New landscape natives with eye-catching foliage
By Daniel Fuller
Flowers are great, but they’re fleeting. A good landscape design includes plants with eye-catching foliage that will provide aesthetic value month after month, year after year.
Ozbreed has bred several new native cultivars with foliage full of interesting colours, shapes, and textures. Here are four highlights.
Aussie Hedge Bush™ Rhagodia spinescens ‘SAB02’ PBR Intended is a saltbush bred for improved hedge performance which can be shaped as a ball or a square, and is less prone to die-back. It has beautiful, blue-toned foliage which can be trimmed for a neat appearance or left for a more natural shape. It’s an incredibly tough plant that thrives without irrigation, even in low rainfall areas, making it perfect for water-saving garden designs. Use it in inland or coastal positions in sandy or clay soil, but avoid consistent wet feet. We suspect it will work in tropical climates, but further testing is needed.
Summer Rev™ Dianella sp. ‘Dian04’ PBR Intended is a compact flax lily with gorgeous clean, pastel blue foliage that only grows 45cm high – similar to Little Rev™ Dianella. This variety is showing promise in wet areas where other dianellas cannot survive. Initial trials indicate it will also do well in humidity. Growers already love this plant because it’s as easy to grow in the nursery as it is to grow in the landscape.
Goldie Box™ Westringia fruticosa ‘WES11’ PBR is a variegated version of the incredibly popular Grey Box™ Westringia. Like its parent, this variety is a rare example of a westringia capable of tolerating periodic wet feet and drought. The gold variegation on the leaf margins is striking against the green-grey leaf centres. This plant can be used as a native alternative for buxus and low hedges, borders and topiary shapes. It will tolerate most soils, and can be grown in both coastal and inland positions. Use this plant when you can’t trust the maintenance team to get the irrigation right.
Variegated Mundi™ Westringia fruticosa ‘WES09′ PBR is another variegated westringia capable of tolerating drought and wet feet. The beautiful white leaf margins surrounding a green centre provide a delicate and subtle appearance. This ground-cover or low shrub variety looks great, whether manicured or left alone to express its natural shape. The white variegation causes it to grow a bit more slowly, meaning less pruning is required, and it also grows lower and tighter than its parent, Mundi™ Westringia. Use it at the top of slopes, in depressed areas, along borders, or in mass planting when dealing with poor soil quality, and a lack of drainage and irrigation. Because Mundi™ Westringia is such a popular plant, we expect this variegated version to do extremely well.
You don’t need flowers to bring colour to the landscape, even when we’re talking about native plants. If you’re a landscape architect or designer, add these four cultivars to your palette to add colour to landscapes with challenging conditions. If you’re a nursery grower, wholesaler or retailer, get in touch with us today to learn more about getting access to stock. (Email: horticulture@ozbreed.com.au)
Daniel Fuller & Ozbreed
M: 042 6169 708
E: horticulture@ozbreed.com.au
All images supplied by Ozbreed