Mistymorn, I was at a friend's place on a private road running off from the Natural Bridge area (you can get to Natural Bridge via Hinze Dam and Numinbah). He has some acreage from an old farm that overlooks the valley there. I don't get there often but was there once when the Flame Trees were in flower. It was a stunning sight, you could see all of them amongst the rest of the rainforest trees in the valley below. You can also see them in flower (at the right time of year of course) at Springbrook (via the Gold Coast Highway) from several lookouts there. I have a sister in law in Brisbane and persuaded her to plant one on a mulched embankment in otherwise poor shale, silty soil. It has shot up, no problems. They irrigate maybe weekly with grey water and that would have helped. But they do struggle in very heavy clay as a rule - they do need a reasonable soil. All I can suggest is that you plant them on a well-mulched mound. It does sound like your clay soil is otherwise unsuitable. My own tree is in red-brown alkaline basaltic soil that is quite well drained, but still has a very high clay content. It's about 6m high at a guess now, after planting in 2000, and things grow more slowly here (in the colder, drier climate of the escarpment) than in Brisbane, as a rule. I have not watered it at all since around a year after planting it, but dug a hole around 2 feet (600mm) deep, filled it with water and let it soak away before planting it and watering it in. I have to use an iron bar to dig holes for my plants to that depth - the soil is just too hard to excavate otherwise. I don't mulch my Flame tree any more. I hope that helps. Frank

Thanks for the reply. Greg. So I suppose that means that Trigonia carbonaria is on the long list Australian natives due for extinction, together with all those plants which refuse to be germinated by anything else but their specific little bee. With the push to introduce bumblebees into mainland Australia (so we can buy cheaper tomatoes. They'll never escape from the greenhouses, will they - even though they've done it already in Tasmania!) we do urgently need government money spent on research into insect pollination of natives. The pollinators of the vast majority of our plants are just not known. Wooroonooran, your comment that "To do the right thing, everyone must plant only what occurs/ed in the Regional Ecosystem/s that occur/s on their property, otherwise they are introducing a plant to a new location where it shouldnt be" is very much to the point. My comments are: First - if we knew more about our local natives, we might find that there are more gardenworthy plants among them than we had realised, and choose them more where we're happy to have any old plant so long as it has the characteristics we want - feature tree, good screen, and so on. The difficulty, in such a large country, is finding the information as to what is locally native. One needs to be quite proactive to get hold of it, especially outside the capital cities. General books on growing Australian natives can leave us with a false impression. People who have picked pretty plants out of such books in the belief that they are doing the right thing by the environment, and then find themselves copping heaps from those with higher knowledge, are understandably cheesed off. Second, we all like to grow introduced plants. There is really no difference, in a ecological sense, between growing roses and poinsettias, Norfolk Island pines, Lord Howe Daisies, and Kangaroo paws in Queensland, or even in growing plants that ocur naturally just a few hundred kilometres away. We all try (I'm sure) not to grow the obvious weeds from other parts of Australia. It is more environmentally correct to grow exotic plants that we feel are not going to escape into the bush. However, as long as gardeners garden, there are going to be some apparently "safe" plants that will turn round and bite us on the bum 20 years later. We can only do what seems right at the time, keep an ear to the ground for new discoveries re weed potential, and be prepared to remove garden favourites when their dark side is first glimpsed, rather than insist on complete proof. Thirdly, much of what gardening is, is to plant things from elsewhere. I don't mind this where people can choose a Australian plant because they really want that plant. What gives me trouble is the "natives" that are planted in good faith by so many Austalians including me, because we are restricted to the easily available plants in nurseries. In the case of Eucalypts, a local native gumtree might do the job just as well, AND be...

g'day richtrav, by normal garden do you mean suburban garden say around 700 sq/mtrs? the 'salmonophloia' is a forest tree and by my reckoning not suitable for the average garden as it would need to be app' 40 to 50 meters away from structures and utilities for safety. and the 'campaspe' not sure i'd want it in my garden either as it grows to around 35 foot. the rule of thumb with eucalypts is for safety they should be around the max height of the tree + 50% form any structures or overhead utilities, for me after living in rural i would want a 100% margin min'. there is also the duty of care to neighbours and others to consider. and another rule of thumb small trees for small gardens. len Here is a link that might be useful: lens garden page

Tom, it is understandable to be skeptical but the strange combinations of things is what makes gardens in SE Australia so weird and wonderful. You can see a yard where the main landscaping consists of Betula pendula and Yucca elephantipes, the latter ALSO being one of the most popular northern hemisphere plants in the suburbs! Melbourne in degrees F is only about 6F warmer than England in the summer...on average. Hardly warm by our standards at all. Almost like Portland, Maine: 79F/60F. During heatwaves, however, it can get a lot hotter. And presumable the birches down there have defoliated in the worst summers. And btw the She Oaks are incredibly wispy! The Canberra Australian National Garden has a huge collection of them, but I walked right past it w/o taking any pictures because they all look the same to me. Shax, I'm having to write "in arrears" - so the posts are a few days behind the trip. I might get caught up tonight. I got into Christchurch very late last night. Would love to have seen your place but really had limited time...I do have things to get back to and am having to pay a neighborhood kid to keep my 100+ potted plants taken care of. Thanks for the kind offer though...if supersonic flight ever becomes feasible and cheap, I plan to visit Australia frequently haha. Some Australians have gently ribbed me for complaining about the flight length. They are used to having to fly that long to get anywhere else in the world. It's interesting in speaking to them...so many people here have been to the US. While I doubt more than 5% of people in the US have been to AU or NZ, if that.