Pictures of the Edna Walling designed garden in Olinda, Culravin. Lynda and I were generously hosted by owners Hugh Taylor and Liz Dux, with daughter Phoebe off screen! Beautiful day and garden, and a swing ..read more

A few pictures from a visit to Philip Hunter and David Musker's Broughton Hall, with Josh the horticulturist alongside David in this first picture.   ..read more

While I decide what to do with Talking Plants, I'll post a few interesting news stories with a screen shot you can click to get to the full story.  ..read more

Whenever I travel to tropical cities in Australia or overseas, I expect to find Hong Kong Orchid Trees on the streets or in public parks. The large, pink-purple flowers, with those distinctive cloven leaves, are a memorable addition to planted landscape in warm and humid climates. Strickly, the Hong Kong Orchid Tree - the floral emblem of Hong Kong - is Bauhinia x blakeana, a hybrid between what is sometimes simply called the Orchid Tree, Bauhinia variegata, from China through to India, and the Purple Orchid Tree or Butterfly Tree, Bauhinia purpurea, from India and thereabouts. Thes ..read more

This is a relatively recently planting of Verticordia mitchelliana, on Howson Hill, in the Australian Garden at Royal Botanic Gardens Cranbourne.  Like all Verticordia species, it's from the western side of Australia, from sand plains and sand lakes east of Perth. Thanks mostly to the work of Western Australian botanist Alex George, published in 1991, there are over 100 species of Verticordia.  They only grow naturally in Western Australia and Northern Territory, but are very popular in the gardens of Australian native plant enthusiasts. And w ..read more

Around the edge of Ian Potter Lakeside Precinct lawn, in the Australian Garden at Royal Botanic Gardens Cranbourne, you'll find a few species and cultivars of native hibiscus. Mostly large shrubs with colourful purple or pink flowers, and always attention grabbing when they bloom in later summer. My featured plant today is one with furry, mostly kangaroo-paw shaped leaves. The label says 'Hibiscus sp. Baramabah Creek', suggesting taxonomists haven't quite had the courage (or necessary evidence) to describe it as a new species. The name used in the Atlas of Australia and the Queensland He ..read more

Krinon was a word used in Ancient Greece for a white lily. Today, with a little 'Latinisation', we apply this name to the members of the genus Crinum. As I've mentioned before, we have one species of Krinon native to Australia, Crinum pedunculatum. It's also known as Swamp Lily, in recognition of its favoured habitat - poorly drained, clay soils.  As with the Gymea Lily (Doryanthes excelsa; and also Doryanthes palmeri), the strappy leaves and flowers seem quite out of place in the Australian bushland. Nothing subtle about leaves to three metres long and paper-white flowers about 10 ..read more

I post this as much for the painterly image above as for the plant itself. You'll find this rosy-flowered species growing naturally on the sands and gravels north of Bunbury, in Western Australia. So rosy, that my camera struggled in the Australian Garden at Cranbourne to get the colour-balance sorted. You know what reds are like to photograph. This is Grevillea wilsonii, commonly known as Native Fuchsia, or sometimes less imaginatively, Wilson's Grevillea. Although Fuchsia, as you will no doubt be aware, is a quite different looking plant, and flower, and is not native to Australia; there a ..read more

It's hardly the same as eating a Japanese fugu (Puffer Fish) - which might kill you if not cooked appropriately - but eating the fruit of a Monstera deliciosa (Fruit Salad Plant or Swiss Cheese Plant) does carry some risks.  This fruit, and the collection of flowers before it, are clustered around and slightly embedded into a fleshy stem. We call this a spadix, and the white bract that partly encloses it during flowering, a spathe. You find this kind of floral arrangement in all members of the Arum Lily family, Araceae, including the Swiss Cheese Plant. The fruit looks a bit ..read more

Back to the mainland! The Australian Cotton Bush is a species of Ptilotus, a genus of more than 100 mostly Australian species - there is one species in Timor Leste and nearby Indonesian islands.  Ptilotus are commonly called Fox, Pussy, Hairy, Rabbit or Lamb Tails, on account of the often feathery, clearly tail-like, terminal clusters of flowers. Or sometimes the name Mulla Mulla, from an (unknown) First Nations language in the west is used. The leaves and stems of Ptilotus are mostly (but not always) 'softly' hairy, but Ptilotus obovatus is parti ..read more