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 March 2002

This pleasant walk follows the Main Path, commencing at the far end of the Café building where a large bottlebrush, Callistemon viminalis [Section 143], displays its red bottlebrushes on weeping branches. Above the bed of daisies covered with self-seeded yellow straw daisies, Bracteantha sp. [Section 303], are kangaroo paws, Anigozanthos flavidus [Section 7], with red and yellow flowers on long stems.

Waratahs Telopea ‘Doug’s Hybrid’ [Section 30] and Telopea mongaensis [Section 30], next to each other, have different shades of open red flowers on tall, upright stems. Banksia spinulosa ‘Birthday Candles’ [Section 30] displays its many juvenile flower spikes, now changing from green to gold, over the spreading dwarf shrub. Wander along the path bordered with grevilleas with a few in flower and with numerous chortling magpies and energetic tiny blue wrens hopping about the leaf litter. Grevillea ‘Poorinda Adorning’ [Section 24] is prostrate, edging the path with bright red spider flowers.

Scaevola ramosissima var. ramosissima [Section 191H], close to the curvaceous path through the Sydney Region Gully, is a prostrate plant with purple fan flowers covering its trailing stems. The red flowers of Grevillea rhyolitica [Section 191S] are so bright while the bugle-shaped lemon flowers of Prostanthera porcata [Section 191S] are more subtle. Opposite the lookout over the gully, Epacris impressa [Section 191P], with pink tubular flowers clustering on long stems, Dampiera stricta [Section 191P], with blue flowers, and an occasional Goodenia decurrens [Section 191P], with small yellow flowers, can be seen amid the many green plants. Fringe Lily, Thysanotus juncifolius [Section 191P], with fringed, three-petalled purple flowers on bare upright stems, are there, too.

Around a corner Melaleuca thymifolia [section 191E] is a small shrub beautified with mauve feathery flowers. In front the tall Banksia serrata [Section 191U], so dense with dark foliage, has an abundance of large grey-cream flower spikes invaded by a raucous multitude of nectar feeding birds, including Wattle Birds and New Holland Honeyeaters. The display bed nearby includes the bright yellow funnel-shaped flowers of the Christmas Bell, Blandfordia grandiflora [Section 191U] and the cheery pink star flowers of Crowea saligna [Section 191U].

The path curves through the Eucalypt Lawn and passes Acacia parvipinnula [Section 18], a small tree with pinnate leaves and perfumed cream fluffy flowers, on the way to the Rock Garden, where the orange glow of the flowers of Chrysocephalum apiculatum [Sections 4, 15R] edging the path are quite dazzling. Eucryphia wilkiei [Section 109] is a small rainforest shrub bearing cup-shaped fragrant white flowers. Entering the cool green Rainforest Gully, Proiphys sp. [Section 114] has a spray of white flowers on a bare stem surrounded by large ovate leaves. And so, leaving this pleasantly cool area, see the large pink and white flowers of Hibiscus heterophyllus [Section 210] down the ramp.

Birds and flowers, a great mix ... Barbara Daly.