Michelle from UWG visited our garden in Sunrise Beach in April 2023. (See Our Garden Visit April 2023 in UWG Newsletter) The experience was a valuable one and we continue to put into practice the lessons from that day.
Ours is a coastal garden cooled by ocean breezes, with sandy soil, front and back garden spaces and some well established trees.
After Michelle’s visit, we visited Coolum Native Nursery and chose our four tube stock seedlings which have not only survived but thrived and given us much joy. We planted them in the back garden and they include an Acacia, a Casuarina Glauca, a Hakea Florulenta and another Hakea species which has just produced its first delicate flower (see photo). At the time of finishing this article there are now four little flowers … the joy of a garden.
The Casuarina was getting taller, and playing the part of Cousin It, when he lost his head to a branch off the fig tree at the fence. In spite of that, he is off again and looking very healthy. The Acacia takes pride of place in the centre garden, such a lovely statement, and we can see her growing in front of our eyes. It is lovely to watch the wind blowing through both these plants.
We have planted Passion flower (Psuderanthemum variabile), a native ground cover, in a couple of places in the garden. There is also some native Commelina vine with its vibrant blue flowers. We do need to thin it often so it doesn’t take over but it does attract many honey bees and smothers weeds. A Banksia integrifolia, transplanted from the neighbours after losing one we had planted, is now thriving in the front garden.
In the last three months we have planted a Boronia keysii with the most delicate pink flowers graduating to white as they age. An Oxylobium robustum (Golden Shaggy Pea) planted 6 months ago, hasn’t grown much, while a Pultenaea Villosa (Hairy Bush Pea) is thriving.
Over the last year we have worked at getting rid of the patchy grass in order to create more of a bush style garden and have used our neighbour’s Banksia and Pandanus mulch, resulting in rich soil and an amazing amount of worms. Small lizards abound as in the past, and now quite a few skinks that we don’t remember seeing previously. We continue to have self seeding tomatoes everywhere that don’t colour to red and aren’t edible unlike previous smaller tomatoes.
Friar birds, wattle birds, rainbow lorikeets, honey eaters and pee-wees continue to visit as do the magpies, currawongs and butcher birds. We haven’t seen a fantail of late, whereas we used to see many. We have also watched many a chrysalsis form on our potted Haitian Lime plant.
We installed a pool rope, as recommended by Michelle, to allow wildlife to make their escape, and have rescued a couple of frogs ourselves in the last couple of months.
In our front garden, our self seeded Alectryon coriaceas (Beach Bird’s Eye) has now grown to over 2 metres and we have
relocated one Frazer Island Apple to the front where a Oleander once reigned. Our Banksia aemula in the front continues to please and we carry on pruning it to keep it small.
Kay and Derek – Sunrise Beach
