In Flower This Week A weekly news-sheet prepared by a Gardens volunteer  Numbers in brackets [ ] refer to garden bed 'Sections'. Plants in flower are in bold type.

2 November 2001

The Main Path winds through a maze of colour, so start on this path from the far end of the Café building with a Geraldton Wax cultivar, Chamelaucium uncinatum ‘Purple Pride’ [Section 12], an open upright plant colourful with deep purple waxy flowers. Melaleuca fulgens ‘Hot Pink’ [Section 10] is rather woody but still displays its lovely fluffy flowers. The bed of daisies includes the popular golden straw daisies of Bracteantha bracteata [Section 303]. Waratah cultivar Telopea ‘Doug’s Hybrid’ [Section 30] is decked with spectacular large red open flowers. Opposite, a tea-tree, Leptospermum novae-angliae [Section 30] has branches heavy with dark centred white flowers. Pultenaea pedunculata ‘Pyalong Gold’ [Section 30] is a dense groundcover bright with small yellow pea-flowers.

The path then passes through an area of many flowering grevilleas. Grevillea johnsonii x wilsonii [Section 24] is tall and many branched with such curvaceous, shining red flowers ... really exquisite! Tumut Grevillea, Grevillea wilkinsonii [Section 24] has long arching branches with dusky pink toothbrush flowers. Opposite, Grevillea flexuosa [Section 26] has perfumed yellow candle-like flowers at the ends of arching branches.

Over the road Boronia muelleri ‘Sunset Serenade’ [Section 112] is a small rounded shrub, pink with star-like flowers. Boronia ‘Carousel’ [Section 112] is upright with rows of deep pink cup-shaped flowers. In the Sydney Region Gully sections other lovely boronias can be seen, including Boronia pinnata [Section 191h] with soft pink buds and flowers, mingling with Pultenaea sp. [Section 191h] with yellow pea-flowers over a small open shrub. Black-eyed Susan, Tetratheca thymifolia [Section 191s], is low and dense, displaying its downturned white flowers. Opposite the lookout, Scaevola aemula [Section 191p] is prostrate with long lateral branches of white throated, deep purple fan flowers. Sowerbaea juncea [Section 191p] has, amid the grass-like foliage, upright stems with clusters of purple flowers. Flannel Flower cultivars, Actinotus helianthi ‘Federation Stars’ [Section 191u,l], with their velvety greyish foliage are just bursting into their soft white flowers.

Crossing the pleasant Eucalypt Lawn to the Rock Garden, Acacia caroleae [Section 18] is of medium size with showy yellow flower rods. The Rock Garden abounds with flowers while, along the path Dampiera diversifolia [Section 15R], dotted with deep blue flowers, flows down the slope on top of which are the pale blue flowers of Lechenaultia biloba [Section 15R]. Across the road, the large open hibiscus flowers are Alyogyne huegelii [Section 4] and in front the large red flowers on long upright stems are those of the Gymea Lily, Doryanthes excelsa [Section 15A].

At the entry to the Rainforest, rock orchids, Dendrobium speciosum [Section 104] with large sprays of perfumed cream flowers and Dendrobium kingianum [Section 104] with smaller pink flowers. At the far end of the Rainforest, white Orange Blossom Orchids, Sarcochilus falcatus [Section 148], cling to the tree trunks.

Such flowers ... such colour. Barbara Daly.