M's domain—in the front yard—ends at the turn around. In other words, I claimed responsibility for the jungle of weeds, and the impossibly steep embankment between our drive/turn around and the road, most of which seems to be owned, but has been completely abandoned by, Vic Roads. It is a kind-of nature strip, partly triangular, about five meters in width at its widest, as the magpie flies, but about double that in terms of surface area. I gather we have responsibility to maintain it, the way everyone else has to mow their nature strip.
Most of this embankment is precipitous. The face of it is also still completely covered in agapanthus and there is also still enough blackberry on it to make it impossible to climb up, slide down or otherwise move on its surface: to weed or plant anything. Probably, either a ladder or a abseiling rig of some sort would be necessary. At the moment, I don't want to think about it.
The upper part of this area (from three to five metres above the road), which we call the "lower" or "first" terrace is the flat-ish part of our "nature strip." My intention to make it
really flat and plant it out with a dense mass of flowering natives all of which have red flowers: not an easy task since red is a particularly unusual colour on native (Aussie) plants. The shrubs and trees will, I hope, look good, be a privacy screen and a sound barrier. (That is,
utile dulci: useful and pleasant.)
I also want to cover, in time, the whole face of the embankment in ground cover and low (red-flowering) shrubs. But the only way I can do this is by poisoning a few small groups of weeds and planting a few shrubs at a time, waiting until they are established and then moving on, gradually completely replacing the weeds. Any wholesale weeding or poisoning—in fact, any real disturbance of the soil and the roots holding it together—and the entire embankment could wash away!
So I will start with retaining wall and planting behind it on the lower terrace, move and rebuild the second terrace and plant behind it, erect the fence and
then work my way from the mouth of the drive along the embankment. By the time it is finished, the combination of native plants, brush fence and stone retaining walls, ought to look brilliant—and distinctive.
The native trees and shrubs I have in mind (at present) are a mix of the following.
Flowering gumCorymbia ficifolia (red flowering gum: the grafted cultivar
Wildfire), this has a dense foliage and abundant scarlet flowers in summer but is slow-growing and from WA [6m x 3-4m wide]. This is the one I want even though
Metropolitan Tree Growers warn that "there are no mature (15+ years) populations" of these grafted trees and it "is
possible that graft incompatibility … could cause trees to become unstable (at the graft union)". That is, a mature tree might break off 10cm above ground level and fall onto the Burwood Highway!
WattleAcacia leprosa (cinnamon wattle: the grafted cultivar
Scarlet Blaze, which has masses of round red flowerheads (late winter to early spring) [5m x 3m wide]. All of these Kinglake cinnamon wattles are propagated by cuttings from a single—unusual—parent tree. The yellow-flower form is indigenous to the area.
Bottlebrush Callistemon rugulosus [aka
C. macropunctatus] (
Scarlet Bottlebrush; flowers from spring to autumn. This seems to be the one with the most spectacular red flowers, but it doesn't get particularly tall; [2–4m x 2–4m wide].
Callistemon citrinus (
Crimson Bottlebrush); flowers from spring to late summer; fast growing. This one flowers for longer but the new growth is pink; [3–7m x 2–5m wide]
Callistemon viminalis (
Weeping Bottlebrush; produces large, brilliant red flowers spring and summer; fast growing and tall; [8m x 3m]
GrevilleasGrevillea banksii x
G. bipinnatifida: the grafted cultivar "Robyn Gordon"; spectacular deep red flowers; dense foliage; flowers year round (1–2m x 3m wide).
Other trees M. is trying to convince me to plantNow that the terrace is almost clear and getting close to being ready to plant, I think M. is regretting her decision to allow me to plant non-indigenous natives on this spot. She has been trying to convince me to consider these:
Eucalyptus ovata (
swamp gum), which is fast growing and indigenous, but has very open foliage and canopy [20–25m x 8m wide];
Eucalyptus dives (
broad-leaved peppermint gum) [15–25m x 6-8m wide]
Eucalyptus radiata (
narrow-leaf peppermint gum) [20–40m x 6-10m wide]. There are two narrow-leaf peppermint gums in the front yard, so they are well adapted to the site and will grow fast and well (and tall!).
With a busy three months ahead of me I'll have plenty of time to decide, and to map out a planting scheme. And M. has plenty of time to lobby for these non-red-flowering plants.
