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The Hardiest of the Hardy Plants

13/2/2019

4 Comments

 
Picture
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Leptospermum morrisonii burgundy
Recently I promised a few of you that I would talk about the hardiest plants in my garden. My garden is full of hardy plants which mostly need very little water or care once established but I'm wanting to talk about those plants which, in the recent extreme and prolonged heat, did not seem to bat an eyelid (or perhaps I should say leaf). While some of my hardy plants suffered a bit these hardiest of the hardy plants didn’t even look as though they were in the slightest stressed by the weather.

Top of my list is Leptospermum morrisonii burgundy. It was simply gorgeous in late spring, covered in creamy white flowers that the butterflies adored. Warm burgundy tinged leaves give a beautiful contrast to the limy coloured leaves of Correa glabra next to it. By the time the hot weather hit the flowers were finished anyway but this young plant (3 years old now) never missed a beat. Not a wilt or sad leaf in sight.
Philotheca myoporoides and Philotheca ‘Bournda Beauty’, both in full sun in my garden and so so hardy are next on the list. My Philotheca myoporoides is 3 years old and about a meter tall. Not the slightest bit phased by the heat or dry. The ‘Bournda Beauty’, just a couple of months old, is 20cm high and also showed no signs of stress. What troopers.

Correa Candy pink, now a year and half old and at full height of around 0.75m, didn’t once ask for more water. It was as fresh as a daisy throughout the heat and just glancing at it gave me hope for my garden.

​Dodonaea sp. Low has lovely deep green shiny leaves. My main plant is a well established plant at 1 ½ years. Its leaves stayed deep green and shiny. I have 4 new plants which I planted right in the middle of that crazy hot dry weather and they not only survived they grew like crazy. Admittedly they were getting additional water but they had just been planted from 70mm tubes when the heat hit.


As I walk around my garden now and count up all the plants which simply continued performing come what may there were actually a lot of them. Add to the above Rhagodia spinescens, Carpobrotus glaucescens, Brachyscome multifida, Dianella (several species), Swainsonia galegifolia, Grevillea curviloba, Crowea exalata, Hakea (several species) Lotus australis, Westringia longifolia (grew like crazy) Westringia Zena and Westringia ‘Smokie’, Hardenbergia violacea, Indigofera australis, and Calothamnus quadrifidus.

I wonder what you would add to this list……………what performed exceptionally well this summer in your garden? We are always happy to hear your stories.

In the mean time I hope you are getting ready for Autumn planting, preparing to fill the empty spots, make new garden beds or replace plants which didn’t perform well this year. At IDP nursery we have already submitted our list of plants to the ANPS for the Autumn sale at the Botanic Gardens and I am excited because I get to go shopping again soon.

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4 Comments
Gail
17/2/2019 02:02:02 am

Great article Iris. Very useful

Reply
IDP Nursery
17/2/2019 07:41:56 am

Thank you Gail, I'm glad you find the information useful. Alison, who is now a business partner, writes the blog. We look forward to seeing you again soon.

Reply
Beth Allen
20/2/2019 01:44:19 pm

live at Jindera in southern NSW and our large garden is suffering greatly, I am very keen to hear more about your garden. I am getting on in years so the plants need to grow relatively quickly and be both interestig and pretty. How can I find about your Nursery.
Cheers Beth. would be very interested if you have a newsletter


Reply
Alison Ubels
21/2/2019 08:51:23 am

Hi Beth, I looked up where Jindera is. It seems that you have more rainfall on average than we have but not by a lot and your temperatures are also on average warmer than ours but I dont think that would affect most of the plants we sell. Have you had a browse of our website yet? We are a small wholesale native plant nursery, open by appointment and always willing to help with problems either by email or in person (our contact details are on the website). If you ever come up this way you would be most welcome to make a time to drop in and walk through the nursery and ask questions. we dont put out a newsletter but the blog, in which we attempt to cover a range of issues pertinent to our clients, comes out fortnightly.
Cheers
Alison

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    Alison
    Horticulturalist,
    ​keen gardener and propagator at IDP Nursery

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