u/Kerrit_Bareet

[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.

From another weekend of wandering through the Wombat Forest, southern side of the Great Divide.

The colour range of *Epacris impressa*, the common heath. Whites, pinks, reds.

This lot was near the turn off to O'Brien's Road, so flower heath on the ridge and where the sun could get in, with the backdrop of the valleys behind.

In this area not much else flowering, we didn't stumble across much of the local banksia or hakea. The wattles have started their buds and will be out in August. The olearias are throwing up seedlings, and the bursaria spinosa, as spiny as it, is is always well wallaby-pruned.

[Monday quirky]

When one has the joy of a rural block and the unjoy of rabbits, one does many things to keep the effers at bay.

My barkading with the long ribbon bark of the swamp gum *E. ovata* and manna gum *E. viminalis* is having some success (with all the dropped sticks as anchors). I've found they tend not to jump over what they cannot see over, so a lot less damage is occurring.

Still using some rabbit guards of course as the banksias being slower growers don't unbite, plus some winter protection from frost.

Enjoy your autumn gardening.

[Southern side of the Great Divide, VIC]