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Portfolio: Gardening in Wind
This is my sisters garden on ‘Windy Hill’ as we like to call it, it gets so windy here the rubbish bins get blown down the street, gates are blown off their hinges and plants find it tough! Her front garden bears the brunt of the Westerlies and southerlies and used to be bare lawn…
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Instagram #INeedABirdbathHere Winner and Entries!
We’ve been simply blown away by the beautiful garden entries we received in our most recent birdbath competition #INeedABirdbathHere. We asked our followers to send us photos of their gardens for the chance to win a Freshly Spun Medium Copper Dish and couldn’t be happier with the result. It’s always inspiring to see wonderful native…
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Portfolio: Haberfield Landscape Design
The brief for this front garden in Sydney’s inner west was to create a modern native garden which is sympathetic to the era of the house and show cases an Art Deco water feature passed down through the family. The front garden now addresses and interacts with the street and also provides a sense of…
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A Portrait of a Flower: Hakea francisiana
Look at this thing! is it not one of the most spectacular flowers you have ever seen? I have been impatiently waiting for this moment in my Hakea francisiana Grafted life cycle since I planted it 6 months ago. It began flowering a couple of weeks ago, just as we went into COVID lockdown again,…
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Garden Photo Competition – Win a Medium Dish!
This Winter we’re running a garden photo competition on instagram, your chance to show off your gardening skills to us and win a Medium Spun Copper Dish valued at $545.00!! Take a photo of the spot in your garden that needs a birdbath and share it to your instagram page with the hashtag #INeedABirdbathHere. Make sure to tag @mallee_design…
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Habitat Gardening
My eye is repeatedly drawn to this delightful photo of a father Tawny Frogmouth and his hatchling. Tawny Frogmouth fathers look after their baby birds until they fledge and require wide branches or large forks in old trees to nest. The photo was taken by Darren Broughton from BIBY TV, a Youtube channel with many…
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Portfolio: St Ives Landscape Design
This garden in the leafy north shore suburb of St Ives was designed last year and built only 7 months ago, by Ash from ‘Living on the Hedge’. Part of the brief for this garden was to have plenty of year round flowers for bees and birds and given these photos have been taken in…
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Portfolio: Bundeena Tree House
This an amazing house which spills over a sandstone outcrop and is placed underneath a giant fig tree. It is sheltered by a stand of Casuarinas and hidden from the street by its rapidly growing native garden. The garden has been in for a couple of years and benefitted greatly from our recent wet Summer.…
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Photo Competition Entries and Winner!
Our photo competition is finished and we’ve been absolutely blown away by all our entries. The submissions represent so many different birds and locations across Australia that we couldn’t resist putting them all in one blog post with the winner! Thank you to everyone who sent photos in to us – they have been the…
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But what’s the difference? Banksia spinulosa Dwarfs
There are so many different cultivars now of Banksia spinulosa that it is difficult to know which to choose… although they all look similar independently when you see them next to each other whilst they are flowering they really do have different attributes. First up is Banksia spinulosa ‘Coastal Cushions’ this produces shorter golden flowers…
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Happy Eucalypt Day! Eucalyptus pulverulenta ‘Baby Blue’
National Eucalypt Day is an initiative of Eucalypt Australia that aims to raise awareness of Eucalypts and celebrate the important place that they hold in the hearts and lives of Australians. I have taken some photos of one of my favourite Mallee Eucalypts, flowering in my garden for the first time this month, luckily coninciding…
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Portfolio: Woolooware Rejuvenation
This native garden in Woolooware has a new owner, someone who is keen to be the new caretaker of the space and is looking forward to maintaining the native plants and learning more about them along the way. Someone who also recognised it was in dire need of renewal to bring it back to its…
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Small Scented Shade Tree: Leptospermum petersonii
I finally found a mature Lemon Scented Tea Tree to photograph which shows off its stunning weeping habit and shapely trunk and branches. Leptospermum petersonii really does make a wonderful small feature shade tree in the garden, the strong thick branches spread the canopy wide making it an excellent climbing tree! The soft, pendulous branches…
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Portfolio: Jamberoo Consults
I have been visiting this rural property on and off for the last 3 years, each time providing the client with onsite sketch designs for different areas of the expansive garden. Working on this garden has been an absolute pleasure and I look forward to each new stage. The client has a knack for collecting…
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Back from a Bird Language Retreat
The mantra of the weekend, a quote shared by JA Baker: “The hardest thing of all is to see what is really there.” The next Bird Language Retreat is Apr. 13th–16th 2023 _____________________________________ By Hannah Preston Two weeks ago I mentored at a bird language and nature connection retreat hosted by Wangat Lodge and run…
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As delicate as a rose: Archirhodomyrtus beckleri
This small feature tree really would fit in nicely in a garden full of roses, lavender and other English cottage style plants. The tiny flowers remind me of the blooms on climbing rose bushes and this pretty rainforest tree has the sweetest common name of ‘Rose Myrtle’. Archirhodomyrtus beckleri flowers profusely with plenty of pale pink…
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Something a little different: Stenanthemum scortechinii
This little low growing native shrub has many common names Cotton Bush, Snow Balls, Corroboree, salt and pepper to name a few …. it is also known as Stenanthemum scortechinii or Cryptandra scortechinii or even Spyridium whatever the name it is a native plant which has a lot to offer. Stenanthemum scortechinii covers itself in…
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The pretty prickly Grevillea acanthifolia
There aren’t really enough spikey Grevilleas in my opinion, when it comes to planting for birds and to create habitat especially for small birds Grevilleas are a wonderful lure, if they are spikey they can also provide shelter as well as food. This is Grevillea acanthifolia a large shrub reaching upto to 3 metres high…
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After a Fire …
This week I made my first trip down the south coast since the devastating bushfires earlier this year. The amount of wildlife really lost is incomprehensible when zooming down the highway cocooned in a modern bubble of distraction. The landscape is eerie, even as the trees begin to sprout new growth the middle layer of…
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Front garden makeovers
One of my ‘dreams’ is to walk down a suburban street and be able to admire one native front garden after another. I am always on the look out, when walking or driving, and the well-loved gardens (especially the native ones) always pop out at me. Gardens where people have made an effort and show…
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Landscaping with Dwarf Kangaroo Paws: Anigozanthos ‘Bush Pearl’
I couldn’t help myself when I was in Canberra last month at the Botanic Gardens, before I even considered what I was doing I was snapping away at these Anigozanthos ‘Bush Pearl’. They just looked so stunning in the foggy morning light, dry out from the Winter frost but punchy as ever. Generally I am…
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Emu Bush No. 9: Eremophila bignoniiflora x polyclada
Three years ago I set myself a challenge to learn 12 Eremophila species in 12 months, it hasn’t been going very well …..yet again I have failed to meet my own deadline 🤣 However, my desire to learn more about the wonderful Eremophila genus has not diminished and I am slowly plodding along. You can…
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Camera Trap Basics for Bird-Spotters
Recently, we’ve been using camera traps to capture videos of birds using our birdbaths. One of my favourites is the video of these wonderful silvereyes flocking around a dish in some coastal habitat below! Silvereyes migrate in large groups, feed and drink together and that’s why you can see so many together. In this post…
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The Grevillea that ticks all the boxes: Grevillea ‘Winter Delight’
This low growing shrub is one of my favourite Grevilleas, it covers itself in pinky red flowers all through winter to attract the birds and the bees. It has a naturally dense habit which can only be improved with a little tip pruning now and again and yes, it has grey leaves, my favourite! Grevillea…
Category: Bird attracting