Archive for September, 2007

When I took the photo of the Olearia pimelioides, Minuria leptophylla was growing nearby and I have seen masses of this plant also. This added weight to my demand to stop and see what they were. After that they seemed to be everywhere.

Minuria leptophylla is a perennial plant which dies back in the heat and dryness of summer, to reshoot after autumn rains. The plant is 5-20cm tall. The flowers are white mainly with pinks and purples being available at times and seem too large for such a small plant. It grows on most soil types.

From a farming point of view, stock graze this plant and it is valuable for this purpose. In the garden it would make a great border plant and if the water was available to give it good garden conditions, it would flower for most of the year.

This daisy is one of the everlasting daisies and was growing like a carpet along the roadside from Ouyen through to Manangatang. I know it has had a name change from Helipterum but I am not sure whether it is Rhodanthe or not. I did not bring the daisy books with me. It is an annual and flowers prolifically.

This plant grows on all soil types and in quite low rainfall areas 250mm to 350mm. In good seasons plants can be up to half a metre across.

A friend often throws everlasting daisy seed around on a sand or small gravel mulch in late autumn, sprinkles the area well with water and then sits back to watch the ‘lawn’ grow and eventually sees the masses of flowers in the area. This is well worth doing. The sand or gravel acts as a mulch and retains moisture around the seed where it is washed into the nooks and crannies amongst the small stones.

The flowers wire well for floral art work if picked early enough to prevent the petals from flexing back too far when they open. Trial and error is needed here, to pick the flowers at the correct stage of bud size.

We saw masses of this lovely daisy bush as we were driving through the area from Murrayville to Ouyen, on our way to Sydney. I demanded that we stop so that I could check what Olearia it was and get some photos. This is one of the dryland daisies, growing in amongst the mallee trees.

This daisy grows to about 1 metre high and wide. It begins flowering at the end of winter into spring and makes a wonderful show. It grows in most soils particularly limey soils which occur around our place. Although the books say it is used commonly as a garden plant I have not found this to be so. To have 2 or 3 of them in a group would make the most wonderful spring display in a garden.