April in the Southern Hemisphere

[Lesley Cox]

Of course we took pictures of each other.







Here's one for Maggi. A bull ant and Tim said it was a queen. Does that make it a cow ant? She has a good set of pincers.



Two more of the general planting schemes. The second shows the building which houses admin, shops and a good cafe along with various educational facilities and of course, loos.





Fitting well into the whole concept are some really quirky art works and scuptures. I really liked these watering cans.





And these great rusted iron boxes looked like derailed and abandoned railway wagons but were another sculpture.

[Luc Gilgemyn]

Stunning !!!!
Are you sure these pix have been made on planet earth Lesley ?
You might have been kidnapped by aliens to a nother planet, by the look of this (for us) strange vegetation...

Seriously now Lesley - thanks a lot for some quite extraordinary pictures !

[Maggi Young]

Lesley, I would so much rather you hadn't shown that fearsome critter with the pincer jaws... and it has wings, so you can't even outrun the ruddy thing!  Yeuch!

I am thrilled to learn more about Otto the plantsman.... this insight into his talents and successful career make him seem to show just the perfect combination of gardening and "real life"....I do hope he won't be cross with you Lesley, I like him better for knowing this!

[Lesley Cox]

Otto will likely be madder for what Tim's about to do!

Here's another batch. If I'm posting too many do say. It's just that Cranbourne is such an amazing place. The first plantings were only 18 months ago and so I'm fully intending to return in another 18 months to look at progress and enjoy a more developed garden. I don't know whose was the original concept and design but he/she was truly inspired and did a great job.

Here are the big boxes again. There's a lot of rust around, quite deliberately let develop and used as a very attractive background for signage, more of which later.



Some plants in the different gardens. Apart from the huge centrepiece of the red soil, there are many smaller garden areas which demonstrate what can be done e.g. without water, or in sand, modern gardens, all sorts which must be great inspirers for visiting Aussies.



A heath-like plant but with lovely silver foliage. Most of the names were unfamiliar to me and at the start I was stupidly relying on memory from reading the labels but after a while started taking pics of the labels themselves, right after the plant, (before the plant pic would have made the down sizing and renaming easier).



Anigozanthos `Yellow Gem,' one of many kangaroo paw species and new hybrids, all great garden plants and some are hardy enough for lower NZ.



Although this species has the huge "cone" flowers of tall Banksia bushes, it was low and spreading. The flowers looked a bit much for the low plants.



Helichrysum bracteatum is a widely grown shrublet in the southern hemisphere. That was a thick band of it in the second pic in this whole group from Cranbourne.



More watering can art. Nothing subtle about the primary colours or, in fact, about the whole place.



The water message and the need to conserve it comes through very clearly at Cranbourne. Recent and long running droughts, seemingly all over Australia except in the far north and east, mean that gardening apparently has to change quite markedly if it's to continue at all, especially in the cities.



A very pretty Dianella, perhaps tasmanica but in a very good form I think, compared with others whose flowers are darker and muddy blues. Not a good photo though.



Another wattle, Acacia cognata 'Green Mist,' very low and mat-like with a spread of 1 metre. I'd love to see these little species in flower.



Though not a great fan of palms, I liked this palm in a pot of such a lovely shade of blue. There were several others as well.

[Lesley Cox]

This is Lomandra `Aussie Blue-Grass' quite appropriately I think.  The men, having no sense of style (sorry lads) wanted it planted against the red scoria background but I liked the grey-on-grey which EMPHASISES the colour of the leaves. It belongs to Xanthorrhoeaceae( )



More sculpture, barber poles this time. Mmmm?



From Proteaceae, comes Adenanthos `Coral Drift.' It has to be VERY close to Eucalyptus. Low, bushy and very lovely. Lots of wasps around though.



We talked about Leschenaultia somewhere else on the Forum a while back. This is the little low L. formosa with more buds to come, but just a small foretaste here.



A mass planting of a lowish red kangaroo paw. In the right place these are very exciting.



And I loved this quite tiny form.



Olearia astroloba is a very pretty bush daisy with good foliage'



And more good foliage belongs to Senecio garlandii



Two last pics in this batch are of what I assume is another kangaroo paw but is called
Macropidia fuliginosa. The green and black combo is startling and gorgeous. I really want to try
this one.

[fermi de Sousa]

Hi Lesley
Otto and I are enjoying your pics while in transit through Singapore!
He says to tell you he'll deal with you later for your posting of that article!
Changi airport is vast and even has an Australasian Fern Gully with Koi pond!
Otto also sends greetings to Thomas Huber and yourself!
Hope to catch up in January in Christchurch (can we convince Maggi to accompany the BD?)
cheers
fermi and Otto

[Anthony Darby]

Lesley, all the ants in a colony are female. Only the queen (and the emphemeral king) start their adult life with wings. She will break them off after mating and then look for a suitable nesting place to found a new colony, or return to her original colony, as some species of ant have many queens in a colony.

[Lesley Cox]

Following are  the final pics from Cranbourne. There are lots more but enough is probably more than enough.

US first









And number 4 is the Scaveola which is the background.

This little grey leaved plant is Eremophila glabra `Murchison Magic'



and Hypocalymma cordifolium `Golden Veil'



There are many many hybrid Grevilleas nowadays, all making excellent plants for dry southern gardens. This is a very pretty prostrate form



And this large corrugated iron tank made an interesting planter for a hybrid Banksia, called `Birthday Candles'

[Lesley Cox]

As mentioned before, much use was made of rusted metal for signage and sculptures. It was effective and attractive, as in this stack of boxes



This shell suggests a modern house and there was planting in containers and garden plots to suit the style



I liked the lizard climbing up the house wall



I was continually attracted to the huge rusty "boxes" that made up this great barrier between the wetland garden and the great dry, red interior



And I loved this dramatic walkway made of dead eucalyptus trunks, inverted





A final picture of the three friends. Tim collared another man who was also looking, to take the photo. I don't know why we look so serious because it was an amazing day full of interest and enjoyment. I loved every minute and I would thoroughly recommend Cranbourne Botanic Garden to anyone travelling to Victoria from overseas, or to all Australian gardeners who haven't already visited. Neither Otto nor Tim had previously been there, though it's only about an hour or so from Melbourne, so it was a revelation to all of us.

[Anthony Darby]

I was in the process of saying "more, more, more" Lesley when more arrived. That wee Banksia 'Birthday Candles' is nice. Looks like a good subject for a northern alpine house? Can you get seed from it or is it propagated vegetatively?

[Lesley Cox]

A couple of days later Otto and I went to Cloud Hill, a beautiful garden and garden centre near his home in Olinda. I'll start another thread for the pics from there as it's now May.

[David Nicholson]

I enjoyed those Lesley, thank you.

[Paddy Tobin]

Great show, Lesley, Loved the eucalyptus.

Paddy

[Lesley Cox]

Well Paddy, perhaps you'll like this eucalyptus too. It also is from Cranbourne but I only took a pic of it this morning. As yet I've not decided how to frame it (it's actually white backgound and mount, the mushroom colour is from the dim and religious light in my sitting room at present, with curtains keeping the sun off some water colours) but because the plant itself is silvery grey, I think a thin chrome frame will set it off beautifully. I love it for itself, but even more, for the person who gave it to me. It is Eucalyptus macrocarpa.



Anthony, I don't know about seed from the banksia, but possibly. This whole genus is wickedly difficult to propagate from cuttings. There are many species with cone-like flowers as above but others I've seen are on big shrubby plants or even trees.

[Paddy Tobin]

Now that is lovely, Lesley.

...though it does lack some of the life of the other.

Paddy