Autumn 2010
Native Gardens
The Hotel's native gardens are again full of weird and wonderful shapes and colours as the mild weather and autumn rains encourage flowering of Gums, Grevillea, Banksia and some more unusual Australian natives.
Grevilleas at the entrance to the Hotel are continuing to flower prolifically with Grevillea Wattle Bird Yellow becoming full and heavy with soft yellow flowers and Grevillea Magnifica shooting long stems up to two meters high so that its pink-white flowers tower above, swaying gently as they catch the breeze.
The Sturt Dessert Pea will soon succumb to the cooler temperatures, but for now the bright red pods are flowering brightly, providing a colourful groundcover for garden beds together with the bright orange and pink Heart-Leafed Flame Pea (Chorizema). The central dessert native is difficult to grow in Victoria, but does well in the well-prepared sandy soil of the Hotel's native garden beds.
A Western Australian native, the Geleznowia verrucosa is beginning to flower with light green to yellow petals opening at the end of each of its dark green spikey-leafed stems.
It's a joy to see the Hakea Burrendong Beauty in flower again, with its long sprays of pink-white flowers attracting birds and bees. This Hakea has an extended flowering period and is both frost and drought tolerant, so this showy display of colour will continue well into winter.
Eucalyptus leucoxylon is the dominant eucalypt around the Hotel and is now in full flower, bringing brightness to the landscape with pink, yellow and red varieties dropping buds and forming colourful carpets beneath the trees.
Gardener, Rob Glazebrook conducts tours of the Hotel's extensive native gardens on the first Sunday of every month as part of Dunkeld open Gardens & Galleries. Please contact reception on 03) 5577 2241 for bookings as places are limited.