Australian beauties

We arrived home after our trip to the west to find the garden filled with flowers. They are all Australian plants.

Eremophila

Grevillea

Flinders Ranges Wattle

Westringia

Geraldton Wax

Silver Princess

Australian Hibiscus

Thryptomene

Gold Dust Wattle

Emu Bush

Silver Princess

Banksia

Hardenbergia

Eucalyptus preissiana

Grevillea

Darwinia citriodora

Hakea 'Burrendong Beauty'

Grevillea

Gold Dust Wattle

In recognition of Wattle Day I'm posting about a plant in my garden.

We had been away from home for a month or so and when we returned the first thing I saw in my garden was the Gold Dust Wattle Acacia acinacea in full bloom.

Gold Dust Wattle Acacia acinacea

Gold Dust Wattle grows naturally north of Geelong in the Brisbane Ranges National Park but I bought my plant in a nursery and I don't know its provenance. The flowers are balls of yellow, the stems angled and flattened and many of the phyllodes (leaves) have a beak set to one side of the point. My plant is growing next to a driveway in sandy loam but the foliage is quite soft and it can be pruned back without harming the plant. It is about a metre high and I think it will grow a bit higher yet. Apparently they live for several decades.

Angled stems and beaked phyllodes

Insect on branchlet

Planting for the future

This morning I joined a group of locals in celebrating National Tree Day by planting some trees (and shrubs and grasses). The spot selected for us was on the south bank of the Barwon River, by a road that I use frequently. It will be very rewarding to watch the growth in the future. Recently a community group had a planting day in a recreation reserve near my house, and I think they've done a great job. But some of the people in the houses on the opposite side of the street are objecting because when the trees grow they will block out the view they currently have. The same thing happened to us. The trees planted in a reserve near us are now obstructing our view ... but we actually helped plant them so we can't complain.

My photographic contribution to National Tree Day is of a tree in my own garden, a Bell-fruited Mallee Eucalyptus preissiana. I mentioned it several months ago but at the moment it is in full flower in my north-facing front garden, and looks spectacular from the street. It only grows to a height of several metres, and is round in shape, so the flowers are shown to their best advantage.

Garden delights

I'm home feeling sorry for myself with some sort of chest infection/cold/flu :( And annoyed because I can't get out to explore? So I'm exploring my photo collection instead. Having fun finding photos I'd forgotten I had, revisiting places we've been and people we know.

But these are some that I took yesterday in my own garden. Banksia 'Birthday Candles' is low-growing and colourful, a gift from a friend. Hakea orthorrhyncha Bird's Beak Hakea is a plant from Western Australia that seems to like the spot I put it in. (Not all WA plants like it here in the east). But it hides it light under a bushel - all the flowers are hidden inside the shrub. I just looked up 'bushel' in the dictionary and found out it's a Celtic word that means 'in the hollow of the hand'. And the last one is a Bell-fruited Mallee Eucalyptus preissiana. You can see how big the flowers are by comparing the size of the ants inside. When it's fully in flower, as it will be in a few weeks, it's a stunning shrub.