Wimmera Growers of Australian Plants Inc

Transcription

1 Page 1 WGAP Newsletter Wimmera Growers of Australian Plants Inc WGAP, PO Box 533, Horsham 3402, Secretary Newsletter Liz and Gil Hopkins giliz@activ8.net.au June-August events and dates for your diary please note changes Meetings are usually at 7.30pm the first Thursday of the month. There is NO meeting in July Registered No. A001049IR Thursday June 2, at Wimmera Lodge Retirement Village Plants of the Future with Trevor Blake Rosters: Plants Marie & Graham Goods; Supper Jan Bansemer Triffids? Thursday August 4, 7.30pm at Wimmera Lodge Retirement Village Grampians after Floods and Fire with David & Linda Handscome (TBC) Rosters: Plants JanBert Brouwer; Supper Mabel Brouwer Thursday September 1, 7.30pm at Wimmera Lodge Retirement Village Member s Meeting Rosters: Plants Graeme Gulline; Supper Merlyn McFarlane Sunday October 2 Raleigh s Wartook Native Garden Open $10 entry Wimmera Health Care Foundation Friday/Saturday/Sunday October 7, 8, 9 Horsham Garden Festival Weekend Saturday/Sunday October 8, 9 - Fred Rogers Seminar in Hamilton Native Terrestrial and Epiphytic Orchids. Register your interest at ksparrow93@gmail.com Saturday/Sunday October 21, 22 Goods Wail East Open Garden $10 entry. Details Saturday/Sunday October 29, 30 WGAP 40 th Anniversary & APSVic Quarterly meeting Mallee to Mountains visiting Gebert s garden to Raleigh s garden, and plants for sale. Sunday December 4? Christmas Breakup at Merlyn McFarlane s garden See page 5 for more information about October 2, 21/22, and 29/30 garden visits. Other APSVic notices: 4 June RBG Cranbourne Fabulous Fungi Workshop. 9.30am to 4.00pm. RBGC Friends members $60, non members $75 11, 12 & 13 June Bookfest 2016 Royal Botanic Gardens (RBG) Cranbourne, from am to 4.00 pm in the auditorium. 25 & 26 June APS Ballarat Winter Flower Show and plant sales. Robert Clark Horticultural Centre, Ballarat Botanic Gardens. 23 & 24 July Growing Friends Spring Plant Sale RBG Cranbourne am to 4.00 pm. (Mel 133 K10) 3 September APS Wilson Park Plant Sale, Wilson Botanic Park, Princes Highway, Berwick. 9 am to 4.00 pm 3 & 4 September Bendigo Native Plants Group Flower Show, Rotary Gateway Park, 26 High Street, Kangaroo Flat. 10 September APS Yarra Yarra Native Plants Sale. Venue to be advised. 10 am to 4 pm. 17 & 18 September Angair (Anglesea and Aireys Inlet Wildflower and Art Show), Anglesea Memorial Hall, McMillan St, Anglesea. 1 & 2 October APS Grampians Group Pomonal Native Flower Show, Pomonal Hall am to 5.00 pm. 7, 8 & 9 October Horsham Garden Festival Weekend hosted by Wimmera Growers of Australian Plants Inc. 8 & 9 October 2016 FJC Rogers Seminar in Hamilton Native Terrestrial and Epiphytic Orchids. Saturday full day conference and formal dinner, Sunday field trips. 15 October APS Mitchell Annual Spring Plant Expo and Sale, from 9.00 am to 3.00 pm Memorial Hall, Sydney Street, Kilmore. 22 October APS Echuca Moama Native Plant Society Native Flower Showcase. Echuca Uniting Church Hall, Hare Street, Echuca. 22 & 23 October APS Ballarat Annual Spring Flower Show, book and plant sales. Ballarat Botanic Gardens am to 4.30 pm November Kangaroo Paw Celebration November 2016 at Cranbourne Gardens. A special three day symposium.

