Banksias

The archetype Australian plant genus is the Banksia, named after Sir Joseph Banks, the English naturalist who accompanied Captain James Cook on his voyage of discovery to Australia. Here are some of my favourite Banksias:

Banksi spinulosa – photographed in the Botanic Gardens, Canberra, ACT

Banksia robur

Photo B McCusker

Banksia serrata – commonly known as Old Man Banksia, Saw Banksia, Saw-tooth Banksia and Red Honeysuckle is a woody shrub from coastal NSW.

Banksia integrifolia – Coastal Banksia – a fast growing coastal tree. Useful as a specimen street tree.

Orange Banksia - Banksia prionotes from Western Australia grows to be a large shrub or small tree. In my coastal locality in South Australia, it grows to 2-3 meters with a 2 meter spread, but in its native habitat, it grows much larger.

The specimen above is growing in a suburban garden which receives 350 mm annual rainfall. Some rainwater from paved areas is diverted to the root zone providing extra water.

The branches are covered with fine grey hairs. the leaves with triangular toothed serrations which are a beautiful feature of this plant. The flowers are a feature with an orange base to white at the top of the infloresescence.

Leptospermum amboinense

This bushy Tea Tree shrub grows to 3 m high by 2.5 m across. Its most striking feature are the bronze tips to young growth. Leaves are narrow and 3-4 cm long. White flowers to 1.5 cm are borne in summer. These flowers are quite short lived.

L.  amboinens in the background. Westringia spp in the foreground.

This species is a hardy plant for the tropics or subtropics, recommended for foliage and is suitable as hedge or screen plants .

Grevillea baileyana

Grevillea baileyana, known commonly as the White Oak, is from the Proteaceae family and originates from the tip of Queensland in the Cape York region. Often confused with its cousin the “Ivory Curl Flower” (Buckinghamia celsissima), this small to medium rainforest tree to 10m high and is grown for its profuse clusters of creamy white flowers and it’s glossy green leaves with bronze under.

It’s a very attractive garden, street tree or park specimen,and well suited in many areas of tropical and semi tropical landscaping including screen plantings or as a singular specimen. This Grevillea is a fast growing, evergreen that is adored by nectar eating birds in it’s flowering season during early summer. Usually hardy but does prefer good drainage and can tolerate drought conditions.

Geranium rozanne

This ground cover is a great favourite of ours. It is a hardy quick growing ground cover. G. rozanne tolerates shade and can be propagated easily from cuttings and rootlets. Under Australian Mediterranean climates, it often wilts in the heat of the day, but recovers overnight.

 

Bougainvilleas

Bougainvilleas are one of the toughest and most versatile of species. Grown in tub, clipped into hedges or left to climb and ramble over fences. They come in a wide variety of colours from the traditional purple through red, pink through to white. The colour comes from the bracts rather than the flower itself.

This image taken in front of the Northern Territory administrator’s residence in August.

Liriope muscari

Liriope muscari, the Lily Turf as it is sometimes known, is from the family Liliaceae. It is a large grass like, clumping ground cover, growing to approximately 0.5m high and 0.5m wide with dark green leaves and attractive mauve to purple flowers clustered into spikes.

This very hardy perennial prefers some light shade, but will do well in most garden areas including full sun, but foliage tips can be prone to burn. It looks best planted in groups on mass or as a formal garden edge but can also be used for erosion control, weed control and to fill gaps in gardens where nothing else will grow.

L. muscari prefers not to be over watered and on sandy soil may suffer from iron deficiency. This can be overcome by a dressing of iron chelates a couple of times a year.  A giant form is available, but we prefer the smaller form shown here in our design work.

 Here is  a symbol created in GardenCAD designed to indicate the presence of this Liriope in a landscape plan.

Scaevola crassifolia

This species is a valuable primary colonizer of dunes areas, particularly in protected swales. It grows to perhaps 2.5 meters wide and 1.5 meters high. The leaves are slightly ovate with serrated edges. The flowers in Spring an bright to pale blue with fan shaped petals.

Plants once established will survive with 350 mm annual rainfall and tolerate poor sandy soils. However, when given a small amount of supplementary water, C. crassifolia can be a most useful species for landscaping along the coast.

Lomandra longifolia

This hardy dune colonizer is a valuable tool in dune rehabilitation. The images here were taken on a visit to the dunes area around Jervis Bay on the south coast of New South Wales, January 2012.

Click here for an excellent guide and for information on coastal dune management.

The seeds of the plant provided a valuable resource for Aboriginal people as did the leaves that were woven in different ways. Note the spines surrounding the inflorescence.

The horticultural industry has developed a number of variants of this species including ones with narrower and softer leaves.

We suggest making sure that your nursery person sources a narrow soft-leaf form.

Here is a link to a commercial source of Lomandras. In our view, too many Lomandras with very tough knife edge leaves are sold. This makes subsequent maintenance very difficult.

Keep to a simple palette of materials

This interesting screen fence is located in Vincentia, New South Wales. A simple material palette is in use – just stone and steel that is allowed to weather.

Landscape design principles

Clients employ landscape designers to provide them with a landscape plan that leads to the construction of a special garden.

It is often difficult for designers to constantly generate new ideas. It is easy to fall into the trap of simply reproducing ideas implemented in other designs. A technique that we find useful to overcome this straight jacket approach is to adopt a standard way of developing a design. We first establish with the client the style(s) of garden they warm to and think might work for them.  That is most easily done by showing a portfolio of past work. We arrange a meeting on site and take with us an A1 size album containing shots of gardens that we have constructed (and some designs by others) and flip those through with the client. Once the style is established, it is time to lay out the ‘bones’ of the design – the hard elements in the available outdoor space. This is where it can get difficult to find inspiration.

The strategy we employ is to find some element in the building and reflect it in the design. Here, the curving wall of a dining room in a modern house has been reflected in the positioning of ‘chunky’ poles supporting the Wisteria arbor and the curved edge of the paving.

To accentuate the curve even more, the paving edge has been planted with dwarf Mono grass which further accentuates this design element. Massed planting of Dietes spp fills the rear of the space. This is a very small garden and we used horizontal boards and mirrors to create the illusion of space.

The next image shows a different site.  Here the front garden of a house is in an early stage of construction. The main feature of the front of the house is a complex shallow curve.  These curves have been picked up in the letterbox and newly constructed raised garden beds. This ties the design together.

Note the restricted palette of materials in use. Rendered walls and thin ornamental sheet iron glued to the tallest feature wall that is allowed to weather to a rust colour. The same material is used on the letterbox as on the wall.

You may be able see more clearly from the layout of the footings (that will contain raised garden beds and ornamental steel work) that the rather shallow complex arc of the front of the building has been reflected in the garden plan. These footings are substantial as they will support a wall some 2 meters high that will create a private outdoor space.

Of course curves are not found in buildings on every site. Inspiration can be gained from many features and the link need not be as obvious as in the examples above. For example, the building may have an interesting long narrow window or facade feature. The proportions from any such feature you pick up, can be used in laying out the design. A subtle trick is to lay out the design on a grid matching (say) the width and height of that ‘special’ window. If the site is large, use a larger grid with the same proportions as the design moves further away from the building.

Adopting the approach outlined here ensures that every design is unique and that the design integrates building into the landscape.