Native Plants for NSW -
November 2022
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Eremophila cuneifolia, Ian Cox garden (H Miles) |
From the President
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Dear {Contact_First_Name},
It's that time of year that we may start to feel tired, and the Christmas decorations are being planned. Already? But it's also time that our gardens are really springing to life (excuse the pun) and bring us joy with their new growth and blooms. I hope that you are enjoying your gardens or getting out and about in nature, despite the wet weather most of us are experiencing.
Now that the conference wrap up is mostly done, I've been able to get some time out in nature myself. Camera in hand, rain or shine, I've visited Ian Cox's garden (and done a short video you might enjoy), Cumberland State Forest and St Ives Showground, done a bunch of weeding in my own garden, set up a wildlife camera (lots of moving plants so far!) and did a grasses workshop in Milbrodale in the Hunter Valley (where it seems most of the grasses in paddocks are introduced!).
If you missed the conference or want to view speakers again check out our YouTube channel for videos of the speakers - and the wonderful insights they shared. Thanks to Ralph Cartwright for all his work loading!
Heather Miles, President
eNewsletter Contents:
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Australian flora conference 2022 resources
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The Australian Flora Conference 2022 - Past, Present & Future
10 to 16 September 2022, The Pavilion Kiama, NSW |
Have you seen our YouTube..?
APS NSW hosts a YouTube channel which currently contains nearly 130 different videos on a range of subjects of interest to our members.
Most of the speaker sessions were professionally recorded during the recent conference in Kiama.
These recordings have now been processed, captions added where appropriate and interspersed with some slides from the presentation to make the subject clearer.
These have been grouped under a new playlist called ‘Australian Flora Conference Presentations’.
There are still a handful to be added, but the majority are now available for anyone to view.
Our YouTube channel also includes videos of past events, such as trips away by various groups, open gardens as well as a large selection of talks to various district groups, particularly during the Covid lock-down period where many meetings were recorded over Zoom.
There are also several videos with specific plants as the focus. One talk on “How to grow Waratahs" is one of our most watched videos, with over 390 views to date.
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Flowering isopogons (R Nash) |
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ANPSA conference report
Ricki Nash has written an in depth report on the conference, including the Barren Grounds excursion. For those of you who weren't able to be there, this is a wonderful way to get a sense of the week and perhaps to entice you to consider an interstate trip to Victoria for the next Biennial conference in 2024. Ricki covers a summary of the keynote address by Professor David Keith, highlights of many of the other talks and a taste of all the other activities. Thank you for this wonderful report, Ricki. See Ricki's full report here |
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Sydney tour group (S Fredrickson) |
Surprising Sydney Flora tour report (17-21 Sept 2022)
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The tour called "Surprising Sydney Flora” lived up to its name!
The 16 participants from ACT, Tasmania, South Australia, Queensland, Victoria and 3 “locals” from NSW were all pleasantly surprised at the floral diversity and lovely scenery that our tour offered. They were all very positive about the floral diversity and beauty of plants and scenery.
We were treated to lovely displays of flowering plants - the late September timing of the visit and the fine weather which followed rainy months combined to put on a great flowering show.
Sue Fredrickson has written a comprehensive report on the tour, well worth a read.
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Check out the chatrooms
At the recent Australian flora conference, we had a series of chatrooms.
Chatrooms are designed to give people a broad cross section of information and insights, in an informal and inclusive setting. We had 12 chatrooms running simultaneously, with a number of them videoed.
Because chatrooms are informal and in an open setting, sometimes the sound is affected – for which we apologise in advance.
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Patsy Nagle, one of the chatroom presenters |
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Morton National Park (T Arbib)
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For your diary
APS NSW get together in the Southern Highlands
When: 12-13 November 2022
Where: Exeter Village Hall, 10 Exeter Rd, Exeter NSW 2579
The Southern Highlands Group of APS NSW is hosting this year's weekend get-together.
They have organised a variety of exciting activities for the weekend, including talks from experts, garden visits and a plant sale on the Sunday.
This will be a popular event and registration is essential.
