It has been great to see so many people out and about in our golf gardens either taking on the challenge of the mini golf course or just enjoying the gardens and picnicking on the lawns.
It has also been great to see the number of New Holland Honeyeaters visiting the numerous native flowers out in the nursery.
Quite a few native shrubs and trees come into their prime through autumn and winter with some of the Grevilleas being the most obvious.
While some of the Grevilleas like Robyn Gordon seem to flower most of the year round, they still put in a concerted effort to look their best through the coming months.
Grevillea Outback Sunrise is a great example of this with its distinctive yellow flowers with bright red styles appearing all year but are in abundance now.
Outback Sunrise grows to about three metres high by 1one metre wide and its blue-green foliage makes a stunning feature in a garden.
They prefer an open sunny position in free draining soil and can work just as well in a mixed planting as it does in a native garden.
They can be a little frost tender when young, so you will need to keep an eye on them for the first winter.
Grevillea Molly is another that is budding up now and will look great over winter.
Molly grows to around one metre high and wide and likes the same growing conditions as Outback Sunrise.
Molly will flower with large red nectar heavy flowers for up to nine months of the year and is a favourite with nectar feeding birds.
Grevillea Aphrodite’s Dream, which was bred by King’s Park Botanic Gardens, is an attractive upright shrub with silver green foliage and masses of beautiful toothbrush type flowers of pink with soft tones of orange colour.
Growing two to three metres high and 1and a half metres wide they can be used as a light informal screening plant or planted individually as a feature plant.
Some other native plants that are looking stunning in the Garden Centre through April to May are the unusual native hibiscus, Alyogyne.
These plants are mostly open soft timbered shrubs with small or sometimes fine foliage.
We have a variety called Alyogyne Delightfully Double in flower in stock that has been popular with the Honeyeaters.
Eucalyptus Pulverulenta Baby Blue has been very popular with customers since they have come back in stock the last few weeks.
This large shrub or small tree is known for its juvenile rounded blue silver foliage, which is used extensively in floral displays.
Growing to around three to four metres high they can be cut back extremely almost to ground level to encourage masses of the juvenile foliage either for floral use or just to make a standout display.
Another native shrub or small tree grown for its foliage form and colour is Leptospermum brachyandrum, the silver weeping tea tree.
Its fine weeping foliage hangs gracefully over the three to five metre-high bushy shrub.
In early spring it will produce a profusion of small white flowers that cascade down with its weeping branches.
Preferring full sun to part shade in a moist to dry soil, they can make a pleasant contrast to the surrounding foliage in both colour and form.
An under used small to medium native tree called the Ivory Curl Tree, Buckinghamia celsissima is a tree that grows very well in our region.
In tropical areas, this tree can reach a much bigger size, up to 25 metres, but our colder winters keep its size in check.
The main feature of this tree is its long creamy white, sweetly fragrant Grevillea looking flowers.
These flowers appear in late spring when the plant is flushed with glossy bronze green leaves which makes them really stand out.
Reasonably quick growing, they will often flower in their second year in the ground.
Many people will know of the Pin Cushion Hakea, Hakea Laurina, but there is a new improved variety that is available.
Hakea Stockdale Sensation still has the unique pincushion red cream flowers and grows to about the same size, which is about three metres high, but it also has a dense weeping habit which makes it stand out from its parent plant.
Quick growing but shallow rooted, they are best suited planted among other plants to offer some extra protection from strong winds.
These are just a few of the native plants on offer in the Garden Centre that could look even better in your garden.
So, make the most of this lovely autumn weather and get out in the garden to enjoy this beautiful time of the year.
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