Pittwater Life April 2018 Issue

Carissa is
the Star of
the desert
Autumn is the best time for
planting new shrubs and
creating new gardens. The soil
is still warm for new roots to
develop before the surge of
spring growth. After the rain it
is sometimes hard to remember
the hot dry summer months.
If you are planting a new
hedge, nothing can cope with the
summer heat and long dry spells
better than Carissa Desert Star.
This bright green shrub is ideal
for clipping into formal shapes,
or let it grow into its natural
shape. It is a dense, spreading
shrub with dark green glossy
leaves that hide the spines below.
Take care when pruning. The
fragrant, pure white, jasminelike,
star-shaped flowers are
scattered over the shrub from
spring to autumn, to be followed
by dark pink berries.
Alliums make spectacular pot plants
Carissa makes a perfect backdrop for
native border of grasses, interspersed
with alliums for colour. It is time now to
buy the bulbs of these wonderful plants.
Ornamental alliums are members of the
onion family.
This is a huge diverse family. There
varieties of every size from the tiny kitchen
garden chives, to the small-growing
burgundy Drumsticks, to the huge violet
Globe Master. The round balls of the flower
heads can be from 3cm to 30cm in diameter.
Once established they are very hardy and
drought tolerant; they appear as if by magic
through the grasses. Alliums are herbaceous
perennials that will die down through the
winter months. Once established they need
little attention and will multiply in number as
the seasons pass.
They can be grown in the garden or as
spectacular pot plants for patios or balcony
gardens, alliums are great in the veggie
garden to attract the bees or grow them to use
as long-lasting cut flowers to bring inside.
Garden Life
Great burgundy foliage
Dark burgundy foliage is hard to find for native gardens.
‘Breynia Ironstone’ is usually found as an understorey small
tree in coastal scrub or forest – breynias have wonderfully soft
weeping foliage.
You can trim them to shape and enjoy the new, red growth,
or train them up as a small standard shrub by pruning back the
lower branches. The dark foliage brightens up shaded areas but
for the best colour grow it in good light or sun. It will grow in
the wild to three metres but in domestic gardens it is a shrub of
1-2m tall and 1m wide.
The pale brown flowers are insignificant and are followed
by brown berries, giving it its common name of ‘Coffee Bush’.
There is also a variegated pink, white and green variety, breynia
nivosa rosea Snow Bush, that comes from the Pacific islands,
but this one is better in warm semi-shade as full sun will burn
the pale colours in the leaves. Breynias are hard to find, if you
can find one to buy you are lucky!
The Local Voice Since 1991
APRIL 2018 69