Your Garden
Planting for the birds and the bees
We're dedicated to providing you with native species, because when you plant them in your garden it attracts and sustains the island's wildlife. Our offerings are seasonal of course, but you can get a regular mailout from us to alert you to what's new, and what's coming out of the hothouse.
Send us an email to get the list.
Ready to plant right now
Native hibiscus thrive on Coochiemudlo. They grow from three to six metres and have spectacular flowers that attract honey eating birds. The flowers only last for a couple of days but the flowering period is prolonged.Pruning after flowering stops them from getting too leggy. Indigenous people used the bark to make dillybags and nets.
Dianella are Coochiemudlo natives whose delicate features belie their hardy nature. Clumps of strappy leaves make for a tough and attractive groundcover. Our native bees love the small blue flowers in spring and summer. These are followed by bright blue berries attracting Eastern Bearded Dragons and birds. They are great garden plants, tolerating extreme conditions, including drought.
Guinea Flower (snake plant)
Hibbertia scandens. Named for its bright yellow golden guinea like flowers, it's a tough, twining ground cover that can also be trained up wires or a trellis. It's very hardy. Look for it along the southern half of the Melaleuca Wetlands track. It attracts bees, butterflies, moths and pollinating beetles to your garden and provides shelter for lizards.
Meanwhile, in the hothouse
Coastal vitex Vitex trifolia is a pan tropical tree of the lavender family, growing in a few coastal spots on Coochiemudlo. The seeds for these specimens in our hothouse came from a vitex on Morwong Beach. In exposed areas they sprawl as low shrubs. Sheltered, they become a straight tree, with green-grey leaves and clusters of mauve flowers. They'll be ready for sale in spring. Gardeners love their attraction for birds and butterflies.
Barbed wire grass Cympopogan refractus. Grasses are a feature of contemporary garden design, in mass plantings or mixed with wildflowers to create ‘prairie’ or grassland style gardens. This grass is a hardy island native named after its 'barbed wire' seed heads. It is an attractive clumping perennial that grows in a range of conditions including low nutrient and dry sites. It provides food for birds and Evening Brown butterflies, and a safe garden habitat for small lizards.