Plants

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.

Pink Lilies

These tiger lily bulbs turned up on my desk last year (from Tesselaars) so I planted them across the front of our Garden Clinic HQ in spring, alongside that gorgeous rose ‘Pierre de Ronsard’. 

Pink Waxflower, Philotheca myoporoides (syn Eriostemon myoporoides)

Its botanical name recently changed, but this plant’s common name, of pink waxflower, remains. So too, does the scented foliage on this medium size shrub, that makes it ever popular in pots and garden beds.

Plant More Trees Please

Winter is a great time to plant a tree. Come National Tree Day - which tree are you planting? Let us help you by sharing our firm favourites with some handy tips on choosing a flowering birthday tree that, yep, you got it, flowers on your birthday!. 

Plants I love: dwarf banksias

‘Banksia or grevillea’ I’m sometimes asked, in the native-plant lover’s version of ‘Batman or Superman’. For me, it’s banksia, every time.

Plants I Love: peony

Years ago, on one of our early Jacaranda Cruises, a woman presented me with a cardboard toilet roll. I was a bit surprised until I saw the round pink bud inside. It was a single long stem of the‘Sarah Bernhardt’ peony. Over the next two weeks I was captivated as the bud gradually opened to a multitude of pink petals and a boss of golden stamens. I’ve been mad for peonies ever since and have admired them in peak perfection in gardens in England, Canada, USA and France, as well as in cool climate gardens in Australia.

Plants I love: Star magnolia

Magnolias can languish in their formative years, but perseverance will be rewarded. Here Graham discusses his favourite magnolia's story.

Plants: Indesuctribles

Our best tough-performers.

Polyanthus and Primula

We like them on a windowsill to brighten up the dullest day or cheery winter welcome at the front door. Primula, or fairy primrose, is a delicate-looking thing with candelabra-like bunches of small blooms balancing on fragile stems. The dainty flowers, in shades of pink, white, mauve and carmine, have a faint perfume.

Potted: ​Sturt’s desert pea

Dazzling scarlet and black blooms are set against furry silver foliage in this stunner from the desert.

Potted: Bumble Bee Petunias

Black and yellow is a dramatic colour scheme for a flower, and this new petunia from Ball Australia is creating quite the buzz!

Potted: Camellia sasanqua

Cooler weather launches camellia season, lets start at the very beginning with Camellia sasanqua. Starved for space? Well here are the top camellia sasanqua for pots.

Potted: Capsicum 'Sweet Stuff'

This new release is a high-yielding variety that produces sweet fruit that mature from green to a glossy red.

Potted: Chrysanthemum 'Accolade'

These reliable plants provide a bright display on a sunny balcony or patio from summer through autumn.

Potted: Cyclamen

Cyclamen are perfect Mother’s Day gifts, and here’s how to get them to flower again the second year.

Potted: Cyclamen

A cyclamen is one of loveliest cool climate pot plants, yet many people find them hard to grow. Position is the key– out of direct sun in a light situation, well away from artificial heating.

Potted: Daffodils

‘King Alfred’ and ‘Sydney’ sport the traditional golden trumpets that herald the new season but there are other daffodil shapes and colours to enjoy.

Potted: Dahlia

Dahlia-lovers will be planting tubers in September-October for big bold flowers in summer. Meanwhile, there is fun to be with dwarf varieties, which can be planted in pots or, lets face it, crammed into any bare spot in the garden!

Potted: Dianthus

These new ‘garden pinks’ are an effervescent cerise with a port wine eye. The fragrant, double blooms are long-lasting and the plants are compact and well suited to pots. 

Potted: Federation Daisy

For all the slander suffered by daisies, they have maintained their popularity with gardeners and the new release ‘Sunday Best’ is a good illustration of why. Vibrant, double pink flowers literally smother the bush from mid-autumn to spring.

Potted: Freshen up houseplants

It's time to check potted houseplants for some much needed revival. They are beautiful additions to any indoor space, contributing to the health of our inside environments. It's called biophilia - the happiness of surrounding yourself with green living things!

