u/Kerrit_Bareet

*G. miqueliana* is a gorgeous high country grevillea that I had, lost, then searched for years before finding some advanced tubestock a couple years ago. [Definitely will be trying cuttings this year]

Lovely and bushy plant that keeps its low branches, and still gets a bit of height for screening. Here it is sitting in silty clay loam (30cm) with clay under that. Don't water it in summer now established, though always plentiful mulch, and I'm not low low rainfall Vic.

The spots of colour, aka flowers, are visible from the house 30m away, so when I see them dancing on windless days it is the spinebills or the new hollands. Plenty more on their way as the migratory honeyeaters return from their winter sojourn.

[Southern goldfields, Central Highlands, Vic]

The frogs, actually one of the Victorian froglets, are in this damper bit of ground, that is now a tad gently filled, and hopefully to be tadpole filled in the next couple of weeks.

These frogs are so vibration sensitive, and can judge gentle footsteps from about 20m away. They then make you wait 20 min in the drizzle before restarting.

Maggies singing in the forest in the background and a very gentle short superb fairywren twitter.

[Southern goldfields, Central Highlands, Vic]

Adenanthos sericeus is one that many of us put into our gardens, though you have to look really hard to see it flower.

https://www.bgpa.wa.gov.au/plants/adenanthos-sericeus

Again able to get a reasonable shot of one of the many white-browed scrubwrens that dart around the house and garden or zooming thru the forest.

In another of my op shop ceramic bird baths. This one is by a big domed banksia integrifolia that has a empty underneath which little birds use as a creche when they fledge their chicks.

\[Southern goldfields, Central Highlands, Vic\]

If see rhodanthe somewhere, or an opportunity to try something from seed, then give it a go. Maybe try and source a local species of rhodanthe.

Once established they will look after themselves and keep on keeping on. I can get them thru -4 frosts. When they're older the centre of the plant can get a bit bare, tho manageable.

The flowers last for months on the plant for me, and open and close with the sunlight. And as you can see at elevation in cold part if Vic, already showy.

[Southern goldfields, Central Highlands, Vic]

Zieria and Phebalium [edit] genuses are some that i find robust and working well as something under eucalypts in the south-eastern Oz. These are just starting to bud, or just flower. The flower isn't generally overt, though the developing flower clusters are attractive.

Of the rutaceae family (orange), cousins to the boronia, so has the oil glands that have that brush-past effect It doesn't like wet feet, though occasionally inundation is no issue and typically robust. Its roots prefer being kept cool (mulch or rock) though less temperamental than boronias.

[Southern goldfields, Central Highlands, Vic]

(Corrections applied)

[southern goldfields side of GDR, Central Highlands Vic]

Spyridium parvifolium or dusty miller is a quiet little shrub, though bursts out when it flowers like this. Takes the frost, and not been nibbled by rabbits or roos. Robust when settled. This plant 2+ years in ground from tubestock.

I bought these from Ironstone Park nursery in Heathcote, who attend some of the APS nursery sales. They do a range of different plants, many indigenous to that area of Vic, and then some rare and some not in general cultivation. I see that they have Facebook.

Parvus = small, insignificant

Folium = leaf

To me the thing about the Australian wattles (Acacia genus) is their proud lead up to their flowering; rods or balls; the positioning of the flowers; clusters or individual; their diversity of leaf shape with the flowers.

Among the shots are

• A. cultriformis
• A. verticillata
• A. podalyrifolia
• A. aphylla
• A. pravissima

+++ (meaning ive forgotten)

I have three indigenous wattles on my block, with A. melanoxylon (blackwood) present in the 000s, so I tend to focus on other plants in the garden area. For me, I pick them based on weird or interesting foliage as that is all year, though of course the flowers are gorgeous when they are here.

And as I have noted previously, everything seems to be flowering so much earlier this year. One wonders whether the wattles will be finished prior to National Wattle Day on 1 Sep. 🤷‍♂️

[southern goldfields side of GDR, Central Highlands Vic]

[southern goldfields side of GDR, Central Highlands Vic]

The possum banksia is a striking winter flowering plant, with big big flower heads (15-20 cm range height and circumference). A low spreading plant to maybe 1 m high and 2+m wide. It is a plant that adores plenty of sun, especially for flowers production. The flower heads stay on the plant looking attractive in subsequent years. [In picture, this winter flower away from cam, and one from two seasons ago closer to cam.]

While it is a plant from the Stirling Plains, mallee type country, so more a sandy soil. I am growing it on silt/clay/loam soil, at cool climate elevation, so nothing like its home range. It is in a drier patch of ground and doing fine. Probably not one for humid spaces.

