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Sweet Pea The early history of sweet peas is shrouded in mystery, they may have originated in Italy, or perhaps Malta where they still grow in the wild. In any case, those first sweet peas were insignificant plants, with small, weak stemmed flowers which were poor in...
Lechenaultias in Sydney Every year around this time garden lovers, botanists and horticulturists head to Western Australia to see some of the most spectacular displays of wildflowers in the world. Unfortunately, beautiful wildflowers like blue lechenaultia...
Luculia The luculia was introduced to the west by plant hunter, Ernest ‘Chinese’ Wilson. It occurs naturally on lightly wooded hills in the lower Himalayas to Yunnan, where apparently it grows in large forests. In the home garden it’s hard enough to...
Mt. Cassell Native Nursery Australia is blessed with some of the best flowering plants in the world, and we also have excellent nurseries which stock a wonderful range of those plants. They include Zanthorrea Nursery at Maida Vale in Western Australia, Fairhill Native...
Native Plants in Flower Don looked at some of the spectacular native plants in flower at the moment in the garden. Native Hibiscus (Alyogyne huegelii) An open shrub to about 2m (6′) tall, grown mainly for its beautiful, lilac, hibiscus-like flowers. The plant...
New Ornamentals Lots of the new plants appearing in nurseries these days have been developed overseas. They are not evaluated under Australian conditions as part of the breeding process, and a high percentage of them fail. The good news is that the University of...
Named after the 17th century Italian botanist Pietro Antonio Micheli, michelias are a small genus of trees and shrubs from southern Asia and the foothills of the Himalayas. They belong to the Magnoliaceae family along with their close relatives the magnolias, but...
New Pansies Pansies are annuals (or bedding plants), which were developed last century from English native plants called johnny jump-ups. Also known as heartsease, they have very appealing flowers with happy little ‘faces’, but it’s hard to imagine...
Nielsen’s Native Nursery There are hundreds of sensational Australian native plants available to home gardeners these days, so it’s not surprising that they’re undergoing a whole new wave of popularity. Natives first rose to prominence through the...
Olympic Gold Rose Nurseries and rose growers are really getting into the Olympic spirit this year, with the release of an exciting new rose. It’s called Australia’s Olympic Gold Rose, and it features clusters of beautiful golden yellow flowers....