Whilst scrabbling around on my knees this morning, mulching the front garden with chopped sugarcane, I noticed the biggest and best display of coralloid roots is currently bursting through the surface of the leafy soil.
Category: Ornamental
First Flowering: Pandanus cookii
This summer my fifteen year old specimen of Pandanus cookii flowered. It was collected from Cape York by Yuruga Nursery in the Atherton Tableland, where I bought it. Like all Pandanus, they are intolerant of frost and grow best in sub-coastal gardens in full sunshine in an open position with excellent drainage. I watered my…
Pretty Edible
I had a vacant vegetable bed last summer and decided to plant it with decorative edible plants just to show how good food can also be decorative. On the blue bamboo frame I sowed luffa, beside the frame I planted golden sweetpotato ‘Marguerite’. The central plantings consisted of Amaranthus tricolor ‘Joseph’s Coat’, and near the…
Seeking Sansevierias
Having to give away my collection of croton cultivars during Brisbane’s ongoing drought made sense at the time. But I do enjoy collecting plants, so I’ve decided to collect drought-resistant Sansevieria instead. Pictured is Sansevieria suffruticosa subsp. longituba from Kenya, which grows 15 – 20cm high. This plant produces flowers on spikes up to 30cm…
First Flowering: Freycinetia scandens
Freycinetia scandens is an evergreen scrambling vine which I’ve seen growing in coastal rainforest from far northern Queensland south to Fraser Island. They need a damp, sheltered, semi-shaded position. My plant, grown from a cutting, is now six years old. It first flowered in March and would probably have flowered before now, had I not tip…
Is Duncan Street’s Nature Strip Now Safe?
Bayside residents have vowed to stop council plans to eliminate this nature strip. Subsequent media coverage by ABC Radio and Channel Ten TV on Tuesday 27th May 2008, it now appears that Brisbane City Council are willing to discuss ways to retain and improve this community asset! Here’s the original story
Climate Change Flora For Brisbane
This stocktake was completed two days ago and it helps me answer some of your FAQ’s:
Native Bee Day
On Saturday I became the proud owner of a hive of native stingless bees, Trigona carbonaria. A little web-searching found that Dr Tim Heard, a CSIRO entomologist and native bee specialist, supplies colonies and his brother, Frank, makes specially designed hives for them. Stingless bees and honeybees happily co-exist. Happily Brisbane provides an ideal climate…
Botanical Stamps
A selection collected by my parents, grandfather and me. One way for a child to learn about plants and places…and a bit of botanical latin too. There’s just one from my grandfather’s collection: Cattleya skinneri, an orchid. Stamps of his era hadn’t tapped into the profitable collectors’ market. There are more from my father’s collection…
Open Day
Last weekend we opened our place as part of the Australian Open Garden Scheme. I chose August to open because that’s when our Phillip Island Hibiscus hedge, Hibiscus insularis, is in flower. Well, in the end it didn’t because the recent frost set it back a fortnight. I also chose this time because right now,…
Safer Solutions – Media Release
Total Environment Centre (TEC) today released the ‘Easy Guide to Organic Gardening’ at the showcase of the Integrated Sustainability Education Partnership Program. The new guide provides home gardeners with advice on how to avoid exposing themselves and their families to the harmful chemicals found in many synthetic pesticides, fertilisers and herbicides used in the garden.
In Flower Today
This is what’s flowering in our garden during the last week of our brief subtropical autumn:
Jerry Coleby-Williams 