One of my favourite trees for our district is Eucalyptus woodwardii.
Native to Western Australia, this species comes from dry inland regions with low rainfall, open sunshine and well-drained soils — conditions not unlike our own here in St Arnaud. Perhaps that’s why it settles in so comfortably and performs so reliably in our climate.
With our hot summers, modest rainfall and often gravelly or sandy soils, it proves itself year after year. It establishes readily, grows quickly, copes well with dry conditions and tolerates frost without fuss.
Its growth habit is both upright and gently drooping, giving it a graceful yet sturdy presence in the landscape. The large, glaucous grey leaves — beautifully powdery and bold — stand out against our dry country backdrop.
Then come the flowers — big, brilliant yellow blossoms that light up the tree and provide valuable nectar for pollinators. At a time of year when colour can be scarce, they are a real highlight.
What I admire most is its toughness. It is truly a no-nonsense tree: resilient, adaptable and dependable. For St Arnaud gardens and landscapes, Eucalyptus woodwardii offers that rare combination of strength, beauty and practicality.
It may hail from Western Australia, but it feels perfectly at home here.
Carol.
- Dec 30, 2018
Updated: Feb 9
The last job of the year, 29th December - monitoring of our 2 Small Milkwort (SM) Plots in the Kara Kara National Park. Both plots are very dry and show signs of incursions by wallabies and kangaroos- scrapes, hip hollows, pruning and droppings. The larger plot had 58 spikes ( we believe that each rootstock puts up multiple stems and it is hard to decide where each plant starts and ends). There were only 7 flowering spikes in contrast to 24 last year; the spikes were very small and the flowers miserable! Most plants were less than 5cm tall.
On a brighter note, the Eutaxia microphylla and Templetonia stenophylla are doing very well- both are members of the pea family and are very palatable to browsers and grazers so the protection offered by our fence has proved its worth there. Leafy Templetonia- T. stenophylla flowers and leaves
Common Eutaxia- E. microphylla
The second plot, also known as the "Small Small Milkwort Plot" is also having problems with wallabies- the Peach Heath looked as if a mower had been over it and ditto the Small Milkwort. Only 1 flower spike out of 48 plants was found. A new colony of SM was found in 2016 and is persisting - 7 stems but no flowering spikes. It is likely that more SM is out there but the smallness of the plants, and near-impossibility of seeing them unless they are flowering makes this plant difficult to find.
Summer, grass-seeds, mosquitoes and heat all combine to make searching for it quite a task. Monitoring data for this project will soon be on our website. The Yellow Gums in both plots have been flowering and are now getting ready to shed their bark- the colours are astounding.
