana = seed supplier.
This table is available as an xlsx spreadsheet (email me if you want a copy: garden.nomad at gmail.com):
This post is an overview of the plants we’ve put in. In other posts I blogged about how we selected the plants and how many I thought we might need. I was originally going to keep it fairly listy, but then each time I put in a plant I realised I wanted to say something about it. Well, it’s a blog, so why not. I’m writing this because I can’t find anyone real to talk to about it, and even if I could, who really wants to hear me ramble on about these plants for hours…and hours…and hours. So look, it’s a long rambling post, you don’t have to read it. I enjoyed writing it though, which is, after all, the point.
I’ve decided to order this list based on size, as it seems most likely that someone reading this is going to be more interested in, say, “small shrubs” than all the members of the Melaleuca genus. Maybe…
And, I’ve included a picture of each plant from the web. These are the pics that inspired a lot of my choices. Sorry, I no longer know where they came from. Pics of the species in the garden will follow over the coming months (or years!).
This post is a reflection on a process that took a few months; it started back in February and culminated in 183 plants from 60 species sitting in pots in our back yard. It (the post) is a bit of text monster (couple of pics at the end) and may not be for the feint hearted…but then again, it is about an obsession!
My aim was always to plant only species that would thrive in our local climate without a lot of pampering and ideally, plants that are indigenous to this area. In practise, I’ve strayed from the latter goal in a number of cases. Our climate is Mediterranean (Köppen classification Csa) (whatever that might mean) with summer averages ranging from highs of 27 °C and lows of 19 °C; winter ranges from averages of 15 °C to 9 °C. In summer peaks of 40 °C can occur. We get around 850 mm of rainfall per year, with most of that in the winter. Summers tend to be very dry, an average Nov-Mar period yields about 80mm of rainfall!
In outline, the process I followed was:
1. Find a list of WA (Western Australian) natives;
2. Take a look at images of each plant, check if it’s indigenous to the area and get some idea of how large it grows;
3. Narrow down the list of plants to those that are indigenous, or that I liked the look of and are close enough to probably be OK here;
4. Find suppliers of tube stock (plants that are less than one year old and are grown from seed in small pots (about 5 cm x 5 cm x 10 cm));
5. Compare my narrowed down list to what is available, taking into account the sizes of different species and space available, and select accordingly.
(Ha, that all sounds so easy, it was a labour of love that ran for months!)
Lists of WA Natives
After hunting around a bit I found the Water Corporation’s website had a comprehensive list of WA natives. When I first used this site it was an A-Z list of all plants. It’s changed a bit and is now more of a search engine. The new version looks much more useful: you type in your post code and out pops selections. You can then filter in various ways. So, for example, using my post code (6210) and the “WA Native” filter gives 209 possible plants. I did a similar process by hand with the older version, it just took a bit longer. The thing is though, “WA native” doesn’t necessarily mean “Mandurah native” which is where step 2 came in.
Before that though: I’ve since found some other sources for local plants that would have helped with cross checking and maybe saved some time. One is my local branch of Men of the Trees (I feel the need to keep pointing out the name is an historical anachronism, and they are inclusive of women too!). They are a voluntary organisation that grow plants for revegetation projects. It’s an excellent organisation for many reasons, including: they tend to only grow local species; it attracts some very knowledgable people; they are committed to re-vegetation. They are very generous with their knowledge too and were happy to share a plant list with me. It covers 84 species, which isn’t, of course, all that grow here, just those that MOTT grows. If you’d like the list, then please email me (garden.nomad at gmail.com).
I also looked in the library and found some great books including “Growing Locals – gardening with local plants in Perth” by Robert Powell and Jane Emberson. This book has a good overview of how to develop a native garden (compelling reading) and endless tables plants cross-referenced with the various soil types in the region. This is an amazing resource! The only slight downside was that the geological regions map stops just short of Mandurah, so I had to extrapolate a bit.
And, finally, I have since made contact with the local council’s revegetation team. They are a great group dedicated to revegetation projects. I’m hoping I can get some native plants lists from them…after all, they should know! I don’t know why I didn’t think of this one first.
Narrowing down
This was where the fun really started. For each plant that was on my “long list” I used Google Images to find a picture. I searched using the latin names of the plants that were helpfully provided on the Water Corporation website (see above). I found using the latin names removed any ambiguity and began to get me au fait with this whole new world of tongue twisting nomenclature (!). Pretty quickly I discovered that searching the images often returned a distribution map too, and after a while I figured out that Florabase was the home of these maps. Florabase is an authoritive WA government website describing the state’s flora. It’s a stunning technical resource.
