Lovely Daisies

• 

Few months ago when I was looking for flowering plants to grow at my son’s garden, I saw the most beautiful Daisy plants. African daisies (Osteospermum) with amazingly pretty shades of colours. So many that it was very hard to choose. Marguerite daisies (Argyranthemum frutescens) that are bred in Australia are called Federation daisies, and they are more compact and rounded.

Grevillea ‘Firework’

The old fence at our son place will be replaced soon. The overgrown weeping bottlebrush (Callistemon), Rhododendron and Abelia have been severely pruned to make the job easier for the fencing people to do the job. Whoever planted these bushes (previous owner of the house) had made an unusual selection of plants by mixing a native bottlebrush with the non native species, but they all seem to be happy together. One of the plants that does not need trimming is the Daphne odora. After pruning the bottlebrush very hard, now there is an big gap between this native plant and the Daphne. I decided to buy another native, Grevillea ‘Firework’ to accompany the bottlebrush and to even up the spaces between those plants along the fence. We will regularly prune them to maintain compact and tidy shapes.

Grevillea ‘Firework’ is low and semi spreading hybrid that grows to around 1.2 m in width and height, but can be shaped regularly to keep it smaller and compact. The small clump of flowers are bright red and yellow, nectar eating birds will be attracted by these unusual blooms. It will bloom almost all year round from autumn to spring.

Camellia japonica ‘Helenor’

One of plants in my son’s garden is this old camellia tree. I call it a tree because it has grown quite tall around 3 meters+ high. It used to be more rounded before, but my son cut many side trunks in order to have more open driveway. The main trunk is almost covered with timber planks and other stuff as the house is still under renovation, but yet it is still blooming quite nicely. 

Blueberry Plant

I just bought a small blueberry plant yesterday to grow in my son’s backyard. Though still a young plant, the bare branches have already had some flowers.

Fragrant Winter Blooms

These wonderful plants are from my son’s garden. Along the fence in the front yard grow quite a few of plants and three of them are blooming now in winter. I always fond of winter flowering plants especially if they are fragrance. These are the three wonderful plants that come to our surprise:

Daphne odora:

Daphne is very popular and well liked because of the perfumed flowers, but many people say that it is not easy to grow. This evergreen and low growing winter Daphne bush grows well in my son’s garden under the shade of a bottle-brush tree. It is really exiting to see this plant and to be able to enjoy the heavenly scent. Daphne hates lime and will grow well in more acidic soil that is rich in humus.

Rose ‘Abracadabra’

We are very busy right now helping our son to move into his newly bought home which is around 30 km away from our place. The pebbles layered garden bed around the house is bare, and my task is to select and grow some ornamental plants.