Gardening: On the bright side

Many of my friends have been talking of moving to Australia. The lure of better job opportunities, better weather and a variety of other "betters" are great drawcards, as well as the opportunity for a bit of excitement and risk in middle life. Just a few weeks ago, a seminar on moving to Australia held in a Far North town of 4200 people attracted about 1000 punters. What does that tell you?

I'd like to go, too, but not for career improvement or sunnier days. No, I'd be going for the plants and the wildlife.

It's no secret I have been slow to take New Zealand natives to heart. I've been berated for saying pohutukawa are a grumpy shade of red and I'd much rather have a rhododendron, and a strange affection for possums hasn't won me too many friends, either.

However, sentimentality and patriotism aside, you must admit that Australia is the lucky country, and not because there's more valuable stuff there to dig up. No, it's because it's got the best colours. Whoever designed the flora and fauna there had a huge range of shades, a broad palette, decent brushes, a sense of humour and no fear of the garish. New Zealand, on the other hand, looks as if it were designed by someone restrained, conservative and self-effacing whose colour-mixing techniques were, well, limited.

The same applies in the bird department. They got the brightly coloured birds like galahs and rosellas, loud and brash, while we got quiet, nocturnal hole-dwellers all painted much the same shade of green. (Although I have to say I wouldn't swap the tui, despite its deeply unimaginative Auckland clothing style, for anything.)

What I would swap are griselinias for grevilleas. At this time of the year, Australia's plant designer must be congratulating him or herself daily for having provided so many gorgeous, garish, glitzy, glaring colours to brighten the darkest day.

My first grevillea was a Grevillea Superb, which grew happily in a wet spot in the shade of a butia palm on the edge of the driveway. The unsuitable conditions didn't stop it for a second, and it had grown to almost 2m by the time my neighbour ran it over in her little Mercedes smart car six months ago and it had to be euthanased.

Even being chainsawed at the base didn't bother it. It's back again this winter, already about 500m tall, as wide and covered in more than a dozen salmon-pink flowers. I so admire it and, were the butia not one of a matched set at the entrance to the property, I'd chop it down in a heartbeat to give the grevillea more room.

Dangerously, I looked it up on the Aussie native plant society website and promptly fell in love with at least a dozen more that I will have to have.

There are about 350 members of the family, and dozens are available here. Misty pink and Magnifica (pink), Parallela (white), Rosmarinifolia (salmon), Scapigera (green and cream) and Rhyolitica (deep pink) are on my hit list.

Cold-tolerant cultivars will adapt to most soil types and growing them is pretty straightforward. They like well-drained, friable soil, though, so if you don't have that you could create a raised bed or a mound. Having said that, some of my existing grevilleas are growing like crazy in very damp soil next to a stream that floods about three times a year. Go figure.

Actually, they do like to be well-watered, especially in their early stages, so don't let them dry out either before planting, or for quite a while afterwards.

A tip from an Aussie guru is to prune them before planting - just nip off the tips to encourage the plant to branch out and develop a thick, bushy habit. Because of the nature of their foliage, grevilleas can look a bit sparse so I'm certainly going to try this trick. They like to be planted in a big hole with loose soil, and fed a few months down the track with a low phosphorus plant fertiliser.

Because I'm lazy and impatient, and I must have what I must have, I will buy whatever takes my fancy and hope it'll adapt. But if you prefer not to take chances, you can do some research and more than likely find a grevillea to suit whatever climatic conditions you have.

Chances are they'll go nuts and you'll be whacking bits off. Anyway, they love to be pruned so get stuck into them after flowering. Just don't do it with a small Mercedes.

Propagating grevillea

If you're going to become a grevillea fanatic you may want to be able to make your own. Different gardeners have different methods, and some are more successful than others.

Propagation from cuttings is generally reliable. The plant producing your cutting material should have finished a growth surge. Remove young growing shoots or flowers. Cuttings about 75-100mm, with the leaves removed from the lower half to two-thirds and wounding the lower stem by removing bark and treating with rooting hormone, may help.

Grevilleas prefer a low nutrient propagation mix, such as 1:2 parts peat moss and coarse sand. Plant cuttings into pots and try putting the pot in a plastic bag and sealing it. Roots should appear in four to eight weeks, and can be potted once roots are 3-5cm long.

One Australian garden website suggested trying Vegemite as a rooting compound. But then, they would say that ...