Plants

Know your: Iris

When we say iris do you think Van Gogh blue iris, or romantic bearded iris in shades to perfectly match old roses? Or does iris suggest cheery yellow flowers lining the dam? No wonder we all conjure a different image - there are about 300 species in the iris family. Here are a handful of the best for gardeners.

Know your: Maples

Maples deliver magnificent autumn colour, especially after a dry summer, which crystallises the sugars in the leaf. Most at home in cooler climates, many colour up well in warm areas. Here’s a quick guide to help you choose what’s right for you.

Know your: Poppies

A quick guide to identifying and growing the right bunch of poppies for you.

Know your: Roses for Sydney

Some of the best performing roses for warm climates are old favourites -and we mean old. Search out these hardy centurions for fragrance, generosity and trouble-free beauty

Know Your: Spring Blossom

Get to know your spring blossoms now before they disappear for another year.  

Know your: Spring flowering shrubs

Flowering shrubs are the backbone of the garden. Get familiar with these beauties to add some spring bling to your garden.

La Vie En Rose

The charms of French country living inspired Marian Somes to create her own version at her beautiful garden Picardy in the Gippsland hills.

Lambley's Garden

Laurentia 'Pink Star'

Laurentia ‘Pink Star’ produces a mass of star-shaped blooms above soft mounded foliage. It’s a plant to soften the edges of borders, paths and retaining walls to fall from hanging baskets and window boxes.

Leucadendron salignum

This South African native brings year-round burgundy foliage to the garden. In autumn and winter it produces a cone-like flower, which becomes woody at maturity.

Lilac

A small tree/large shrub with perfumed flowers in spring.

Limes

Few fruits conjure up fantasies of tropical lazing about like the lime. The very names - Tahitian, West Indian - make market gardener, Justin Russell want to kick off my work boots, slip on some boardies and sip on an ice cold mojito.

Lotus

To get the best out of the lotus, plant in an earth-bottomed pond, as the more the lotus can run, the more it will flower.

Lush Foliage

I'm loving lush, luxuriant foliage!

Macadamia integrifolia

The macadamia hails from Queensland and northern NSW but for a long time it was better known in Hawaii than in its homeland.

Macquarie Island

Hobart’s Botanic Gardens is home to an unusual glasshouse with a collection of plants from Australia’s sub-Antarctic Macquarie Island. Robin Powell wrapped up warm to collect stories from one of the wildest places on earth.

Meet Chris Cuddy

Perenialle Plants is a mail-order nursery for tough plants, but you can also drop in. Don’t miss the chance if you are in the Canowindra area. As well as the plants, there’s an inspiring garden and lovely little shop full of artisan-made house and garden desirables.

Meet Elizabeth Back, Flower grower

Elizabeth Back runs Wild Aesthetic Flowers. Robin Powell interviews Elizabeth here and gets to know what's growing in her garden

Meet Florist, Nga Bui

Like a loose, just-picked look for the flowers in your house? So does Nga Bui. Here Robin Powell interviews one of Sydney's favourite florists

Meet Glennis Clark, Heritage Rose grower and Rookwood volunteer

Among the hidden treasures at Rookwood Necropolis are beautiful old roses, cared for by volunteers.

Meet Kevin Collins, banksia collector

Kevin Collins and his wife Kathy grow the world’s only complete collection of banksias in their garden at Mount Barker, Western Australia.

Meet Mark Jury, magnolia breeder

If there’s a stunning deciduous magnolia in your garden with enormous cup-shaped blooms and rich colour, chances are it was bred by New Zealand plantsman, Mark Jury.

Meet Pat and Bill Rhodin Tulip Tops gardeners

Meet Pat and Bill Rhodin, Tulip Tops gardeners. They work hard all year to make this garden's spring display something memorable

Meet Peter Hey, clivia breeder and grower of rare plants

Meet Peter Hey, clivia breeder and grower of rare plants

Meet Robert Price

Meet: Bob Price, founder and curator, Mexico’s Vallarta Botanical Gardens. Bob Price plan was to conserve Mexico’s unique flora and birdlife and the Vallarta Botanical Gardens he founded to help achieve that were recently included on the list of Top Ten Public Gardens in America you should visit.

Meet: Angus Stewart

Meet Angus Stewart. Plant breeder, gardener and new resident of the Apple Isle. He is also our favourite native wildflower enthusiast.

