In Flower This Week A weekly news-sheet prepared by a Gardens volunteer  Numbers in brackets [ ] refer to garden bed 'Sections'. Plants in flower are in bold type.

1 February 2002

Along Banks Walk, Eucalyptus ficifolia [Section 174] is a small tree ablaze with bright coral flowers. Scaevola ‘New Blue’ [Section 174], well covered with fan-flowers over a prostrate plant, is another colourful eye-catcher. However this walk concentrates on mostly small plants in the Rock Garden.

Starting at the waterfall and walking in an anti-clockwise direction, Hemigenia sp. [Section 15V] has soft pink bugle flowers along its prostrate stems. In front of the waterfall, Lythrum salicaria [Section 15Q] enjoys the wet situation, revealing its pink flower spikes on long upright stems. This bank of colour includes the yellow flowers of a prostrate herb, Goodenia heterophylla subsp. montana [Section 15R], seen behind the blue flowers of the suckering plant Dampiera stricta [Section 15R]. Edging this path, Lechenaultia formosa [Section 15R] is a tiny, rounded, prostrate plant bright with scarlet flowers. Nearby are the bright purple fan-flowers, with lemon throats, of Scaevola aemula [Section 15R] and a small shrub, Prostanthera magnifica [Section 15R] with bugle-shaped flowers shaded pale mauve and brown.

This small bed is almost covered with the cushion plant, Scleranthus biflorus [Section 15N], a vivid green carpet covering rocks and ground, and Bulbine vagans [Section 15N], a bulbous plant with succulent leaves and stems with yellow star flowers. Another bed includes Dampiera altissima [Section 15F], with soft grey foliage and blue flowers, snug between the rocks. The slope in front presents plants with blue flowers which include the self-seeding Isotoma axillaris [Section 15G and elsewhere] with pale blue star flowers, Derwentia arenaria [Section 15G] with upright stems of blue-purple flowers and Halgania cyanea [Section 15G] with deeper blue flowers over small compact shrubs.

Pink-flowered Grevillea lanigera [Section 15W] hugs this slope, while higher up the lovely burnt-orange kangaroo paw flowers of Anigozanthos flavidus [Section 15H] on long upright stems are superb. On this upper level, Dampiera sylvestris [Section 15H] is dense with deep blue flowers on upright stems while close by Scaevola albida var. albida [Section 15H] has a covering of white fan flowers.

Hibbertia kaputaensis [Section 15A], at the top of the steps, is a neat shrub bright with large yellow flowers and the yellow straw daisies of Bracteantha bracteata [Section 15B] are bright throughout the Rock Garden. At the bottom of the stairs Wahlenbergia glabra [Section 15A] is a small cushion plant with small bluebell flowers on short stems. The lovely Garland Lily, Calostemma purpureum [Sections15F, 15B], has succulent leaves and upright stems with heads of bell-like flowers coloured pink with yellow centres. Scaevola ramosissima [Section 15A], growing between the rocks, bears its deep purple fan-flowers on ground hugging stems, while opposite Christmas Bells, Blandfordia grandiflora [Section 15D], display their picturesque large bells, red with yellow mouths, on upright stems.

So many more beauties ... Barbara Daly.