In Flower This Week

9 May 2003

Callistemon 'Glasshouse Country' - click for larger image

’Tis time to explore the Rock Garden for late autumn flowering plants. As you arrive, view the beauty of Callistemon ‘Glasshouse Country’ [Section 110]. This tall slim shrub rises above its neighbours to display its many soft pink bottlebrush flowers. Start your tour at the base of the waterfall and follow the path in a clockwise direction.

Just below Correa ‘Ivory Bells’ [Section 15D], a large dense shrub with ivory-coloured tubular flowers blending with the silver-backed leaves, Dampiera salahae [Section 15D] displays blue flowers over a small shrub. Banksia spinulosa ‘Honeypots’ [Section 15D], on the other side of the correa, has an array of honey-coloured cylindrical flower spikes rising from the lateral branches of this dwarf plant. Another dwarf plant nestled between the rocks, Hypocalymma xanthopetalum [Section 15F], has small feathery yellow flowers along its branches while, overlooking the bed, Alyogyne huegelii ‘West Coast Gem’ [Section 15F] displays its deep purple hibiscus-like flowers. Derwentia arenaria [Section 15G] is a rather straggly plant beautified with sprays of blue flowers. The bank around the corner is draped with the soft pink and cream spider flowers of the prostrate Grevillea lanigera [Section 15W].

Edging the ascending steps to the top road, Plectranthus argentatus [Section 15A] is a small plant with silvery green velvety leaves and pale blue flowers edging the long spreading stems.  Grevillea ‘Masons Hybrid’ [Section 15H] is a large old shrub richly endowed with many large terminal conical flower spikes in shades of pink.

Edging this top road, Scaevola albida var. albida [Section 15H] is low and spreading and well covered with white fan-flowers. Beside it Dampiera sylvestris [Section 15H] is a dense suckering herb coated with bright blue flowers which encircles a small Eucalyptus pachyphylla [Section 15H], just big enough to bear a few large red buds which will soon mature to large cream to yellow flowers. Scaevola ‘New Blue’ [Sections 15J, T, N] is a long-flowering prostrate plant massed with striking blue fan flowers while Baeckea crassifolia [Section 15J] is well covered with tiny pink flowers over the dwarf shrub.

Continue past the grass trees, Xanthorrhoea johnsonii [Section 15N], to find Eremophila goodwinii [Section 15N], an emu-bush with mauve flowers on a small open shrub. Another emu-bush, Eremophila oldfieldii subsp. angustifolia [Section 15N], has fine leaves and deep red flowers. Dampiera linearis [Section 15N] is low with spreading limbs bright with blue flowers while the upright Solanum sturtianum [Section 15N] has quite spectacular deep violet open flowers contrasting with the grey-green foliage. Eremophila nivea [Section 15N] is of similar size with soft mauve bugle flowers amid its grey foliage. Scaevola brookeana [Section 15N] is a dwarf upright shrub bearing pale blue flowers amid its tough small leaves. At the end of this bed, Hakea laurina [Section 20] is a large shrub well covered with its deep maroon pincushion flowers. Returning along the path you will find other remarkable flowers, not omitting Darwinia hypericifolia [Section 15N], so small, with red-tinted foliage and pendent tubular flowers, so red.

Such remarkable Gardens …                                                        Barbara Daly.