Tag: tropical

‘Planty Fierce ’18’ …. was a fun day

‘Sea-Changer’ mirror deck with Bruce Buddha

‘Planty Fierce ’18’ at the end of last month was a sparkling Autumn day, refreshed by an early shower and internet was high from all visitors, especially this young one having a closer look at the mirror Buddha on the long deck looking down to ‘Sea-Changer’s’ Shade Hut.

Talking to Ross & Chris Bolwell from ‘Bloom’n Greenery’ nursery

Nothing extinguishes interest and plenty of people arrived into brilliant sunshine in the Sun Trap plot where I spoke to many on questions around how to make their home gardens even better !

The unirrigated “L” shaped, west facing, wrap around garden surrounding ‘Sea-Changer’

The 2pm ‘Walk & Talk’ brought forward many interesting questions, like how to make a ‘green-fence’ alternative to fence palings using Solandra longiflora over black pvc coated mesh. Thanks to all PF ’18 Helpers and Peter & Ruth Donnelly’s fabulous Coachwood sales tables loaded with new and interesting ‘must haves..’.  

Sub-tropical New Zealand

Heliconia bourgaeana, Russell Fransham's Matapouri Bay garden New Zealand
Heliconia bourgaeana, Russell Fransham’s Matapouri Bay garden New Zealand

Fellow Designer Russell Fransham at Matapouiri Bay, just north of Whangarei in New Zealand’s north island,

…where I found myself wandering around an impressive home garden of some 20 years or so. Interesting to see a few of the cool tollerant ginger family in heliconias like H. bourgaeana (shown beneath), H. subulata cv Thaysiana and H. tortuosa ‘Red Twist’ all flowering very well. I find the easy occurance of these in Russell’s garden very encouraging for us Australia’s east coast where minimum winter overnights would rarely descend beneath 7 or 8 degrees, against the Bay of Islands cooler 2 degrees and less.  

A nice smaller clumping palm in Dypsis baronii, (like a better version of Golden Cane Palm) combined well with bromeliads like Canistropsis billbergioides cv. Citron. and a lot of interesting tillandsia and vriesea aside from many spectacular flowering shrubs in Brugmansia hybrids & species like B. sanguinea.