In general I found it easiest to work through Google Images to find my way to the Florabase site. This was for a couple of reasons: Florabase’s search engine doesn’t have Google’s flexibility around spelling and doesn’t autofill for you. I found this funtion in Google really sped things up and reduced my need for accuracy in typing in unfamiliar latin names. And, while Florabase is good for technical info, Google Images is great for a wide variety of seriously sexy pictures…ah, so many happy hours being amazed by just how stunning WA’s plants are!
Once I found a plant that I liked the look of from the Water Corp site and that fit geographically, according to the Florabase map, I saved an image of it to my computer. This has given me a really useful visual resource to remind myself of what a particular species looks like. It’s also fun to browse through occasionally just for the pleasure.
By the time I’d finished this step I had 159 plant images saved. OK, narrowed down a bit at least!
Finding nurseries I like…
The “I like…” bit being key, there’s no shortage of nurseries! So, what do I like about a nursery? Price of stock was one of my key criteria. Our aim was to do this as frugally as possible, so I wasn’t going to head off to Bunnings (which I’d hesitate to call a nursery anyway) and pay $16 per plant.
Secondly I wanted tube stock. (That’s seedlings less than a year old grown in small square pots.) I’d been told that these were to be preferred because although they start smaller, they become stronger once established because they are less likely to be pot bound (roots all twisted up from being in the post too long).
I also wanted nurseries where I could ask questions and get sensible answers.
I didn’t do an exhaustive search…in fact I didn’t do much of a search at all, I just sort of followed the flow of life and am glad I did. Here are the ones we ended up using, in order of the quantities from each:
I’m going to post separately about why I chose these three.
We also bought some flower seeds from Nindethana Seed suppliers, but I think I’ll post separately about them too.
And at last…choosing the plants
This is taking nearly as long to write as it did to do. If you’ve made this far…wow! OK, by this stage I had:
1. a spreadsheet (in Excel, sorry I’m a bit of a sad geek, but it’s been very useful…if you’d like a copy just email: garden.nomad at gmail.com) listing plants by their latin name. On the sheet I also have columns for their width and height, how they felt about shade and a column that tried to classify each one as “groundcover”, “small shrub” and “large shrub”. The height and width data mostly came from the Water Corp website, or Florabase.
2. A picture of each plant taken from Google Images.
3. A catalogue and friends at Tintuppa nurseries and MOTT Peel branch and an on-line catalogue, but no friends (not that they’re unfriendly, but they don’t know me from Adam), for the Australian Native Nursery.
I’d also decided I wanted about 150 plants. I’m not sure how I got there, but it felt right. Trust your Intuition, as Deepak would say. As it turns out it was about right.
So I went through the spreadsheet and selected plants based first on what Tintuppa could supply. I had in mind a distribution that started with one or two trees, then increasing numbers of larger, medium and small shrubs and some groundcovers. My inspiration was this diagram (also posted and partially explained here):
How I chose what sizes of things to plant…
As I selected I had in mind the roles I wanted fulfilled. For example, I knew I wanted to screen the shed at the back and I want a really good screen at the front from the road; close to the the back verandah (where I plan to while away my life sipping Pimms) I wanted small handsome groupings of complimentary plants etc.
Once I’d been through the Tintuppa catalogue, I went to MOTT and finally to the Australian Native Nursery to fill in the gaps the main two couldn’t meet (my reasoning for this order of nursery use was mainly price and will be explained further in another post). As I selected plants I also jotted (in a geeky spreadsheet type way) down numbers of each species. Once I’d reached the end, I then had to cull those numbers to avoid getting enough plants to re-vegetate all of Mandurah (a major task!). The culling was agony and it alone must have taken a week or so as hummed and hawwed back and forth.
The process also wasn’t quite as clear cut as I make it sound. I’ve discovered that the nature of native plant growing means that just because it’s in a catalogue doesn’t mean it’s in the nursery. So, I made some changes as I found what was and wasn’t actually available. It was this stage that I’m, at least partially, blaming for the appearance of a distracting number of not-totally native to Mandurah species in the garden.
Phew, and in the end I got there and one afternoon, a mere three months or so after starting to plan it, there were 186 tube stock plants sat in our back garden. Which looked a bit like this:
You can tell it’s early days, the lawn’s still alive!A better shot of the obscured group…look at those beauties
So there you go. If you got this far: welcome to the obsession!
Coming next: a list of the plants; how I planned what to put where including my first and final maps and other nonsense that follows on from that.
As I write this, it’s pissing with rain for the third day on the trot. The fourth or fifth really good spell of sustained rain we’ve had this winter. It was late coming this year and my goodness, it’s nice to see it.
Mandurah Native Gardens 