Mallee Native Plants

Pruning Plants

Lost my right hand man to Writers’ Week again today. Hopefully I can get some potting on done and also finalise the plant list for the plant sale. I keep finding species that I missed when I did the list the other day.

Meanwhile I have plants presenting great cutting material and I would love to be sidetracked by that job also. Everything comes in waves in the Nursery. Zillions of jobs needing to be done now, and then periods of watching things grow until the next wave of potting on. (Until I visit someone with a native garden and plants presenting cutting material).

Sometimes I feel like Peter Cundell on the ABC TV gardening programme, Gardening Australia. Put a pair of secateurs, or loppers in his hands and the personality changes as he attacks plants with glee. He is usually pruning, while I go mad taking cuttings.

The above reminds me of a friend whose plants always looked wonderful, in flower or not. She was a self confessed mad pruner but without the tools. She made a practice of constant tip pruning of all her native shrubs. That is, removing the top growing tip containing a couple of leaves. This forces the plant to make new growth back along the branches. As a result, flowering is much improved because of the greater number of shoots on the bushes. It often looked as though she had used shears to trim the plants.

I remember seeing her after one Plant Sale with a basket of plants and before she had got back to her car every one of them had been tipped pruned. “Can’t help myself!” she said.

It is a hint I often pass on to customers at Plant Sales. People are often disappointed with the appearance of native plants as they get older. They don’t usually have time to prune at a particular time in the plant’s seasonal growth. Tip pruning often solves this. The exception to this is for a plant which has a naturally upright habit, where tip pruning could ruin the shape of the plant.

Correas are Great Plants

1 Comment »9th March, 2006; Category: Correas, General, Plant species

Husband Trevor has gone to Writer’s Week sessions today. This is part of the Adelaide Festival of Arts, and it is the first time Trevor has been able to attend. I had thought of going to Adelaide with him to look for some fabric to go on with a patchwork project done with English paper piecing but will try to go tomorrow.

Meanwhile some of the zillions of Nursery jobs need to be achieved today. I need to complete the plant list for the Australian Plant Society Autumn Plant Sale for a start. Then begin sowing seed for the Spring sale. This is the bit that I really enjoy, along with taking cuttings.

I have to get to my friend’s place and prune her Correa ‘Pink Pixie’ and Correa ‘Firebird’. Both are in bud at the moment but have taken over the area they are in. Marvellous growth for this location. However Correas do very well in alkaline soils even with the high pH. I love them, and so do the Honeyeaters which work over every flower looking for nectar. I can highly recommend them (the Correas) in any garden. I must do a list. There is at least one that would be in flower at any time of the year. To have that progression of flowering would certainly keep the Honeyeaters around.

If you should be visiting Victoria, a great Australian Native Garden where you will see many Correas is Katandra Garden. The owner, Bob O’Neil, won Australian Gardener of the Year (ABC) and is an active member of the Correa Study Group. He is also going to be a guest at the Regional Conference for the Australian Plants Society in Adelaide later in the year.

Planning to plant

No Comments »8th March, 2006; Category: General, Plant species, Propagating

We arrived back from Sydney this evening after two weeks’ holiday with son Simon (ITWhiz) and wife. What they say about the “tyranny of distance” is true. Distance is a tyrant when it separates family. Of course we have come home to zillions of jobs waiting to be done. They don’t go away, unfortunately. On the other hand some jobs are quite exciting. I need to take some of my own advice, given in my last post and get on with preparations for planting out some of the tube stock I have had waiting since January. It was too hot then to try to keep young plants going. Several days over 40C including some as high as 45C! I have a patch where I want to establish a small arboretum of local mallee species, and broaden the planting to species from other mallee areas. There are several species of Olearia that I want to get going, as well as Podolepis, Brachyscome and Cassinia, all of which are members of the daisy family. These all grow in the scrub (bush) within a few kilometres of our property. There are also some everlasting daisies (Helichrysm and Xerochrysm) which are native to this district. It would be nice to have them self sow themselves after this next season. The local form of Brachyscome ciliaris pops up every year in a new place on our block. This is a dainty pale mauve daisy about 1-1.5cm in diameter on a small plant which grows to about 30cm tall here. I should be collecting the seed and scattering it further afield on the block as it seems to come up right where we need to mow the grass each spring. It is a hardy little plant. Would be great in a cottage garden. There are a number of suppliers of seed of Australian native plants. See the list on the ANPSA website called Australian Seed Supplies.

