‘ of the Great South West’, book on plants of South West Victoria AUSTRALIAN PLANTS SOCIETY (SGAP) $20, available from Kevin Sparrow at Warrnambool & District Group Inc. Newsletter [email protected] MAY 2019 No 448 Ph: 55626217 Correa reflexa ‘Grannys Grave’ www.facebook.com/warrnamboolsgap Like us on Facebook

Incorporation No: AOO1312OX ABN: 51672752196 Web: apswarrnambool.org.au

Email: [email protected] [email protected] [email protected]

EDITORIAL Hi members, What a great day we had on Wednesday in Colac visiting APS Colac Otway and attending the talk by Kevin Collins from WA. I know we all learnt something from his talk. Kevin and wife, Kathy established the Farm at Mt. Barker in WA and have every banksia growing in it. See report on page 4.

This month it is time again for our Annual Meeting, We have members nominated for all positions on the committee so there is no reason to avoid coming along. We get the AGM over pretty quickly so there is still plenty of time for the rest of the night and if you really would like to have a go on the committee, please let us know, we would always find room for one more.

In this months newsletter: As our tour of the Byaduk Caves and Harmens Valley, had to be cancelled due to weather, it has been rescheduled to July 27th. See Diary page 2 Correa Study Group—Correa Crawl is on June 8/9/10th See itinerary page 3. Warrnambool members welcome to attend on Saturday 8th. Thank you to Kerry Artis for the Display Table Report on page 5 and 6. Report on our last Members Night see page 7 Gardens For Wildlife see page 8 Coastal Connections by Jarred Obst on page 9. of the Month: See page 10.

Our speaker this month is Jacqui Balazs from Warrnambool City Council who will be speaking to us on the draft Warrnambool Coastal Management Plan and she will be looking for our input into it.. That’s about all for this month, see you next Friday. Don’t forget to bring something along from your garden. Cheers, Kevin

We wish to acknowledge the Maar people as the traditional owners of the land on which we live and pay our respects to their elders past and present.

Next Meeting: Friday 26th April 8.00pm - Speaker, Jacqui Balazs—Draft Coastal Management Plan Australian Plants Society - Warrnambool & District Group May 2019 Newsletter

GroupGroup Diary Diary Of Of Activities Activities Group Diary Of Activities May 24th: AGM / Jacqui Balazs speaking on the Warrnambool CC Aug 23rd: Reto & Yvonne speaking on their time in the Kimberleys. Draft Coastal Management Plan. Aug 27th: Committee Meeting TBA May 28th: Committee Meeting at Sherwoods at 5.00pm. Sept 27th: Dave Williams, Maremma Dogs and Bandicoots. June 8/9/10th: Correa Study Group visit to Warrnambool, Portland and beyond. See Page 3 for details. Oct 1st: Committee Meeting TBA

June 28th: Toni Ryan speaking on Hooded Plovers at Belfast Coastal Oct 25th: Members Night - Speaker Adam Miller - Friends of the Reserve. Forgotten Woodlands

July 2nd: Committee Meeting at Sparrows at 5.00pm. Oct 29th: Committee Meeting TBA

July: No members Night planned. Nov 16/17th: Replenish our Planet Festival at Koroit BG.

July 27th: Visit to Byaduk Caves and Harmen’s Valley. Nov 22nd: Members Night. TBA Meet at Swan Reserve at 11.00am. Bring sturdy shoes/boots, long trousers, torch and afternoon tea. Includes BBQ lunch (provided) at Dec 7th: Xmas Breakup and BBQ Byaduk North Recreation Reserve. Spring 2020: Proposed APS Vic. Quarterly Meeting in Warrnambool.

Please submit your articles for the newsletter by the end of the second week of the month President: Dorothy Mattner Phone: 55676477 [email protected] Vice President: Kevin Sparrow Ph: 55626217 Secretary: Mike Halls, 127 Rooneys Rd, Warrnambool 3280 Phone: 55626519 Email: [email protected] Treasurer: John Sherwood. 26 McConnell St, Warrnambool Phone: 55628064 Email: [email protected] Newsletter Editor: Kevin Sparrow, 35 Swan Street, Warrnambool. Phone: 55626217 Email: [email protected] Public Officer: John Sherwood. APS Reps: vacant, Group Historian: Joyce Sparrow. Supper Organiser: Liz Halls. Other Committee Members: Kerry Artis, Michael Mattner. Bob Artis, Andrew Gray, Joan Krygger The APS Warrnambool & District holds meetings on the 4th Friday of each month at the Mozart Hall Warrnambool at 8pm.

