:: Olive Pink Botanic Garden ::

What’s in Flower
Every month there is something new in flower in Olive Pink Botanic Garden, and rain events at any time of the year can produce a veritable carpet of wildflowers or native grasses in the understorey of the planted areas, and also in the bushland in the rocky hill habitats within the Garden.

Click here to see what is flowering in the Garden this month.

With cold winter weather and a series of frosts, most of the plants in the Garden are no longer actively growing. The relatively warm daytime temperatures have meant that some of our newly planted seedlings are still putting on a little bit of new growth, but some of the frost sensitive species like bean trees, holly-leaf grevillea and young whitewoods have lost leaves to frost. The predominant flower colour in the Garden right now is yellow - with 20 different wattles in flower and most types of cassias also in full bloom. The evenings are filled with the wafting scent of wattle blossoms.

In the surrounding bushland some of the shrubs species (eg. Eremophila freelingii and E. latrobei) are in flower and attracting insects and honeyeater birds (respectively). There is also an ephemeral herb layer that has germinated in response to 10mm of rain two months ago - mostly winter germinating herbs like bogan flea (Calotis hispidula), cranesbills (Geranium species), billybuttons (Calocephalus platycephalus), and native cress (Lepidium) species.

The cooler dry weather has attracted new avian visitors to the Garden, with red-browed pardalotes, red-capped robins and yellow-rumped thornbills being much more evident around the plantings right now. The resident bowerbirds are also putting on wonderful courting and bower-keeping displays at the moment, and there are plenty of flocks of crested pigeons and ringneck parrots feeding on seeds in the groundlayer. Click here to download a file describing the birds and plants that are prominent right now.

Besides the dominance of yellow flowers, by far the main colour to be found in the Garden right now is amongst the Eremophila (emu bush) shrubs and ground-covers in our new Eremophila garden. There are 21 different Eremophila plants in flower now, with the predominant hue being purple or mauve. Click here to download a PDF which describes and show images of some of the emu bushes that are flowering during the winter months.