Natives at Melbourne

WERE you fooled by our front cover? It’s not a scene from a delightfully rustic New Zealand garden, complete with bronze flax and a tree fern. It’s part of the show garden judges picked as the very best at the 2010 Melbourne International Flower Show (see page 10).

The tree fern could be dinkum Aussie, an example of the close kinship between many of our plants. Take pittosporums, teatree and cordylines for example. There are different species belonging to the same genera on both sides of the Tasman that back in time must have shared a common ancestor.

But that flax is definitely ours – Australians find many New Zealand natives useful garden plants, just as we do their grevillea, gums, Australian fangipani, pandorea, hardenbergia, macadamia and many more.

Other garden plants come to us from Europe, some with a centuries-old heritage like the highly fragrant sweet pea Jacqueline Sparrow favours (page 17). I have added this to my must-have list and plan to try the purple sprouting broccoli that Nick Hayhoe reports he is growing in our edible gardening team’s round-up (page 28).

The dwarf apple ‘Autento’ Jane Bellerby describes (page 18) may also end up on my list. Its small stature (but full-sized fruit) means it should fit somewhere.

But first, before winter tree-planting, there’s a Mother’s Day and some overdue thank you gifts to organise so when there’s time, I will try one of Mark Rayner’s DIY gift ideas (page 20).

And I must put in a green manure crop as Andrew Maloy recommends (page 24). It always pays off in better crops next summer.

Autumn is a busy time for gardeners.

Susie Longdell,

Editor