2 Page 2 WGAP Newsletter From the President by Royce Raleigh What a wonderful couple of weeks of moisture. Although some areas didn t get the totals predicted others had lovely rain. North and west of Horsham appeared to have had the least. Here at Wartook we are about 40mm for the week, but David Handscombe at Pomonal had over 60mm, and some of his neighbours even more. At least it has greened up everything which in itself lifts spirits. We have stopped watering and started planting in earnest. How many have tried to look at Nature Share? Cathy gave us a detailed introduction but I am afraid I have been too busy to do anything so far, but it is on my to do list. Once again we had a great meeting in Warracknabeal and it was good to see so many there. Marilyn gave us a wealth of information and her enthusiasm is infectious! Many thanks to Jenny Taylor and Evelyn McColl for again organising a wonderful table of specimens. Thanks also to Maree for organising the get-together pre-meeting meal. APS Vic is looking for Vice Presidents. If anyone is looking for a more active role in APS Vic there are 2 vacancies. The AGM is to be held in September in Bairnsdale. There are some great garden visits planned. If any member has an interesting story about Wimmera Growers, I am looking for articles or stories to put into a booklet for our 40 th Anniversary. I don t expect huge detail but a few paragraphs and a photo or two would be great. If some of our long-time members could write a paragraph or two that would be tremendous. June has already passed on a lot of material and I thank her for that. Jeanne and I went to Colac and spoke to the group on Pea Plants. It great to meet a number of people that we had not seen for some time and it was interesting to see the number of plants Paul and Barbara Kennedy already have in their garden. Paul has already planted over 130 hakeas, over 30 banksias and many melaleucas, grevilleas and swainsonas which were all doing very well. After 2 years Banksia brownii was almost 2m high and already in flower. Let us hope that we continue to receive rain and hope that dams and gardens get lots of benefit. Have you noticed that many plants have come into flower early this year? Good gardening and planting! April meeting Specimen table by Royce Once again there were many specimens and a sign that the flowering season is beginning despite the dry. Royce brought in the following plants. Eleocarpus reticulatus (Blueberry Ash) This is plant that has proved very hardy and it grows successfully in a wide range of climates. In its natural habitat it is found from Q ld right down the east coast to Bass Strait. Although the pink or white flowers appear in the spring the berries stay on the plant for a long time. Our plants now are about 8m tall. Banksia micrantha In WA in the sandy heaths it is often only a small plant well under a metre tall, our plant is already over 1m x 1.5m and is flowering for the first time. Most of the flowers are hidden within the bush but it has many, many flowers. We are growing it on sand but I feel that it would grow quite well in well-drained loamy soil. Banksia bauera (Koala banksia) I also brought this in to the February meeting when it was just a very thin bud. This time a little thicker and larger, and over the next couple of months it will continue to expand into quite a large flower. Although usually grey, this tan form from East Mt Barren is most attractive. Eucalyptus kruseana This is a small Eucalypt that should be much more widely grown in our gardens. Our plants are about 30 years old and are now about 2.5m tall. It is never a dense plant so will allow light through the plant to others growing beneath and therefore can be used in many situations.

3 Hakeas in flower at Wartook Gardens in May by Royce Hakea cycloptera from SA is usually the first to flower for us and the forms that we grow come from the Eyre Peninsula. We have both white and one with a pink blush. Hakea Burrendong Beauty is another very early one. One that has flowered very early for us this year is the Wongan Hills form of Hakea multilineata. Flora Australia indicates with further study this may become a separate species. We have usually photographed this in WA in late July/August. Other Hakeas in flower at present are H. laurina (both normal and larger flowered weeping form), H. pycnoneura and H scoparia. Hakea grammatophylla Page 3 WGAP Newsletter Hakea scoparia Hakea cycloptera Hakea multilineata (Wongan Hills) Hakea pycnoneura Plants for Sale Graham and Maree Goods are opening their garden to the public on October 22 and 23, They have been growing plants for a plant sale at the open garden. Many of these plants are ready for sale now and are being made available to anyone who is interested in purchasing some. This will need to be done before June 30, All proceeds will go to the Horsham Church of Christ Ministry Centre building fund. They can be contacted by phone or gmgoods@telstra.com. They can a plant list out to anyone who is interested. Hakea laurina weeping form Hamilton and Warrnambool groups will host the Fred Rogers Seminar on October 8-9, 2016 in Hamilton. The topic is Native Terrestrial and Epiphytic Orchids.

