Next Meeting

Date: Thursday, February 11, 2010
Time: 6:00 pm
Venue: MEET AT THE BBQ’S AT LAKE HYLAND, ON MACKEYS ROAD, CHURCHILL. We can decide then if/when Ken is present to walk through Mathieson Park or eat first. Please Bring BYO food and drink, there are BBQ’s.

Leader's Report

Around our garden

Welcome all to 2010, this year has started off so much calmer and wetter which we are greatful for and our gardens are coping so much better with these conditions. We compared the rainfalls of 2008 to 2009 and we had 13.75mm more in 2009 overall. So far we have had a very good start in Jan with 48mm, this is better than the last TWO Years, so our gardens are doing well but so are the weeds too.

Flowering around the garden is Grevillea caloundra Gem, Grevillea ‘Billy Bonkers’ love the flowers on this one, Hypocalymma xanthopetalum is a mass of small ‘Fluffy’ yellow flowers. The Scaevola is hanging over our the little garden wall and Grevillea longistylia is still showing off its flowers. Last but not least is Correa reflexa ‘Split Corocca’ which we got from Allan Lacey at Sandy point.

We must say that the Native Hibisus, Alyogyne huegelli purple form showed how a mass planting of it can stand out, Marg loved driving pass these on the bypass around Pakenham.

6pm. THURSDAY 11TH FEB. Don’t forget our first meeting of the year is a BBQ at Lake Hyland and hopefully with Ken Harris leading us on a walk around Mathieson Park.

We also need to finalise speakers for this year. See you at the meeting from Wayne Wilkinson.

Some Thoughts About Plants That Die By Col Jackson

As gardeners, all of us mourn the loss of favorite plants. Perhaps we understand the circumstances of the demise of these sometimes carefully collected and painstakingly nurtured prizes and, if we are brutally honest with ourselves, we may even admit that we were pushing our luck trying to grow things so far out of their natural habitat. However, many of us have the ability to ignore this underlying logic. For instance, a plant that will grow happily in pure desert sand several metres deep, sometime with no rain from one year to the next, is really going to have to work hard when it’s forced to endure a wet Gippsland winter (well, we did have them once!) in heavy clay. The trouble is, the more spectacular said desert plant is, the more likely we are to ignore said logic. In addition, we often will not accept the logic even after the death. “It was just a weak specimen”, “It was one of Col Jackson’s dodgy plants” or “The cat next door must have peed on it” are all good excuses. Sometimes we agree to make some concessions and decide to raise the bed up, maybe import a bit of sand or stick it out the back where it will get a bit more sun. So in goes another one that inevitably takes on autumn toning before it ever flowers.

I think it is because we are gardeners, and in particular, Australian plants gardeners, that we often persevere like this. We appreciate the spectacular and unique beauty that our Australian plant life holds and would dearly love them to be represented in many more gardens, celebrating the most flamboyant of Australia’s flora rather than just the most enduring plants from the rest of the world. In trying to achieve this, the pioneers in grafting techniques and plant breeding are really at the pointy end of plant research. Both of these techniques already allow us to reliably grow many plants that otherwise would be beyond our dreams. Imagine though if we could identify or breed hardier specimens of the plants we would like in our gardens. What about desert plants that could sustain wet feet, or high rainfall plants that could survive a long, dry summer? The genes that could allow these things may well be out there somewhere, just waiting for discovery.

Sooo…next time one of your dearly loved and unique plants turns its toes up, do not shed a tear. Just give a philosophical shrug and say, “Well, that one didn’t have it …but the next one might!”

Plants in My Garden

By Mike Beamish

Elaeocarpus reticulatus

Species: Elaeocarpus reticulatus
Family: Elaeocarpaceae
Derivation:

Elaeocarpus:From the Greek elaia, an olive, and karpos, a fruit, referring to the olive-like fruits.

reticulatus: A Latin word meaning made like a net or with the appearance of a net, usually referring to the vein patterns in the leaves.

Common Name: Blue Olive-berry, Blueberry Ash
Distribution: Along the coast and ranges east from Wilson’s Promontory in Victoria to Queensland and in Tasmania. Common in forests in moist, sheltered sites, mostly at lower altitudes.
Description:A shrub or small tree, from 3 to 10 metres tall. Leaves are alternate, 7-14cm long and 2-4cm wide, glabrous (hairless) on both sides with raised net-like veins, margins finely toothed, bright green when young, darkening with age and turning red before dropping. Flowers occur from November to January and are white, or rarely pink, fringed cups about 1cm in diameter, in racemes to 10cm long, forming blue berries to 12mm long as they mature.
Opinion: Remember when we paid Geoff Cooke a visit up at Wiseleigh a year or two ago, and we were gathered in his driveway towards the end of our walk through the garden for quite a few minutes before realising that the tree we were standing under was chock-a-block in full flower, absolutely covered with soft-pink fairy lanterns? Well, that was a Blue Olive-berry at its best! Mine is nowhere near as big or good-looking, but it did put on its best flowering display this summer, after a couple of sporadic attempts in previous years. It lives in my “rainforest” section, underneath the pergola on the southern side of the house and is currently about 3 metres tall and fairly narrow. It is the pink-flowering form and was grown from a batch of 7 cuttings received from Chris Horne in June 2002, 6 of which were tubed up in January 2003. Only 2 survived to September 2004, when 1 was planted to become the subject of this article and the other went into a 6” pot and was probably donated to persons I cannot recall. So they grow all right from cuttings and when I do some pruning shortly, I’ll whack a few cuttings into the mix to see how they go. In 2006, I tried to germinate some berries borrowed from Point Hicks, without success. Interestingly, some cuttings of a close relative, E. holopetalus or Black Olive-berry, borrowed from the Snowy River Gorge area around the same time, didn’t want to strike roots.

Sources: Corrick & Fuhrer- Wildflowers of Victoria.
Costermans- Native Trees and Shrubs of South-eastern Australia.
Sharr – WA Plant Names and their meanings.