Kuranga Native Nursery
‘Burke’s Backyard’ recently visited Kuranga Native Nursery, a specialist native plant nursery at Ringwood in Victoria. While at the nursery Don discovered many interesting plants, clear signage and helpful staff, factors that combine to make this a top native plant nursery.
The desire to impart honest and accurate information about native plants is apparent at ‘Collector’s Corner’. Here in a corner of Kuranga Nursery are gathered the attractive but hard-to-grow native plants. All are clearly labelled as ‘Fuss Pots’, to be grown in a pot or under the watchful eye of an expert. These plants are rare, challenging and particular about how and where they are grown.
Improved varieties
Today good native plants are colourful, long lived and less likely to turn up their toes. These improvements have come through breeding and selection as well as through better propagation techniques including the use of grafting. By employing grafting, particular plants that were once very hard to grow are now becoming more widely available and are able to be grown in a larger range of climates and soil conditions.
Temperamental but attractive flowering shrubs such as grevilleas and darwinias are grafted onto strong, vigorous rootstock to increase the variety’s tolerance of soils and climates that are different from their place of origin.
With the new generation of native plants now available it is time to reconsider the role of native plants in your garden.
Plant list
The following plants were shown on the segment when Don visited Kuranga Nursery.
- Tetratheca ciliata – A colourful small native shrub.
- Chorizema cordatum – The desert or flame pea. This plant, which is a sprawling shrub, has bright orange and pink pea-like flowers.
- Darwinia macrostegia ‘Mondurup Bell’ – This darwinia has a large and very attractive flower head. In the past darwinias were very temperamental. Today they are much easier to grow as they have been grafted to the hardier understock, Darwinia citriodora.
- Grevillea spp. – Grafted varieties of grevilleas are also very popular and are available at Kuranga Nursery.
- Edible plants- There is also a range of edible Australian native plants for sale as well as the products and bush food from these plants. A hard to grow native plant is the quandong, Santalum acuminatum. This is a semi-parasitic plant which survives by living off another plant. It is sometimes referred to as a native peach. Its fruit tastes like apples and can be used in salads, pies, jams and chutneys. Aboriginal tribes in southern Australia feasted on the ripe fruit and preserved it by drying it in the sun.
To grow quandongs successfully they must be grown with a host plant. In this case the muntrie bush, Kunzea pomifera, is used.
Further information
The segment was filmed at Kuranga Native Nursery,
118 York Road
Mt Evelyn VIC 3796
Phone: (03) 9760 8100
Fax: (03) 9737 1968
Email: [email protected]
Website: www.kuranga.com.au
If you are interested in finding native plants to create your own piece of Australia in your backyard visit a specialist native nursery in your local area to seek inspiration and advice about gardening with Australian native plants including:
New South Wales
Annangrove Grevilleas Native Nursery
98 Annangrove Road
Kenthurst 2156
Phone: (02) 9654 1380 Wirreanda Nursery
169 Wirreanda Road
Ingleside 2101
Phone: (02) 9450 1400
Queensland
Fairhill Native Nursery
Fairhill Road
Yandina 4561
Phone: (07) 5446 7088
The comprehensive colour catalogue is $16 (including postage). The nursery, through its catalogue, also offers a mail-order service.
Western Australia
Zanthorrea Nursery
155 Watsonia Road
Maida Vale 6057
Phone: (08) 9454 6260