Sorbus alnifolia, Korean Mountain Ash, small tree Ilex pedunculosa Longstalk hollies, evergreen Stranvaesia davidiana if you can stand the smell of the flowers. Evergreen as well Crataegus viridis 'Winter King' another tree Crataegus phaenopyrum Washington Hawthorn, tree again Since I cheated and mentioned some trees, might as well add Crabapples. Ilex x meserve blue hollies, I like Blue Princess Add Playboy to the rose list Rosa Rugosa Rosa glauca Rosa moyesii Viburnum setigerum tea viburnum Ilex verticulata Wintergold for another color barberries, black stems with red berries but invasive here Ilex glabra, dark and white berried forms Ilex serrata x verticillata and various other forms of ilex if hardy in your area And a word about Symplocus paniculata - sapphire berry, they don't hold their berries long in the fall but they are a bright blue.

My friend said a lot of smooth trunked eucalypts are still standing in her area after the vic fires. Wish I could grow grevillea rosmarinifolia , but the kangaroos eat them down to nothing. We had a fire lit by a fire bug around midnight a week ago after a very hot day, with fierce winds blowing through the valley. Luckily I was still up and noticed the huge orange glow above the forest and rang it in - it was a kilometre away, very scary. I've been researching fire retardant plants and tearing my hair out, the lists are so contradictory, especially now that I've found the Tasmanian government site. They reckon many of the plants listed as fire retardants are in fact highly flammable eg acmena smithii (lilypilly), casuarina cunninghamiana (river sheoak), elaeocarpus reticulatus (blueberry ash) corymbia maculata (spotted gum). But I've spoken to someone who said fire swept through a friend's vineyard and was stopped by a line of lillypillies. Also I tried burning fresh lillypilly leaves on a big bonfire one year and they didn't want to burn. Surely there's a reliable list out there somewhere done by someone who knows their stuff? For now IÂm going by the ACT government list (type in Âfirewise home gardensÂ) and the Country Fire Service of South Australia list, in the hope that after their bush fires, theyÂll have done some decent research. If anyoneÂs interested, I have compiled a list of most commonly mentioned fire retardant plants, with a code indicating who recommends them, whether the Tassies reckon they are flammable, and whether they are weeds  an amazing number of them are! Do you want me to post it? These are the other results I got testing plants on my bonfire. Acacia iteaphylla (flinders range wattle which many lists say is fire retardant) burnt pretty easily. Acacia vestita and acacia elata (cedar wattle) were slow to burn. Acacia floribunda and a. cognata both flared up very quickly. The needles of casuarina cunninghamiana flared into flame quite quickly but immediately died, and the wood didnÂt seem inclined to burn. Eucalyptus leucoxylon took quite a while to catch, then just kind of melted  however it often has quite a few dead branches on the tree so this could be a fire hazard. Corymbia/euc maculata burnt like leucoxylon. Callistemon little john and c. dawson river weeper didnÂt catch quickly, and didn't burn with a whoosh. Hakea laurina (pincushion hakea) didnÂt catch very easily. Leptospermum nanum (red) flared up very quickly. Japanese bamboo was terrifying, it exploded, sounding like gunfire going off all over the valley, although admittedly it was dry, as weÂd cut it down during an evacuation alert. Does anyone know if rosemary actually is a good fire retardant? I've seen it on quite a few lists; some say only the prostrate form is fire tolerant.

Technically, any large (or medium) sized tree has the potential to have invasive roots - it is just that some are more invasive than others. Structural problems are usually not caused by root upheaval, but by the reduction in moisture in reactive clay soils which cause soil shrinkage and potential movement in the foundations. It is usually a good idea not to plant trees and shrubs no closer to the house than their mature height - so, a tree that grows 8 metres should be planted a minimum of 8 metres from the house. As far as shady trees are concerned, you may want to look at the Blush Macaranga - grows to 6 metres and produces one of the best shade canopies of large heart shaped leaves I have seen. It self-seeds prolifically, however, so you need to be careful. Some of the grafted gum trees may be okay - 5+ metres high with very showy flower displays in summer. Ian

If you wanted to try cuttings, Pos02, check the advice given on raising Gymea seeds on the forum. This info is also true for cuttings. You need relatively new growth to form the cutting material and there are various ways of providing a cover for the cuttings. Use cut off plastic drink bottles and remove the cap. A number of cuttings will fit into a 5" pot and when carefully separated, are easily transplanted to their own pots to grow on for a while.