Meet: Dale Dixon, tropical plant enthusiast, curator of Latitude 23

Meet Dr Dale Dixon, tropical plant enthusiast and curator of 'Latitude 23' at the Royal Botanic Gardens Sydney.

Meet: Elizabeth Rundle, peony-lover

Peonies seduced Elizabeth Rundle when she was just 16. She’s been a fan ever since, growing and selling tree peonies through a mail-order nursery, first in Canberra and now in Ballarat. Here she shares her story.

Meet: Geoffrey Head, Nielsen Park bush regenerator

Geoffrey Head has spent the last 12 years tending to the Eastern Suburbs jewel-in-the-crown Nielsen Park. Today we catch up with him.

Meet: Graeme Parr: wisteria expert

Oh hello big dose of flower envy. We'd do any thing for wisteria! Graeme has been growing wisteria for the nursery trade for 20 years. Here he shares his top tips for growing great flowering wisteria.

Meet: Jodie McGregor, florist

Libby talks to Jodie about her favourite flowers and her plans for her new garden.

Meet: Mark Engall

The nursery and garden industry has some great family stories. Here’s another one with a lemon twist.

Melons

A sweet slice of cold melon on a hot summer’s day – irresistible! Watermelons, rockmelons and honeydew melons are easy to grow in the backyard as long as you have a bit of space.

Mickey's garden

Mickey Robertson gardens at Glenmore House near Camden. Sounds like a scene out of Pride and Prejudice? Well yes, you do feel as though you've traveled back in time where women wear linen and the air smells clean. Winter, she says, is crisp mornings thawing to glorious blue-sky days. Early morning reveal traces of frost on cabbage and kale leaves; and sometimes, just sometimes, the paddocks blanketed in white. Evenings also have a rhythm all their own as woodsmoke trails through the valley. Here she shares glimpses of days in her winter garden.

Native Violets

Native violets make a dainty carpet under big trees. 

Necklace orchid, Coelogyne

Coelogyne orchids (pronounced see-lodg-i-nee) are sometimes called necklace orchids because of their long pendant sprays of white flower. 

NSW Christmas Bush

This good-looking evergreen native shrub has three-pointed leaves and creamy flowers in spring. After flowering the calyxes turn a rusty red for a stunning Christmas show.

Oak-leaved Hydrangea

This hydrangea is a particularly good shrub for either dry shade or sun. Like all hydrangeas it is deciduous, with large leaves shaped like those of the oak.

Ornamental Pear

This is one of the most beautiful ornamental pears available. It has a conical upright shape, and shiny dark green leaves that colour dramatically to gold, plum and burgundy in autumn. Masses of beautiful white flowers appear in spring.

Outback Bloom

The Australian outback is experiencing a one-in-a-lifetime explosion of exuberant growth and flowering. Birds are flocking to the newly drenched watercourses and brimming lakes, and so are plant lovers. Angus Stewart shares the thrill.

Pandorea Funky Bellz

Papaya

I grew up around papaws. My grandpa grew them. My uncles grew them. My parents grew them. They live in memory, but the old papaw has of late taken a back seat to the more luscious, tropical papaya.

Paper Daisies: Annuals

Sow paper daisies in May. They will grow slowly though winter, develop a strong root system and flower prolifically in spring.

Paper Daisies: Perennials

Forgo short lasting annual daisies in favour of these long lasting perennial types and your happiness and bright wildflower will endure for years not weeks.  

Payne's thryptomene

This dainty native shrub flowers for a long season through late autumn and winter.

Perennials

We have fallen in love all over again with romantic flowery gardens packed with perennials. This group of plants offers the gardener an amazing range of colours, textures and shapes to play with. Here Sandra Ross shares the love, answering the most frequently asked questions about this exciting group of plants, and choosing her must-have favourites.

Perfumed Roses

Spring brings a new bunch of roses to nurseries. These new introductions are the latest in a long history of rose evolution. 

Pieris japonica 'Temple Bells'

This lovely shrub has a few common names including Andromeda, Temple Bells and Lily of the Valley shrub, though it’s not related to the true Lily of the Valley (Convalaria majalis) at all. You might also hear it called Pearl Flower – a reference to those lovely flowers.

Pineapple Lily

This elegant bulb grows with a rosette of fleshy foliage that is green or spotted with purple, and a flowering stem densely covered in greenish-cream flowers, often tinged with purple.

Pink Bulbs

Somehow I just can’t escape from pink so I am about to plant 200 pink tulips that I found in Broersen’s catalogue.