APS Warrnambool & District is a District Group of the Australian Plants Society (Vic) All members are required to also be a member of APS Vic. 2 Australian Plants Society - Warrnambool & District Group May 2019 Newsletter

Correa Study Group - Correa Crawl Itinerary June 8/9/10th 2019 Prepared by Cherree Densley on behalf of the group

Saturday 8th 9.00am - 10.00am: Meet up in Warrnambool at Swan Reserve, Princes Highway, Warrnambool with Kevin Sparrow for a walk around the Swan Reserve Garden and hear about how Warrnambool & District APS group selected and named local correas. Please park in Spence Street along the sandstone wall. Note: Kevin will have copies of his plant book for sale at $20 each. This book describes most of the plants of south west Victoria including the correas.

* Leave around 10.00am and travel to and visit Codrington Nursery where you will be able purchase many different correas and other native plants. * Travel to Mt. Clay where you will explore some of Cherree's favourite sandy tracks. * In Portland, view correas along the track to the Gannet Rookery and other tracks around the Alcoa smelter such as Thistle Road. * If there is still enough light, travel to and walk around the Cape Nelson Lighthouse Reserve. * Meet up for a meal at the Gordon Hotel, Portland.

Sunday 9th 9.00am: Meet up at the Shell Service Station, Henty Highway, Cashmore Road corner for the trip to Mt Richmond and environs. Here we will meet up with Dave Pitts (Parks Vic) who will be our co-guide for the day. The program today will be decided on closer to the date depending on where the correas are out in flower. Information will be provided on the day. Note: Take care, there are often logging trucks travelling on the Nelson Road. * At 7.00pm, we will meet at the Nelson Hotel for a meal and cutting swap. Bring along your special cuttings for swapping.

Monday 10th 9.00am - 10.00am: Meet at the boat mooring on the Mt Gambier side of the Glenelg River for a boat trip up stream includes Morning Tea. Cost of this is $20 each. Program for the rest of the morning to be decided. Travel home Monday afternoon or leave when it suits you. Notes: Bring along your name tags. * We will travel in convoy, so attach pink ribbons to your vehicle. * No cuttings are to be collected from bushland * GPS only for future exploration. * 12 people have booked for the weekend. * Booking made for 12 people at Nelson Hotel for dinner Sunday night 7.00pm. * Warrnambool members may join in on Saturday only or boat trip Monday.

Contact for more information: Cherree Densley 0427 504 228 To join the Correa Study Group and get a free newsletter, contact Dot or Bob O'Neil on 0428 882 068

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Group Visit To APS Colac Otway By Kevin Sparrow

On Wednesday, 11 members travelled to Colac to visit our friends at APS Colac Otway, speakers at their Members Night, were Kevin & Kathy Collins (Owners of the Banksia Farm at Mt Barker, WA). We met up at Paul Kennedy’s home (pictured) for a tour around his gardens lead by Kevin Collins. Also present was Cherree and Ian Densley and Geoff Beilby. Following this, it was off to the local nursery (owned by APS Member, Rao) where he showed us inside his propagation house. Here we had an unexpected shower when the sprinklers came on! Our members have never moved so fast in their lives!! We all came away (a bit wet) with some cutting samples growing roots in peat plugs. We all had something to take home and pot up. After a meal at the local bowls club, we attended the talk by Kevin Collins, there was a great attendance of some 33 people, shows the depth of knowledge and respect people have for him. He spoke for an hour and a half, without a Powerpoint presentation and we all came away knowing a lot more about . What a wonderful afternoon and evening we had, very enjoyable and thanks to Paul Kennedy for helping to arrange everything. Photo: Bob Artis

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April Display Table by Kerry Artis Correas are starting to flower now and Kevin Sparrow brought along a number, including ‘Autumn Blaze’, re- flexa, a pink hybrid, glabra var turnbullii and ‘Split Belle’, all looking great at the moment. Hoya australis is a beautiful, twining climber, bearing umbels of white, waxy flowers which have a strong scent. It has set seed pre- viously and can be grown from cutting. ‘Burrendong Beauty’ has prickly leaves and bright pink flowers all along the stems which the bees love. Hakea cycloptera and are both flowering with scoparia’s flowers starting off cream and ending up pink. Eremophila glabra Tar Bush is a very variable growing to 2.5m high with smooth or hairy leaves and tubular flowers to 3cm long in yellow, green or red, which appear most of the year. It is a very hardy plant and can be grown from cutting or grafted onto Myoporum root- stock.