4 Page 4 WGAP Newsletter April meeting NatureShare with Cathy Powers by Gil Hopkins NatureShare is a free, web-based tool for you. It is a citizen science database for individuals and groups to document and share information about their local environment. It is a free service primarily targeted at Victoria, Australia, and is open to everyone and can be used by anyone (individuals, groups, councils, companies, etc). It is collection based where anyone can set up collections for their own property, for parks/reserves or for anything! Just look up The NatureShare project was conceived, designed and implemented in 2009 by Russell Best and Reilly Beacom with the support of Riddells Creek Landcare and APS Keilor Plains. The Goals of NatureShare are to share photo, video and audio and to accurately record species, location (with mapping and graphing tools), date and time in a useful database. These records then can be grouped and searched by those interested. NatureShare currently includes in its scientific database all the plants and major animal groups known to occur in Victoria (currently over 8,500 species names). The site can be used on mobile devices, tablets and desktops. The layout and design accommodates a wide range of screen-sizes and device speeds. The app is currently available for download from the app stores and it can download 'Collection' photos and species information as 'Field Guilds' for offline use. Cathy has put a lot of her own observations onto the website and has become very expert with all its facilities. Some of our members have also joined. Cathy used a slide show to show members through the system for adding your own observations and photos into the database, and for looking up the records already there. The picture below shows the opening screen of the program. Perhaps the best thing is to go straight to the green Help button then Documentation then Getting started, or you can search under Species Index or Collections if you just want to have a look. The species names for all of the plants, mammals, birds, frogs, snakes & lizards, butterflies, dragonflies and grasshoppers known to occur in Victoria are in the NatureShare database. Some moth names are also in the database. Anyway, just have a go you aren t going to hurt anything!!! May meeting Growing native cut-flowers with Marilyn Sprague, by Gil Marilyn told us a brief history of her years running Goldfields Reveg. Nursery and since selling and recovering, her increasing interest in growing native flowers for florists at her property. This helps maintain her interest in cultivating plants while value-adding and still allowing holidays. The first work was to set up paths and mounded clay gardens with a bobcat, then mulch with sand or stone to help rainfall penetration, frost reduction, easier weeding and light reflection. Regular pruning and fertilising are essential to keep producing long-stemmed flowers with good vase life. And a reliable market helps! Marilyn grows many different species and often finds cultivars, hybrids or grafted types are needed to maintain productive life. Some plants need to be cut right back as well. She continuously grows and plants from cuttings, grafts, and collected seeds and self-sown seedlings. Plants include Acacia, Anigozanthos, Banksia, Boronia, Cassinia, Chamelaucium, Crowea, Chrysocephalum, Correa, Dampiera, Darwinia, Eucalyptus, Eremophila, Geleznowia, Grevillea, Leptospermum, Lomatia, Ozothamnus, Phebalium, Pimelea, Ptilotus, Pycnosaurus, Rhodanthe, Scholtzia, Telopea, Thrachymene, Verticordia, and Xanthorrhoea, and some are shown here. If you want to add observations (including photos, location and details, or missing information for a species) you need to Sign up as a member so you can Log in. It s like everything else the more you use it the easier it gets!! And you will be helping everyone with your information, so have a go in the coming cold and (hopefully) wet season! Thanks Cathy for showing us through the system so thoroughly and all your encouragement. Thank you Marilyn for all your enthusiasm and knowledge, and for giving us insight and inspiration! See Marilyn s Wildflowers on Facebook.

5 May meeting Specimen table by Gil Hopkins As usual Warracknabeal members had a great display of flowering plants. Graham Goods commented on some of them including Acacia iteaphylla, Hakea cycloptera, Grevillea Burrendong Beauty, Eucalyptus websteriana, kruseana, leucoxylon, Melia azedarach (White Cedar), and Hakea laurina. Mabel Brouwer showed Banksia ashbyi, media and prionotes, Eucalypts and foliage Acacia plants. Some of the plants discussed. Page 5 WGAP Newsletter

6 Page 6 WGAP Newsletter Wimmera Growers of Australian Plants Inc. Registered Number A001049IR President: Royce Raleigh royce@wartookgardens.com.au Secretary: Anthea Garth garth@wimmera.com.au Treasurer: Maree Goods gmgoods@telstra.com Newsletter: Liz & Gil Hopkins giliz@activ8.net.au Please make sure we have your correct address or and correct method of delivery for this Newsletter. Tell Anthea or Maree. Wimmera Growers of Australian Plants Inc Registered Number; A R P O Box 533, Horsham 3402 wgapinc@gmail.com Wimmera Growers of Australian Plants Inc Registered No A001049R Annual membership cost: Single: $12, Family: $18 To pay your membership, please forward a cheque (together with your information) as soon as possible to: Secretary, WGAP, PO Box 533, Horsham, 3402 Given name/s Surname: Postal Address:.. Phone: Please indicate if you wish to receive the newsletter by to enjoy the glorious colours Yes. No..