Planting DesignDiscover the right plants for your garden.
Australian plants are like the ultimate ego - sacrificing mother : They give and give ( certain trees can reach 20 fundament in just a few years and flower for six week or more ) but require so lilliputian in return.(Fertilizer ? Rain ? If you insist.)Their fantastical forms , however - admit sculpturesque , hairy , or waxy blooms in neon color - are anything but matronly .
The prostrate , denseGrevillea ‘ AustrafloraFanfare ’ has 6 - inch leaves and toothbrush - condition burgundy flowers . It can spread 16 foot and will grow on both U.S. coasts . Photo by : Victoria Pearson .
“ They have a star quality that really makes them nominee for function as feature of speech plant , ” read Australian - born landscape painting designer Bernard Trainor , now base in Monterey , California . “ But you have to handle them with care , ” Trainor monish , which let in being sure not to push them . “ Make them weigh . ”
“ I ’ll use plants from Oz but for their sheer exoticness , ” says Joseph Marek , a landscape designer in Santa Monica , California . Marek ’s a fan ofbanksia , a genus of about 170 species that seem to have reimagined peak and leaves , possibly while under the influence of a hallucinogenic drug . “ You just ca n’t believe they ’re real , ” he says .
Because Australian efflorescence often last for weeks , they first made their sign in this country via the cut blossom earth . But their foliage can introduce not bad texture to a garden , as is evidenced by the shrubs and tree featured on these page : from serrate and wispy to fernlike and from insidious and shimmering to diagrammatically bluff . Pictured from left to right wing : Grevillea‘Winpara Gem’,Anigozanthos‘Amber Velvet’,Hardenbergia violacea‘Meema’,Acacia saligna , Grevillea‘Robyn Gordon ’ . Photo by : Victoria Pearson .
And yet they are , as Aussie expatriate and horticulturist Jo O’Connell has proven to Americans for the last 21 years , since she and her married man , Byron Cox , open up the Australian Native Plants Nursery in Ventura , California . O’Connell , who supplied the specimens shown here , is probably this country ’s leading provider of Australian plants for landscape gardening , although a smattering of nursery in realm with hospitable red-hot and/or dry climate ( such as Texas , Arizona , and Florida ) have build up small stock list of them as well .
O’Connell is in spades an Aussie evangelist , given to sighing when need to draw her favorites , such asProstanthera magnifica , a westerly Australia native O’Connell only recently precede to the United States . The long - flowering , low , and slender mint - scented bush has a endearing , two - smell purple flower , but it does n’t just get by on effective feel .
Pictured from left to right : Hakea bucculenta’Red Pokers',Prostanthera magnifica , Boronia megastigma‘Hot Chocolate ’ , Chamelaucium‘Lady Stephanie’,Banksia integrifolia , Grevillea‘Moonlight’,Pittosporum angustifolium . Photo by : Victoria Pearson .
“ This is a good index works , ” she say . “ If your garden ’s dry , it tends to droop and let you know it need lachrymation . ” O’Connell says the plants she sell are generally not fussy . Many are drought- and pest - tolerant , and most developed efficient nutrient - grabbing root clusters that sit just below the surface of the soil , requiring little fertilizer beyond a salutary mulching and the nutrition they convert from their own fallen folio .
If you must sum something , O’Connell says , utilise cottonseed repast , Pisces emulsion , or a slow - exit fertilizer that ’s gloomy in phosphorus . Be indisputable your mood can keep going the industrial plant you prefer , since some ca n’t tolerate high-pitched humidness or haste , and in northerly regions , be inclined to bring it within during the cold season if you want it to serve as more than an annual .
pot these plants often makes gumption , not only for mobility but also to keep their growth in check . If they ’re happy , they ’ll let you know it , which is at least one attribute that sets them apart from that aforementioned long - meet genus , themater selfsacrificanda .
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