Mike Halls showed us Templetonia retusa Cockie’s Tongue, (photo right) a rounded, spreading shrub up to 2m which has large, red pea-flowers, requires good drainage, does well in limestone soils and is resistant to salt spray. Eucalyptus leucoxylon ‘rosea’ has lovely, hot pink flowers and is a favourite of Mikes. A small to me- dium sized tree it is very hardy in most soils. Crowea saligna is a small shrub to 1m with deep pink, star-shaped flowers that can be grown from cutting or treated seed, is good for shaded areas and needs a well-drained, well mulched situation. Actinotus helianthi Flannel Flower is just beginning to flower and is a delightful plant with much divided, silvery leaves and white, daisy-like flower heads, requiring excellent drainage and making a nice cut flower.

John Sherwood’s Templetonia retusa is 1m high and also growing in a limestone soil, Hakea suaveolens (ED: This has had a name change to H. drupacea) Sweet-scented Hakea, a tall shrub bearing white, fragrant flowers, is a very hardy plant, makes a good screen plant and is resistant to salt spray. John’s is a nesting site for wattle birds and it’s lovely to see them coming back each year. Eremophila glabra ‘Kalbarri Carpet’ (photo left) is a spreading, prostrate plant with silvery- grey leaves that loves alkaline soils.

Grevillea ‘Ned Kelly’ is looking great with lots of orange-red flowers and is 1.5 to 2m high, a very useful plant as it flowers all year round. Callistemon viminalis ‘Tangerine Dream’, being the only orange callistemon in cultivation, is 2m high, from Mt Warring in NSW and looks beautiful. Acacia stenophylla has a weeping habit, grows from 4 to 10m high and has grey-green, long, narrow leaves, making a lovely plant that will fit into smaller gardens. These were shown by Michael Mattner.

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April Display Table by Kerry Artis Page 2 Marilyn Berry’s Acacia pycnantha, (photo upper right) Mt Arapiles form, was grown from seed and stayed small for a long time but has now grown quite big, bearing pale, lemon flowers which have a lovely fragrance. is a very old plant with a very stable root system that is growing on a steep river bank. It comes from WA and has globular, red flowers with cream styles which are just starting to come out. Nematolepis phebalioides is the only plant in this genus and is a very dense shrub with masses of flowers. Its flowers are similar to correa flowers. They are supposed to be hard to maintain but Marilyn tells us this one thrives on ne- glect! Callistemon ‘Pink Champagne’ has large, soft pink to bright pink flower heads and can cope with poor soil, quite a spindly plant the flowers hang down and look very attractive wav- ing in the breeze. Eucalyptus leucoxylon ssp megalocarpa occurs in south West Victoria and South East South Australia and is broader than it is tall. It flowers prolifically over a long pe- riod, March to December, and this one has a very vibrant pink flower and has proved very hardy in an extremely exposed position.

Grevillea ‘Little Drummer Boy’ is growing well in the Artis garden. It is a mass of red and yellow spider flowers at the moment, is suitable for coastal conditions, is 30cm high and likes well drained soil. Boronia ‘Pink Passion’ grows to 1m, is about twelve months old and has been covered in flowers ever since it was planted, being suitable for coastal conditions and limestone soil. Hakea ‘Stockdale Sensation’ has a dense, weeping habit and is about 2m high, tolerates most soil types and is looking beautiful at the moment, being covered in large, pink, ball flowers.

Other plants on display were Alyogyne hakeifolia, Prostanthera calycina (photo lower right), Eremo- phila splendens, , Correa pul- chella, Grevillea ‘Billy Bonkers’, Melaleuca ful- gens (photo left), Correa alba ‘Western Pink Star’, , Grevillea rhyolitica, Thryptomene saxicola, Grevillea ‘Robyn Gordon’ and Lechenaultia ‘New Morning’. 6 Australian Plants Society - Warrnambool & District Group May 2019 Newsletter

Last Meeting Friday 26th April 2019 by Mike Halls

Our last meeting was attended by 16 members, 2 visitors and with 4 apologies. Ian Bodycoat presented an entertaining talk about the Port Fairy to Warrnambool Rail Trail: the history of the rail line, and the steps involved in gaining funding and the initiation of the trail. Ian presented some interesting information and photos of the ongoing improvements of the trail and work done by many groups and Friends of the Rail Trail, including maintenance and tree planting along the Rail Trail. Ian’s presentation was well received. RTCOM = Rail Trail Committee responsible for maintenance. MSC = Moyne Shire Council. WCC =Warrnambool City Council responsibility.

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Taken From “Gardens For Wildlife” Web Site “Gardens For Wildlife” is a network of community groups and councils in urban and country areas supporting each other to involve local residents, schools and businesses to join in, in caring for the native plants, birds and animals within their communities.

