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The Artful Gardener

Gardening with Miscanthus. Miscanthus, also known as maiden grass, Japanese Silvergrass or Chinese Silvergrass, are clump-forming ornamental grasses that are well worth growing.  They have some of the best flowers of all the ornamental grasses, […]

Agapanthus Black Panther
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The Artful Gardener

Agapanthus. I couldn’t write about strappy leaved plants without including Agapanthus.  At this time of year, the mountain is bursting with them. The ten species in this southern African genus belong to the onion family […]

The Artful Gardener
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The Artful Gardener

Using strappy leaved plants in your garden. Strappy leafed plants are plants which have a grass like growth habit, but are not grasses.  Their leaves are long green straps, like grass, which may be very […]

Gardening with Grasses
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The Artful Gardener

Gardening with Grasses The best native grasses for your garden. When we think about native grasses Lomandras or Matt Rush comes to mind. The common form, L. hystrix is a very large and not very […]

grasses
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The Artful Gardener

How to use grasses in your garden. With around 780 genera and around 12,000 species the Grasses collectively known as Poaceae are the fifth-largest plant family, with grasslands accounting for 40% of the land area of Earth.  Grasses have […]

Grevillea Flower
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The Artful Gardener

Creating a haven for honey eaters in your garden. A recent study found that half of all native bird species have each lost almost two-thirds of their natural habitat across Victoria, parts of South Australia […]

SaltBush
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The Artful Gardener

In recent years, there has been a noticeable shift towards more natural gardening styles, where aesthetics and artistry align with mimicking natural plant systems. This trend was prominently showcased at both the Melbourne and Chelsea […]

Growing a box hedge
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Growing a box hedge

Japanese box (Buxus microphylla var.Japonica) is the only real choice for a box hedge on the mountain as it is the most heat tolerant of all the box and will grow in our mild tropical […]