Like any Australian I have enough know how to plant a Native to attract the birds...

I definitely am not a botanist and can't even boast at being knowledgeable enough with botanical names of plants. I son't think I could every pronounce these long elongated words. People who can impress me big time. Rather I describe myself as a lover of plants and pretty gardens. I choose flowers that are both practical and beautiful at the same time. Sometimes successful gardening is a bit of hit and miss but then I am perhaps no different to many other fellow Australians.

When my husband and I wanted to plant an Australian native in our garden to attract honey birds we knew that grevillea would do the trick. We found a native nursery in a little town not too far called Yandina and came across a young potted Native called a Blood Orange Grevillea, We liked the flower and the name, and could visualise this Native in our garden so we bought it. The instructions said that the plant would grow to about 2 metres in height.

The plant has grown very well over the last 2 years and always in flower. Here is a close up of the petal-less flower typical of grevilleas. Do you think it looks like a blood orange colour?



What we do know about this Native is that it will only live for 7 years which is a shame. We will just have to plant another one in its place because a number of birds love the nectar. Lorikeets visit regularly too.

The bits of information that I have managed to gather about the grevillea plant is that it is native to Australia, New Guinea, New Caledonian and parts of Indonesia. There are approximately 350 species. The nectar of grevillea flowers was a popular drink with aborigines. People are warned not to drink the nectar this way.

Grevillea plants can be seen everywhere in my area of the The Sunshine Coast. They are uniquely Australian.



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Cheers

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Reference - Wikipedia