Amazing Native Tree For Your Garden! - Jan 17, 2025

Dear gardening friends
I've come home after a couple of weeks on holiday to this amazing Supertunia "Jazzberry". I ranted and raved about these in spring and I know a lot of our followers bought them, I hope you're having success like this too.

I planted one plant only into this huge terracotta pot. I used Tim's Best Potting mix. It's been watered every day, by a drip irrigation system, that's attached to the tap. It comes on every day for 10 minutes.

I've got five huge urns here and they all look spectacular like this one. I just love the colour. It's me.

I also love how they are self cleaning, there's no dead flowers here, they shrivel up and disappear. That's why they look so good, and just try and count the flowers, there's thousands.

We will have these again soon, I will remind you to plant them. They are simply spectacular!!!!!

If they don't look good simply cut them right back to a frame, top up the pot with Tim's Best Potting mix. Add a dash of Tim's FAST FOOD fertiliser. Your plant will sprout healthy new growth and flower right through late summer and autumn.

The secret is Tim's Best Potting mix. Have you used it yet? It's 100% better than the next best potting mix. It's seriously that good.

Stopped by to see how some of my trees are surviving the big storms. This Ivory Curl tree has absolutely loved the recent rain. The huge ivory coloured flowers were full of bird attracting nectar.

This has become one of my favourite native trees to plant. They grow so fast, and the summer flowers are spectacular. They grow about 4-6ms high in 20 years here. They grow much bigger up north.

But here in Macarthur they are well behaved smaller trees, that are the perfect size for our smaller sized gardens.

When these flowers fully open, they attract Lorikeets into your garden. I'm not sure if the nectar ferments in the heat, but the birds screech out like they are drunk with happiness.

You can't see it in this photo but this tree has the most beautiful foliage. Like a lot of native rainforest trees the leaves are glossy and green with coppery coloured new growth.

I've seen these growing in George Street in Manly and they line the street on both sides. Im surprised it's never been shown on Gardening Australia.

I discovered this street by accident, a few years ago, and it was amazing. The trees just grow big enough to shade the cars. The birds turn up and it's like happy hour at the pub in the 60s.

We have plenty of these Native trees in the nursery. They take about two seasons to flower so you don't have to wait long. They will grow in gardens where you don't get heavy frost.

We have recently discovered that they can be grown from seeds very easily. We've got them to grow using Native potting mix.

If you're planting one in your garden or on the nature strip, dig a bag of Native potting mix into the ground. This helps improve drainage and it lifts your tree out of the clay, and gets it growing faster.

Mulch around the base to stop the grass growing. Water daily for several weeks.

I've been watching this potted plant for at least 5 years now, it's always in flower at no 21. Not many plants would survive, in this tiny pot, in a north facing position, on a hot sandstone wall.

But this Euphorbia milii isn't just surviving, it's thriving. This amazing plant stores water in its thick stems. It has thorns to stop animals eating it, the thorns also help shade the plant from the hot sun.

Euphorbia milii are amazing plants, they flower all year round in gardens that don't get snow or heavy frosts. They come in amazing colours but I still think this red is my favourite.

They can easily be grown from a cutting, they have white sap like Frangipanis. Wash your hands after touching this because it can cause irritation.

They will survive in small pots in sunny spots. They will also grow in semi shaded positions. This plant could possibly survive on the moon.

We have a collection of Euphorbias here at our nursery. We have some fancy colours like pink, pink swirl, yellow, red and white. You can start a collection.

We grow all ours using Tim's Best Potting mix.
They thrive in it. I'd love to tip this one out of the pot and add some Tim's Best potting mix in the bottom. The plant would respond with even more flowers.
No 21 would be so happy!!!!

Some terrible news for gardeners!!!!!!
Red Shouldered Leaf Beetle has hit Sydney's gardens in plague proportions. It's native to Australia, but it has never been a problem this far south before.

Your plants can literally be covered in thousands of these beetles, that eat the leaves and flowers, almost overnight.

There's almost nothing they won't eat. I've seen them on Citrus, Roses, Forest Pansy trees and Crepe Myrtles. They skeletonise the leaves, they destroy the buds and flowers.

What can you do? You will have to spray your entire garden to kill them, you might need to spray several times, as more beetles hatch during the warmer months.

Spray with Pyrethrum or Conguard just on dark, when the bees have gone to sleep. You might not want to spray, you might not mind giving up your leaves and flowers it's up to you.

I'm hoping this is a one off, bad season, for Red Shouldered Leaf Beetles. Maybe conditions have been absolutely perfect this year. We had a Beetle during COVID that destroyed Lillypilly hedges.

But we don't want to kill all the bees trying to get rid of the beetles. And it's hard to spray trees that are tall like Crepe Myrtles. So be sensible and safe.
They might move on quickly.

Happy gardening
Tim