How to plant Australian native plants

1 Comment »7th March, 2006; Category: How to plant, Soils and Potting Mixes

Eucalyptus caesia

Early autumn is an excellent time for planting Australian native plants. The soil is still warm, the extremes of temperature have, in general, passed and rainfall becomes established again in the temperate areas of Australia.

Good gardening practice will always give good results for planting any types of plants, and Australian natives are no exception to this rule.

1. *Weed control is most important. Remove all weeds from the area to be planted. Be aware that cultivating the soil often will encourage weeds to establish. (On the other hand some native grasses will establish on uncultivated soil).

2. *Prepare the soil by forking to at least the depth of the root system, plus half again, and a diameter of 30-50cm (12-18inches) depending on the pot size.

3. Dig in whatever well rotted organic matter you may have, or keep it to apply to the soil surface.

4. I find it a useful thing to fill the planting hole with water and allow the water to drain away. This not only gives moisture in the subsoil to encourage roots downwards, but enables you to check the drainage of the area.

5. Create a raised planting site by bringing in soil from another area of the garden, if poor drainage is a problem or

6. Add gypsum to the soil if water seems to sit too long in the planting hole. About a kilo per square metre is recommended on poorly draining soils ie those that are mostly clay.

7. If water sits on the surface and seems to bead, non wetting soil is probably the problem. Buy a suitable soil re-wetting agent and follow the directions on the container. These are usually added after the planting is done. Similarly when watering fails to wet potting mix, dunk the container in a bucket or tub such as a garbage bin and if necessary add soil wetter to the water or the surface of the pot depending on the product being used.

8. *In general it is a good idea to soak potted plants in a bucket of water with some soil wetting agent added to it just before planting. (Unless you know for sure that the pot already contains this.) Soak long enough for bubbles to stop rising.

9. Adding fertilizer to the soil immediately below the plant can be a good thing. Use about a tablespoon of slow release fertilizer suitable for native plants, or use blood and bone added to the soil used to put around the plant in the planting hole.

10. *When placing the plant, create a small depression in the soil to act as a water catchment for rain or as a dam for hand watering.

11. *Plants need to be established by regular watering around the roots for several weeks, then weekly watering then leave greater intervals, depending on the amount of rainfall received. Don’t expect the plant to survive on natural rainfall if autumn rains have not begun in your district.

12. *Mulch the area surrounding the plant, keeping the mulch back a little from its stem.

13. *Use inorganic mulches like small sized gravel or sand that is free of weed seed.

14. *Or use organic mulches which will break down over time and need replenishing, but in doing so will add humus to the soil.

15. *Suitable organic mulches would be bark or wood chip, pea straw, rotted lawn clippings, or other rotted vegetable material or waste material.

The points marked * are the minimum that should be done.

Soils aint soils…

No Comments »6th March, 2006; Category: Soils and Potting Mixes

Hakea orthorrhyncha

…to misquote an ad of some years ago! Where I live in the Mallee area of South Australia, the soil is very poor and the rainfall is low. So when it rained on the north coast of New South Wales last week, the amount of rainfall was incomprehensible. 14 inches (350mm) in a day at Bellingen, inland from Coffs Harbour! That’s more than we get in an average year.

I measured the pH of the soil at a number of locations over our 5 acres (2 hectares). Is it any wonder the fruit trees have not done as well as I had hoped. The pH is 8+ to 9+ which is highly alkaline. The quality of the soil varies from sandy loam, to limestone rubble to non-wetting mallee sand. There used to be a strawberry farm on our property, so the structure of the soil is not too bad at all.

My usual reaction to someone who says “that won’t grow on your block of land” is to attempt to prove them wrong. I don’t think I am alone! A lot of plants grow very well in alkaline soil. Some plant species will grow reasonably well, but do not achieve the ultimate size. Others sit and “sulk”, and others struggle to maintain good leaf coverage. Of course some of the most desirable plants (in my eyes) are the ones that are native to areas of acid soil! It is amazing how adaptable Australian native plants are.

When I began writing this piece I wondered if I really understood the science behind pH of soils, so I detoured to find some more info. I am glad I did. I realise that I should have been using iron chelate or iron sulphate more diligently on some plants and would have far better growth by now. Some homework to do later this week.

For more information on soil pH see the ASGAP web page Understanding Soils and Nutrients.