More event details including program, costs and how to register: here
The District Group Presidents/reps workshop is happening on the Friday evening, 11 November. For more information, please see here. RSVP essential. When you RSVP please also specify any dietary requirements. |
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Ku-ring-gai Wildflower Garden Walks & Talks
When: 9:45am Mondays Where: Ku-ring-gai Wildflower Gardens, 420 Mona Vale Rd, St Ives
Be guided by members of the North Shore Group of the Australian Plants Society on a walk in the Ku-ring-gai Wildflower Garden to see and learn about our wonderful native plants as they come into flower. Program for November includes:
November 7 Monday Grasses (Family Poaceae)
November 14 Monday Orchids and BBQ and planning W&T 2023
More event details, including how to register here |
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Calling all citizen scientists!
When: 10am, 26th November 2022
Where: Glenbrook Native Plant Reserve 41 Great Western Hwy Glenbrook
The Blue Mountains group will host a talk by Lily Dun from Flora Connections. Please join them for a stimulating discussion on how ordinary people can help save our threatened plant communities.
Lily will explain how data you collect is uploaded via the website to the Atlas of Living Australia, where it is used by the scientific committees and land managers trying to protect plants across Australia.
More information at floraconnections.com More event details here |
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And finally, don't forget there is a full listing of all APS NSW events including district groups on our website here |
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Where they keep the plants.. |
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Rammed earth walls of the National Herbarium (H Loots) |
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On the 12th October 2022, the Northern Beaches group toured the new Herbarium at the Australian Botanic Gardens, Mt Annan.
The old Sydney Herbarium in the Royal Botanic Garden held over 1.4 million plant specimens and was growing. It had some of the 1770 Banks and Solander specimens. Unfortunately, the old Herbarium was bursting at the seams and many of the 75,000 red specimen boxes were infested with tissue-eating bugs. Toxic napthalene, besides killing the insects, was poisoning the botanists. The only way to control the insects was to store the specimens at below 16C. So, a new Herbarium was constructed. Moving the collection from the Royal Botanic Garden to Mount Annan was a mammoth task. Read the story, written by Harry Loots, to hear how the move was tackled, and what the features of the new facility are. |
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Simple but dramatic plant massing provides sense of arrival in an upland setting – first impressions always the most lasting! (A Keaney) |
This month, Lawrie Smith gives us a write up of his fascinating talk from the 2022 ANPSA conference, on how the Past informs the Present and the Future in garden design. He helps us understand how to design with nature for a sense of place. |
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Syzygium luehmannii (H Miles) |
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Lillypillies, well-known Australian native plants often grown in gardens, belong to the largest tree genus in the world. While they evolved in Australia and then successfully spread to rainforests in other regions, they face familiar threats to their survival globally. There are ways we can help preserve them! Peter Geelan-Small gives us an overview of a recent article, encouraging us to help protect this Aussie icon. (On another note, for those sharp eyed readers out there, both 'lilly pilly' and 'lilli pilli' seem to be accepted and interchangeable) |
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Berry public school nursery - nurturing young minds |
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Planting for succession – Edith Faulks and Audrey Heather National Tree Planting day July 2017 |
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In September 2022, Lyn Clark, the lead volunteer coordinator at the Berry Public School Plant Propagation nursery hosted a chatroom for participants of the Australian flora conference. The key points of her chatroom discussion were:
- Writing an open source document about seed germination of local provenance rainforest species.
- Growing a Tree Orchard for seed collection.
- Propagating local provenance plants for the community.
- Growing local plants in themed Garden Beds as a practical resource for use by teachers for the science curriculum.
Here is the story that she shared. |
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Eremophila Study Group - the next 50 years |
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At the 2022 ANPSA conference, Lyndal Thorburn gave a talk celebrating the 50 year history of the Eremophila study group and discussing what she thinks the next 50 years will hold for both the genus and the study group.
What you may not know is that Eremophila, which also called Emu Bush, Poverty Bush, Turkey Bush or Fuchsia Bush, is the 5th most diverse native genus with around 240 described species and many more sub-species and hybrids.
Eremophila are widely distributed in areas of Australia with less than 250mm rainfall. Around 75% of species are insect pollinated and 25% are bird pollinated. That means that the species within the genus have a massive diversity in flower colour and shape. The ones that are bird pollinated have red, orange, yellow, cream and green flowers and those that are insect pollinated have blue, purple, pink and white flowers (so, any colour you like). They are long lived and range in size from flat on the ground up to a tree – so there is a space for an Eremophila in your garden. |
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Final words... Our Eremophila study group has produced some wonderful merchandise to get you ready for the gift giving season! They have cards, wrapping paper and colouring books that make great stocking stuffers. You can see pictures of the items and download the order form here. |
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