Chrysocephalum apiculatum
2 Comments »17th May, 2007; Category: Daisies, Drought Tolerant Plants, Hardy Australian Native PLants
Chrysocephalum apiculatum (grey leafed form)
These plants need tidying up when new growth begins at the base of the plants.
My favourites have grey/green leaves and one has distinctly grey leaves. Of course the flowers look great against these leaves. The mallee form is a small clumping plant, with smaller flowers and green leaves. It is a dainty plant compared to the brashness of the others.
Olearia passerinoides (Daisy Bush)
Olearia passerinoides
This plant is native to the district and is drought and lime tolerant. They are shrubs to about 3 metres tall and 2 metres wide. Not much study has been done on Olearias and their cultivation. The dryland plants need to be pruned to prevent the flowers appearing on the whispy ends of foliage. New growth appears low down in the bush and pruning can be done at these points to force out more dense foliage and create a tidier bush.
Daisy bushes attract butterflies and the birds that chase them. The birds in our yard use the bushes as staging posts to come down to the bird baths.
Yellow Daisies (Podolepis rugata)
Podolepis rugata
We spent a couple of hours at Lowan Conservation Park this afternoon. Typical of the mallee in a dry season, everything had finished flowering. However to my delight I found one of my favourite daisies. I wish we had gone there last week as there would have been a hectare of yellow to be seen.
This is a perennial plant. I would like to plant a group of them and hope that they self seed around the garden. It would make a great cottage garden plant. I managed to get a couple of good photos of Podolepis rugata (Pleated Podolepis). When flowering finishes, the head becomes a fluffy white ball, which also looks attractive.
Brachyscome tenuiscapa var pubescens
2 Comments »30th September, 2006; Category: Daisies
Brachyscome tenusicapa var. pubescens
This little plant is a daisy 10-20cm high and 20-40cm wide and would make a great cottage garden plant in a shaded position during summer. It would also be good in a rockery or pot which is where I have it. I haven’t been confident about trying it in the ground. Now that I know how easily it is propagated I can try it in the ground. It is a little perennial in that it dies down during the heat of summer to reappear in autumn. It spreads rapidly by suckering and is the plant featured in the previous post. It needs root protection which can be achieved with gravel or stones or an organic mulch.
The flowers are mauve, 2-3cm across, and held above the leaves. It flowers in spring and autumn. It does best in cooler climates but is worth trying where a good mulch can be applied. It is frost tolerant to -5C. Snails and slugs love it, so precautions need to be taken. If the plant becomes tatty, cut the leaves off above the crown and fertilise and water.
Make New Plants…By Dividing What You Have
Clump showing many new plantlets
Sorting plants today, I came across some native daisies and violets and grasses which were very tight in their pots. There were multiple plants jammed in as the original plant had multiplied over the past year. The way to deal with them is to divide the pot full and repot the smaller bits or plant straight into the garden. The same applies for a clump that has got out of hand in the garden. A spade can be used to dig up a section which can be divided into smaller portions, some to replant and others to pot on to give away to appreciative folk or placed on a fund raising stall. Let the plants settle and grow on for a few weeks before doing this. Now would be a good time to divide and repot if plants are intended as Christmas gifts. The plant in the photos is a daisy Brachyscome tenuiscapa variety pubescens.
The process is simple. Gather a serrated edged knife (like an old bread knife), secateurs, pots and potting mix and something with which to label the plant. Up end the pot and remove the whole clump. Examine the root ball to see where the divisions might be made.
Plantlets cut from the main clump
It is often easier to shake the potting mix from the roots so that individual small plants can be seen. Use knife or secateurs to cut between each plant, ensuring that some roots remain on each piece. If there are no roots on some good pieces place them in some propagating mix and treat as a cutting. The other pieces can be repotted or planted out.
Newly potted small plant