Plants at Adelaide Zoo

Adelaide Zoo is great! We took our daughter to the airport on Tuesday morning and after a detour via Bunnings Garden Centre to see if there were any interesting Correas, went to the Zoo. With a shock we realised when we got home that it is four years since we visited.

The new developments are wonderful. We had seen the Lions at Monarto Zoo, but not those at Adelaide Zoo. Magnificent! The male was very superior in his attitude. The new plantings around the walking tracks are lovely.

I must say that I go to the Zoo with one eye on the occupants and the other on what is flowering. The Correas are just beginning to flower. Correa alba, a form of Correa glabra with narrow green tubes, a form of Correa reflexa were three that I saw. Various forms of Westringea fruticosa-Morning Light, Highlight, Westringea ‘Wynyabbie Gem’, Westringea rosmarinifolia were being used as a hedge to create walkways.

In the new rainforest areas there are many plants that I am not familiar with, but I have seen in many gardens, although of course not in the quantities seen in these larger areas. It would be a great place to go to see the plants ‘in function’, providing shade, screens, hedges, nesting sites, foraging areas.