Potted: Fuchsia

A front door with an easterly aspect is the perfect position for fuchsias, which love morning sun, but can’t cope with an afternoon blast from the west.

Potted: Gardenia 'Florida'

Glossy green leaves provide the perfect backdrop to fragrant white flowers.

Potted: Hibiscus 'Breeze'

These new hibiscus are excellent for containers, with compact growth and plenty of flowers over a long period.

Potted: Hippeastrum

Don’t you love the flamboyant look of hippeastrums in late spring! Their bright trumpet-like flowers on top of strong stems shout a happy message to passersby.

Potted: Kangaroo Paw

Potted: Ornamental Kale

The pink and purple heads of ornamental cabbage provide highly desirable splashes of colour throughout the long months of winter.

Potted: Pansy Plentifall

Trailing pansies cascade over urns, hanging baskets and window boxes. Their profuse flowering habit allows them to recover quickly after rain so the display lasts for months at a time.

Potted: Petunia 'Harlequin'

Potted: Pohutukawa

This iconic Kiwi native is an excellent choice for pots on high, windy balconies

Potted: Rock Thrytomene

Thryptomene takes its name from the Greek meaning ‘coy, prudish or made small’ which is a perfect reference to both its foliage and flowers. Saxicola refers to the rocky soil in which is grew prolifically before being bred for domestic gardens.

Potted: Star magnolia

Courtyard gardeners who covet the pretty petals of magnolias find that most struggle in potted situations. But not the star magnolia which grows into a long-lived, rounded, short shrub with either white, ivory or rose pink blooms.

Potted: String of Pearls

This is an easy-to-grow, dry-loving succulent that looks like dripping stems of bright green peas on a string. It comes from southern Africa and prefers a light position, inside or out. 

Potted: Succulents

Summer pots dry out in a flash and in some situations the only dependable potted colour will be succulents. Two of our favourites are copper pinwheel (Aeonium 'Sunburst') and blue chalksticks (Senecio mandraliscae).

Potted: Summer Petunias

Summer petunias are particular favourites of ours so we thought we’d share this cheery combination of red and lemon petunias with orange osteospermum.

Potted: Sunflowers

Sunflowers are ideal for junior gardeners as they are quick to grow and flower and don’t require much in the way of space, fertiliser, or water. 

Potted: Sweetpeas

Sweetpeas are traditionally planted by St Patrick’s Day, March 17th. They can be sown into containers as well as garden beds.

Potted: Zonal Geraniums

Perennial upright geraniums (which are correctly called pelargoniums) are easy to grow and offer bright, colourful blooms over a long period.

Potted: Zygocactus

These epiphytic cacti hail from Brazil, where they thrive in tree branches or in rock ledges. Try them in a basket hanging at eye level for the greatest impact from the vibrant blooms, which may be hot pink, purple, coral, white or madly variegated.

Queen of the Night, a very special kind of Orchid Cactus

If you are an early riser and usually early to bed - this plant is not for you! The queen of the night cactus flowers between dusk and dawn - for us she is the highlight of the party season.

Red Hot Pokers, Torch Lily, Pokers

The scarlet and yellow flower heads of this cheery beauty are held high on strong stems above strappy foliage. Kniphofias are tough and come in a range of citrus colours, as well as white and green.

Rose Companions

A swooningly beautiful rose garden isn’t just about the roses; it’s the plants that accompany the roses that complete the scene. Here are some awesome companions to plant with your roses.

Rose Hips

Rose hips are the seedpods of roses. We don’t often see them because we usually prune finished flowers to encourage more blooms. If you leave the last roses on the bush, you’ll start to see pretty reddish balls start to develop on the stem tips. Here is a comprehensive list of roses with hips.

Rose Lorraine Lee

There’s no need to go rose-free in winter. ‘Lorraine Lee’, bred by Australian rose breeder, Alister Clark in 1924, takes this moment to shine, blooming profusely until early spring.

Rose Tribute: 'Governor Marie Bashir'

The new rose, 'Governor Marie Bashir'. A fitting tribute to a great Australian, and Graham Ross was on-hand to capture the magic.