Larry Smith and the Riverside Gardens team talk about all things pots, plants and pruning in their weekly gardening column.
When most people think of winter flowering plants, they tend to think of plants like camellias, azaleas and rhododendrons. It is easy to see why, with their very impressive displays and long-flowering period.
Some of the Camellia Sasanqua and azalea plants started flowering as early as mid-March. The Camellia Japonica and rhododendrons are now joining them and will continue well into spring.
The other thing that helps them stand out is the PR campaign that appears year after year in garden magazines and television gardening shows that promote their flowering brilliance.
But if you look around, there is so much more in-flower right now that is just as spectacular and even more hardy. I am talking about quite a range of our own native plants. Grevilleas, correas and hakeas all have varieties that are flowering now, and what’s more, many of them will continue to have secondary displays later in the year.
So here are just a few that are looking great in the garden centre at the moment and could look even better planted in your garden.
Grevilleas are often thought of as fine, needle-leafed, spiky plants with small, spidery-looking flowers, but the opposite is nearer the truth. It has various leaf shapes and sizes and a range of colourful bright flowers, some of which are very large, all of which are honey-eaters and nectar-loving insect delights.
Grevillea ‘peaches and cream’ is a great example of this. It grows to a 1.5m high and has a wide shrub with large nectar-rich flowers that are soft and yellow at first but gradually gain pink and orange colour as they age. The flat dissected bright green leaves have a bronze sheen when young. Flowering now, they will continue through to early summer.
Grevillea ‘fireworks’ has a soft, needle-like foliage that has a slight blueish tinge to it. The shrub grows to about one metre high and wide and responds well to a light trim after flower. The flowers are bright red and yellow and form on the end of short branches. Not only do the flowers attract honey-eaters, but the fine bushy habit also offers great protection for them as well.
Correa Reflexa Trixibelle is a low-growing, wide, spreading shrub about half-a-metre high. It grows well in full sun to part shade and competes well under upper-storey plants. Their flowers are tubular and progress from red to pink to yellow as you move down along the flower. In full flower now, they will still be going strong in early summer. Correas are often called native fuchsia because of their flower shape, but that is about the end of the similarities; they are a strong, hardy plant that need little maintenance apart from the occasional light prune.
Hakea Burrendong Beauty is one for native enthusiasts; this wide-spreading shrub can grow to about 3m wide and one-and-a-half metres high. It has a spectacular flower, deep pink in colour, with white protruding stamens, giving it the effect of a pincushion. The flowers are set in the axil of the hard elliptical leaf that appears all the way along the stems of the plant from autumn through winter.
‘Grevillea superb’ is another very popular grevillea that flowers almost all year-round, but the strongest and most impressive display is in winter; Grevillea superb is very similar to Grevillea Robyn Gordon but more vigorous and slightly taller, growing with bright orange flowers. Reaching about two metres in height with a soft flowing habit and an abundance of flowers, it is again very popular with the honey-eaters, bees and nectar-feeding insects.
Some of the other grevilleas coming into flower in the garden centre at the moment are Moonlight, Honey Gem, Big Foot, Aphroditie’s Dream, Outback Sunrise, Yamba Sunrise, and Ned Kelly. In the correas, there are Amber Chimes, Orange Glow, Rose Lantern, Perfect Pollinator, Lime Chimes and Ice Chimes.
I also just noticed that the new kangaroo paws are in flower, being Anigozanthus Celebrations Masquerade, the first blue kangaroo paw and Anigozanthus Celebrations Carnivale, an iridescent purple kangaroo paw. But both are really flowering out of season, so that might be a topic for another day.