By Beatrice Hawkins
Anyone who has been reading my ramblings over time would know that I really love my country and the various landscapes, flora and fauna.
I was privileged to fly over a large portion of it recently and, as it was clear skies almost all the way, it was a delight to have a window seat and be able to look down.
Western Queensland, NSW and South Australia were uniformly brown and desolate except for occasional areas of irrigation. They looked, from 30,000+ feet, as dry as when I had driven through in April/May. The various salt lakes were an interesting distraction – I hadn’t remembered there were quite so many. As we approached the Great Australian Bight I was surprised to see green where I expected to see brown at the edge of the Nullarbor, obviously there had been some rain through that area.
Approaching Perth it was very green and a delight to the eyes after the dry time we have experienced in our area for so long. Heavy rain greeted me at Perth airport and continued for some days. Cold, wet and windy but wonderful to hear heavy rain on a tin roof! I had almost forgotten what it sounded like!
Driving around Perth on the highways it was great to see so many wild flowers used on the verges in full spectacular bloom. Western Australians are very proud of the diversity of their flora and the government bodies make full use of this tourist attraction where they can.
It has been too wet at this stage to visit Kings Park and see the variety there but I will be taking full advantage of the time of the year and abundance of flowers in bloom while I’m visiting.
While everything appears green and flourishing and crops are doing really well, I believe that the rainfall this year is well under the average. Timing is everything in the west and the canola particularly has grown well and is flowering spectacularly. Huge expanses of gold and green can be seen driving from Perth to my daughter’s once you leave the forested areas.
My daughter has some really lovely native shrubs in her garden and they attract many birds both large and small. They do have one very old, well cared for, one-eyed, white cat called Captain that doesn’t worry birds, so little wrens hop right up to the window sills and peer in at what is happening.
One particularly hardy native is a small grey-leafed hakea that is covered at present with lovely delicate blossoms in a range of pink shades. She tells me it flowers now, then again in summer if there is any rain at all and finally, reliably, in autumn. Particularly hardy, it is growing in clay soil and survives on rainfall only.
Another is a spiky-leafed grevillea that flowers year round and attracts bees and birds in large numbers. I would like to be able to identify this one and will take a piece to a nursery somewhere and see if they can tell me exactly what it is so I can buy her several more.
I am also enjoying being woken by the raucous laughter of Kookaburras that I don’t hear as much as I would like when I am home in my area of town. Here is some trivia that I wasn’t aware of – Kookaburras are native to the eastern mainland of Australia but have been introduced to WA, Tasmania and some parts of New Zealand.
Reading the local paper I have found a new plant that may be worth chasing when I get back, if we have had rain and water restrictions have been eased – it is the gold fish plant! In photos the flowers do look remarkably like gold fish. The botanical name is Nematanthus Strigillosus and it is described as “an evergreen trailing perennial or sub shrub liking dappled shade or tropical conditions to be at its best”. It can however, be found all up and down the east coast and in cooler areas. It just might do OK in a pot on the protected eastern side of my house if I can find a specimen. It is certainly unusual and would be interesting to try. I also found another one with the same common name, but botanically is Columnea Gloriosa. It appears to be more of a trailing plant for a hanging basket and I have seen it around Warwick, but to my way of thinking, you need a pretty good imagination to see the flowers as gold fish!
Don’t forget the garden competition in the first week of October. Schedules and entry forms are available as usual from Bryson’s in Palmerin Street, and remember, we are all dealing with the same conditions, so enter your garden even if you think it is not as good as you would like it to be.
*This is an old article that has been digitised so our readers have access to our full catalogue.