They promote community group - local government partnerships as hubs to develop programs that meet their social and ecological needs and aspi- rations. They foster collaboration, connections and wellbeing alongside environmental objectives.

“Gardens For Wildlife” is supported by: Victoria Department of Environment, Land, Water and Planning, Port Phillip and Westernport Catch- ment Management Authority. Andrews Foundation. And many councils and environment organisations within Victoria. https://gardensforwildlifevictoria.com/

Should we have a “Gardens For Wildlife” program in Warrnambool to assist residents in setting up their gardens so as to provide a wildlife link to our natural areas? Such a program would need to be lead by Warrnambool City Council and supported by local environmental organisations. Should APS Warrnambool be involved in this? Swan Reserve Waterwise Garden would be a great demonstration garden for the program.

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Coastal Connections By Jarred Obst Hello and welcome to the March/April instalment of Glenelg Hopkins CMA’s ‘Coastal Connections’ email.

After a warm and dry start to 2019, a changing season is now upon us with a distinct recent shift in temperature, daylight and importantly rainfall!

Seasonal Weather After a very dry start to 2019, the autumn break has finally arrived for Southwest Victoria with fantastic rain falling across our region last week. This rainfall was extremely well received, as the six months prior to May had seen extremely warm and dry conditions, well outside of seasonal averages. Predictions of what lies ahead remains mixed, due partially to south eastern Australia remaining under El Nino Alert con- ditions, which unfortunately correlates to below average rainfall and warmer temperatures. The Bureau of Meteorology will be releasing up- dated weather predictions tomorrow; let’s hope the positive start to May is indicative of the months ahead!

Estuary Update With minimal rainfall during March and April, the state of our regions estuaries remained dominated by autumn tides and large swell events. This has seen a gradual rise in water levels at all seasonally closed systems, in conjunction with building beach berms and sediment loads at estuary mouths. Shifting seasonal rainfall patterns in May and June will however hopefully see critical increases in estuarine inflows, and subsequently give these systems the ability to open naturally under appropriate environmental conditions.

Upcoming Event & Opportunities Regardless of the season, a wide range of events and engagement opportunities are on our doorstep. Here a quick summary, please follow links or attachments for further details (and apologies for the short notice with dates, this month’s instalment is running somewhat late due to the arrival of my third child..!) 2019 Environmental Achievers Award – if you know someone or are involved in a group that has undertaken outstanding environmental work in Southwest Victoria please nominate them now! Marine Plastics Debris Workshop – the Clean Ocean Collective are holding their third and final workshop to address aquatic litter in the Warrnambool/Port Fairy region this Sunday, 19th May. Orange-bellied Parrot Monitoring – winter surveys will be occurring in May, July and September; interested volunteers can become involved by contacting Nature Glenelg Trust on [email protected] Warrnambool Clean-up Event – local volunteers are partnering with the Ocean Crusaders group to help clean up the Hopkins River estuary on May 25th; all welcome. 2019 Victorian Marine & Coastal Forum – join managers, researchers and volunteers to address current and future marine and coastal challenges, 13- 14th June.

Lastly, it was with immense sadness that our region farewelled Doug Phillips in March. Doug was an extremely generous, passionate and dedicated environmental advocate and will be fondly remembered. Sincere condolences to all family and friends.

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Plant of the Month by Kevin Sparrow What’s On? Botanical Name: Melaleuca teretifolia—Cream Form

Common Name: Marsh Honey-myrtle

Description: Melaleuca teretifolia is a small to medium shrub typically erect in habit. The linear leaves are rounded in cross section, 40-60 mm long and tapering to a sharp point. The flowers occur in globular shaped clusters occur- ring in the leaf axils about 20 mm in diameter and appearing in winter. Location: Endemic to southern Western Australia.

Soil Conditions: Prefers damp soil and is adaptable to most soil types but requires an open sunny position, frost resistant but drought tender.

There is another color form, variety “Georgiana Molloy” which is a stunning pink in color.

Both color forms are growing at Swan Reserve Garden although only the cream form has flowered yet.

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What’s On

SEPTEMBER 30th to OCTOBER 4th 2019

ANPSA 2019 Conference - Blooming Biodiversity

Hosted by Wildflower Society of Western Australian in Albany, WA.

Pre and Post Conference Tours Between 21 September to 11 October.

Key Speakers Professor Stephen D Hopper AC – AJ Swaby Address Gregory John Keighery.

Details www.bloomingbiodiversity.com.au Bookings open January 2019.

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