[southern goldfields side of GDR, Central Highlands Vic]

For me, the crimson kunzea is one of the last of my myrtaceae to flower, usually late summer. So I'm calling it late second flowering as there are only a handful or two infloresecence on show.

That said, this gorgeous red flower is standing out in the garden screaming colour on these cold, gentler light winter days.

If you ever plant these magnificent plants, they are subject to collar rot, so keep the mulch away from the trunk.

[southern goldfields side of GDR, Central Highlands Vic]

As mentioned, another of the genus is flowering six months early.

This one is Veronica perfoliata, Digger's speedwell. Gorgeous blue flowers, for me November to April. Grows well in the shade, I'm growing under a casuarina. And something that I reckon would be another to have tonpropagate well.

Rabbits don't seem to fancy it, so that makes it winning on another level.

[southern goldfields side of GDR, Central Highlands Vic]

The pin cushion hakea has been beautifully in flower for a few weeks and looking at the buds still on the plant it will be going at least another three.

I love the stages of the flower: big buds look a little like camelias, that pop open and out come the little bent tendrils, that slowly expand before the older form does the stretched starburst.

This one would be two to three metres tall at four years of age, a bit leggy as growing in shade though a gorgeous plant in the garden. Cockies not found it yet to prune it harshly.

[southern goldfields side of GDR, Central Highlands Vic]

[Derwent speedwell](https://www.anbg.gov.au/gnp/interns-2005/derwentia-derwentiana.html) has started flowering and this is typically a summer flowering plant. Now it is just a small patch, rather than the whole plant, but it is June, time of heaths, correas and banksias.

I'm quite a fan of the Australian veronica spp. I have large swathes of V. gracilis, indigenous to me, that thrives on neglect and I'm loving it through mulch where it is out competing the weeds.

Been finding the veronica spp.(whites, blues and pinks) are doing so well under the shade of the gums. Flower for long periods, get to a good height, look attractive and not overly adored by the rabbits. Winning i my account is.

It is not a plant that I particularly see at nurseries, and guessing that unattractive as a incy wincy plant.

Going to try to propagate some next spring, so if anyone has had experience with them, tips are always welcomed. I'm hoping they are easy to do.

[southern goldfields side of GDR, Central Highlands Vic]

It is just into the second week of June, and what is an early August flowering plant in my garden at our elevation, is flowering now.

Hardenbergia violacae (false sarsaparilla, happy wanderer), garden grown from nursery source, though plant is also indigenous to area, though never as vigorous.

Now as it turns colder still, maybe it will be a plant in stasis, or we are in for a weird winter, and flowers coming really early.

Southern Central Highlands, Vic. [Apols, the best the phone could do]

In winter the yellow robins come out of the forest and regular are perching on garden fork and like spaces like the Hills behind. Never sure whether it is searching feeding or just soaking up the small amount of sunshine.

Forest is E. viminalis, E. ovata, E. obliqua and A. melanoxylon. Haven't seen the tree creepers in there for a while.

South Central Highlands, Vic

Plants: local pelargonium that self seeds (magic plant), correa alba, and a grevillia alpina cultivars.

One of the many many little bird staples around the house with also the twitters of thornbill spp, superb fairy wrens and grey fantails.

You can never have too many water supplies of various depths. You don't even have to have them all with water, simply some, let others go empty and fill as you garden. I'd have 20-30 around in my larger garden

Ceramic dishes from op shops are one of my sources of bird baths thru the garden, esp under plants. [Don't use pyrex or glass for the garden, in case they break.]

[Southern Central Highlands, Vic] (scroll the range)

The correas are flowering and the spinebills are feeding.

Some species started in March and finishing now C. alba, C.decumbens), some April and are mid bloom, the last of the species starting now. Something will always be in bloom through winter. Many are less than knee-high, others to waist+.

These plant hardly get direct sunlight through winter (south of house), and full sun in summer. They've got good deeper soil, and plenty of mulch and rocks to keep their roots as cool as possible.

Correas will grow in full shade, tho ever so slowly, not go those flowering yet, and still rabbit guarded.

Noting that there are numbers of cultivars present, and some regional variations of same species.

Still hunting for the local some in the nearby Wombat Forest.

[Southern Central Highlands, Vic.]

20 year old banksia that is just over knee high, 3 m spread. This morning it had an eastern spinebill and a New Holland honeyeater feeding from it, and superb fairy wrens sitting on it. One of my winter food plants for the bird nectivores.

One of Molyneaux's cultivars.