If you’d like to encourage a wider variety of organic life in your soil, there are a few key things you’re going to want to provide for them in the soil. Healthy soil-dwelling organisms want access to air, water, organic matter, minerals, enough light (but not too much), the right pH, the right temperature, as well as “companion” organisms (which
Continue reading 
Starting the journey of learning plant scientific names can be scary! Words in alien languages such as ancient Latin and Greek hardly come naturally to any of us, so it’s no wonder that we gardeners rarely ever get into learning the “true” names for the plants we see and work with every day. This article isn’t intended to preach to
Continue reading 
The legume family is one of the best families to learn early in your plant identification journey because they’re easy to identify and you’ll notice members everywhere you go. This is one of the largest dicot families around, and while most of the plants have a lot in common, there are branches of the family that don’t conform to all
Continue reading 
The Mimosoideae subfamily is a clade that includes many native Australian plants as well as some that have originated from overseas. The most noteworthy genus is probably Acacia, or the wattle group of plants. Believe it or not, this subfamily is actually a clade beneath the greater legume family Fabaceae, though on the surface they don’t seem to have much in common with other pea
Continue reading 
The mint family consists of many, if not most of the herbs we use on a regular basis which have mostly originated from the mediterranean where it can be quite hot and dry. They tend to be incredibly easy to cultivate by cutting and seed. Mint, basil, rosemary, oregano, sage, lavender, marjoram and thyme are all members of this superfamily
Continue reading 
Grasses are an easily identified family of wind-pollinated monocots that are especially good at playing the role of ground cover. Some are annual and some are perennial. Some varieties may go dormant or die off during the hotter or colder months of the year, whereas others will hold their soil year-round. Description Grasses come in two types: clumping and running.
Continue reading 
The lily family used to contain a lot of other monocotyledonous varieties that are now classified as families in their own right, including members of Asparagaceae and Amaryllidaceae. Description Herbacious bulbous (rarely rhizomous) plants having flowers of 6 tepals. They can sometimes look like a grassy shrub, and other times, they can form a longer stem. Bracts may or may
Continue reading 
Formerly a member of the lily family Liliaceae, these plants have a lot in common with that family. Description Herbaceous perennial plants are the norm, and they can often allow what’s above the ground to die off each year while their bulb lives on, such as Amarallis spp. Other varieties can have foliage that lives year-round such as Agapanthus spp. They can be very
Continue reading 
The asparagus family Asparagaceae was one of the monocotyledonous families that were split off from the lily family Liliaceae, along with other unrelated plants such as Amaryllis spp. and Agapanthus spp. Description Members of this family can differ quite a lot in appearance so it’s hard to give a single description for all plants; they tend to have tightly bunched
Continue reading 
The Lomandra genus is a clade within the asparagus family Asparagaceae filled with Aussie native plants that are commonly called “strappies”.
A few varieties are widely planted throughout Australia because they are drought-resistant, and pretty difficult to kill.
They’re often planted in the wrong spot. They really do look best when they’re allowed to go strappy; if you’ve planted them along a driveway and keep them pruned back off the concrete edge, take a step back and look again. It doesn’t really look good, does it?
Continue reading
