With its large white flowers during autumn and early winter, gordonia is a tree that stands out. Gordonias will grow almost anywhere in Australia except in frost areas in mountainous zones. Common name: Gordonia or fried egg plant. Botanic name:Gordonia axillaris ....
Cool Climate Palms and Ferns Palms and ferns are often associated with tropical climates but ‘Burke’s Backyard’ recently looked at some palms and ferns which can grow in colder areas. Palms for cool climates Dwarf sugar palm (Arenga engleri): A small...
To many people a garden is an oasis, a place where they can escape the stress of busy lives, and just relax. If there’s one plant in particular which evokes memories of holidays, tropical beaches, and gives that calm, peaceful, rainforest sort of feel to the...
A wonderful plant for an architectural or a structural effect in the garden is the humble pencil pine, or Italian Cypress (Cupressus sempervirens var. Sricta). It is an evergreen tree to around 20 metres (60′) tall, with an upright, columnar form and dense dark...
A native of the wet tropical rainforests between Townsville and Cooktown, the graceful roly poly satinash is an outstanding ornamental plant. It has glorious weeping foliage highlighted by flushes of red to pink new growth for most of the year. Like most lilly pillies...
Scribbly gums are spectacular Australian trees with smooth, whitish yellow bark. The bark has a prominent feature which puzzles many people – strange looking ‘scribbles’ resembling some form of mysterious, ancient writing. The zigzag tracks are...
Camellias are wonderful flowering shrubs for the garden, but they also have many other uses. They can be shaped into topiaries, standards or espaliers, and they can even be grown as ground covers. At the moment standardised camellias are very fashionable, but...
Until recently if you wanted a flowering gum tree you had to just go out and buy one and hope for the best. Sometimes the flowers turned out red and other times pink, but quite often it was an insipid white which you didn’t really want anyway. The good news is...
For dramatic autumn colour, tree dahlias are hard to beat. They are giant plants with huge leaves and stems, and shaggy, lavender flowers resembling ballerinas’ tutus. It’s not only the appearance of the tree dahlia which causes drama in the garden –...
Surprisingly, this beautiful Australian rainforest native is not as popular as it deserves to be. It is a member of the family Proteaceae, which includes grevilleas, banksias and waratahs. The tree is fairly slow growing and may not flower for seven or eight years,...