Chris explained that the Australian Plants Society has 30 Groups and 1600 Members. The Society is holding a five-day event from 30/9 – 4/10 with details of the presentations and excursions available on their website.
Chris spoke of the diversity of native plants which have adapted to environments as diverse as deserts and tropical rainforests – there are over 22 thousand different species although there have been 100 extinctions and thousands more are threatened, due to land clearing. Natives can be suited to full sun, dry shade, wet, clay or sandy conditions.
Plants have evolved to provide food for honey eaters and nectar-eating mammals – generally, white flowers attract insects and red flowers appeal to birds.
With Australia being such an old continent, the levels of phosphate in the soil are low, using high phosphate fertilisers will kill them – Neutrog’s ‘Bush Tucker’ fertiliser is better as the phosphate level is lower.
Chris showed us slides of different types of native gardens, including a wildlife garden in Knox, a nature strip in Thornbury he planted during Covid, a country garden in Warrnambool (using scoria as mulch), a container garden in Croydon and indigenous plants in Werribee.
Chris discussed the most popular of the Australian natives:
Door prize: Margaret won the lovely native correa, provided by our Speaker
