Growing for Success | Native plants to transform your garden this spring

A walk along the river paths late afternoon earlier this week with the silver wattles in full flower and all smelling so typically Aussie bush was a lovely experience, and it made me think of the wonderful native shrubs that we so often overlook for our gardens.

There are some beautiful well-known plants such as grevilleas, correas, callistemons, eremophila, banksias, wattles and tea trees that often get a look-in, but there are plenty of others that miss out.

Elaeocarpus reticulatus, the blueberry ash, is one — a bushy column-shaped medium tree.

It has masses of delicately fringed small pink flowers in spring, which have a faint perfume, that set small blueberries that are attractive to seed-eating birds.

They can be grown as a feature tree or as a tall narrow screen.

An adaptable and versatile tree that grows quite fast and performs well in our area.

The ivory curl tree, Buckinghamia celsissima, is another that grows happily here and yet is almost unknown.

Growing to about six to eight metres in our region but much taller the further north you go, they make a stunning flowering feature tree.

The flowers appear from mid-summer through autumn with grevillea-like flowerheads that almost completely blanket the glossy dark green foliage.

The 20 to 30cm-long creamy flowers have a beautiful fragrance that will drift through the surrounding garden as an extra bonus.

There are a whole lot of new and recent release natives that are well worth considering for use in the home garden.

Most of these are available in the Garden Centre already, but a few are scheduled for the next week or two.

Syzygium Cheeky Little Red is a wonderfully bushy form of lilly pilly that is extremely dense in habit and is low-growing, making it the perfect choice for a lower-mid-sized hedging plant.

With lovely large glossy dark green leaves and bright red new growth, this stunning form will provide colour in the garden for most of the year.

These should be available, hopefully, by early spring.

Another early spring arrival is a stunning, different new correa.

It has unique black-brown foliage that will create a dramatic display in the garden.

Featuring bold salmon-pink new growth throughout the year, Correa Choc Leaf will form a low-branching, neat compact shrub that is exceptionally robust, with added frost and dry tolerance.

The dark foliage is decorated with yellow and pink tubular flowers from late autumn and throughout spring, and will be available mid-spring.

Looking great in the nursery now is Callistemon Red Rocket.

This is a small to medium, non-flowering bottlebrush.

It produces red-tipped new growth on dark green foliage and is a great plant to use as a hedge or feature plant.

Red Rocket is a great native alternative to use instead of photinia, especially in gardens for people with allergies, as this plant doesn’t flower.

Callistemon Red Rocket prefers a sunny or light-shaded position with well-drained soil. It is fast-growing and drought resistant.

Callistemon Candy Burst is a great choice for a low-growing colourful native bottlebrush shrub that can be used for low hedges or borders, mass planting or as a feature plant.

Growing as a semi-compact fine-leafed shrub to about 1.2m high by one metre wide, they will keep a neat tidy habit with little maintenance required, although pruning when young is beneficial as it will encourage dense, bushy growth.

A recent release lilly pilly that has proven popular since its release is Syzygium Up and Away.

This is the dream plant that so many people ask for when looking for a screening or hedging plant for their garden.

It has an extremely neat, columnar habit with stunning foliage colour year-round, ticking a lot of boxes that customers request.

The white flowers that appear throughout the warmer months are pollinator-friendly, attracting heaps of native birds.

The flushes of red-copper new growth turn to deep shades of green as it ages.

Growing to between three to five metres high by one to two metres wide, it forms a dense privacy screen quickly, with minimal maintenance required.

These are just a few of the new and recently released native plants to keep a lookout for over the coming months.

Some of the newer ones will be in short supply at first as forward orders are filled, but with follow-up batches coming through, they should soon be making a regular appearance in our stock.

In the meantime, try to get a chance to have a stroll along the river pathways and enjoy the start of our native spring display.