Sugarbag bees are fun. Young kids are always surprised to discover some Australian bees are both tiny and without a sting. Once they understand these bees are safe company, they can’t resist taking a closer look and become absorbed by the antics of these industrious mini-bees.
Tag: Plant
Pretty And Productive Plants For Brisbane
I was asked by a client to prepare a list of ornamental productive plants that can be grown outdoors in subtropical Brisbane.
Thrifty, Fertile and Illicit: 4BC Horticultural Intervention
So there I was with Noel Burdette, in the pre-dawn darkness of Brisbane’s Cannon Hill. Groggy but organised, and with only a smartly dressed security guard as a witness, we got stuck in. Long ago we’d decided that the front garden at 4BC Radio, home to the voice of Brisbane’s gardeners, needed a little buffing up….
Favourite Flying Fox Food Trees: What To Plant
Flying-foxes are flying gardeners, they sustain forests along eastern and northern Australia, pollinating native trees in national parks and reserves that have become separated or isolated by settlement. Flying foxes also spread tree seed, helping to landscape vast areas of Australia. Many forest-dwelling threatened species depend on these ‘batty’ forests to provide them with food…
In Flower Today
Brisbane‘s subtropical winter comes to a happy, floriferous end in mid-August. Today there’s around a hundred different plants flowering, two weeks before Australia’s official first day of spring.
Climate Change Flora For Brisbane
This stocktake was completed two days ago and it helps me answer some of your FAQ’s:
Perfect Peas
We’ve got some very healthy heritage snow and shelling peas, Pisum sativum var. sativum, most of which came from Seedsavers. I get such a happy feeling observing our growing peas. The seeds feel lovely to the touch, they unfurl and push through the soil so eagerly as they germinate, their leaves are very soft and…
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,…
A Close Shave With Frost During Ongoing Drought: Winter 2007
“What a lot of weather we’re having,” was something my Great Aunt Florence, a one-time Land Army girl, and someone as softly spoken as Lady Bracknell (of ‘The Importance of Being Ernest’) used to say. And we have had a lot of interesting, weather-related events. In the Murray-Darling, irrigated horticulture usually provides 40% of Australia’s fresh…
Celebrating Three Years Of Drought
Planted in September 2004 the plants in our front garden were watered for six weeks to establish them. Apart from the hedge and two potted plants, the garden hasn’t been watered since.
Jerry Coleby-Williams 