Native Summer Stunners

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Here are 4 of the best:

NSW Christmas Bush

Ceratopetalum gummiferum produces magnificent festive colour around Christmas, with its bright red bracts surrounding small white flowers. If you don’t already have a NSW Christmas Bush at your place, many garden centres will have them in stock in the lead up to Christmas. The variety ‘Albery’s Red’ grows to around 5 m tall and ‘Johanna’s Christmas’ is a more compact form, growing to around 3 m tall and can be grown in a large pot.

Native frangipani

The native frangipani, (Hymenopsporum flavum), is a beautiful rainforest tree that is native to coastal areas in Queensland and northern New South Wales. Widely grown in home gardens in frost free temperate to warm areas, it produces masses of sweetly scented flowers from mid spring and into early summer. When the bee and bird attracting flowers emerge they’re creamy white and age to buttery yellow, and there will be a beautiful combination of white and yellow flowers covering the tree at once.

Dwarf gums

We can’t all have a large gum tree in our backyard however grafted dwarf flowering gums are becoming very popular and enable small space gardeners to grow this Australian icon. Many are now classified as ‘Corymbia’ rather than eucalypts and come in a stunning range of flower colours, from cream to beautiful shades of pink and scarlet and fire engine red. The smallest varieties grow to around 2 – 3 m tall and their summer flowers are a magnet for bees and birds.

Ivory curl tree

The ivory curl tree (Buckinghamia celsissima) is an Australian native evergreen tree that will reach around 8 metres tall in most temperate and sub-tropical gardens. During late summer, ivory curl trees are smothered in masses of creamy white flowers that attract bees, butterflies and nectar feeding birds. Ideal to grow as a dense living screen or shade tree.

Australian native plants should be regularly fed with Yates Dynamic Lifter Soil Improver & Plant Fertiliser. It’s a rich organic plant food that’s safe for feeding Australian native plants, providing them with a gentle source of slow release organic nutrients to promote healthy leaf growth and lots of beautiful flowers.