Being Melbourne, I suspect it mean no Chinese workers. Few aboriginal Australians were employed in artisan positions in those days, so you wouldn't expect a piece you had bought to have been made by one of them. But there was a sizeable population of Chinese in inner Melbourne as a result of the gold rush of the late 1800s. Interestingly, on the goldfields, Chinese husbands were often preferred by European women, as they were regarded as more hard working and reliable and less likely to drink up their earnings than their European counterparts. The city of Bendigo has a large mixed Chinese-European population and celebrates Easter with a parade featuring one of the largest Chinese dragons in the world.

Frank, (and other members - but please note that I am particularly delighted to have found another forum member from Toowoomba) There are Bat's Wing Coral trees on the downhill side of Prince Henry Drive, which I assume to be naturally occurring. They are scrawny specimens compared with the glorious things we saw in the Aramac-Muttaburra area recently, which were a mass of red flowers and shrieking lorikeets, on a good big rounded canopy, in the most miserable country! I don't know whether the locals I've seen are just young, or whether that's how they grow round here. Atalaya hemiglauca goes well out there, too. With the predicted big global-warming fuelled dry-out of our climate, those of us who plant trees like this may be feeling very self-satisfied with our future planning, in twenty or so years time! On the same grounds, I think Brachychiton rupestris and populneus might be better than the others where a green tree is wanted. Their fire-resistance could have a much-needed firebreak effect when bushfires roar up the range as they were doing in Oct 2004. I have a suspicion that Ficus obliqua might be better than platypoda, but am never quite sure which tree it is I'm looking at when I see a fig in a sunny spot some hopelessly dry paddock around here. Do you know? Despite having written the book, I still have so many things to learn! The trick to identifying them is to catch them in fruit... To my great delight, some celerywood (Polyscias elegans) have come up spontaneously ("volunteered" as the Americans say) in my garden - and this in mid 2005 - Toowoomba's driest winter for more than a century. The area where they apeared is not one that I ever water. I suppose this is my reward for re-establishing a bit of a canopy. Tree cover of some sort is probably the "natural" environment as opposed to the dairy farms that would have been here for a century until supplanted by suburban sprawl. Someone else's comment in this forum about Angophora floribunda being a sign of a clean aquifer is interesting, isn't it? I wouldn't have thought of it as a rainforest tree - not even "arid rainforest" (love that expression)- but this is probably my unreasonable tendency to exclude Eucalypts from the "softwood scrub" category. It's hard to know where to draw the lines, isn't it, between "softwood scrubs" "dry vine scrubs", "dry rainforest" "marginal rainforest", and "rainforest". Especially when some of the same species seem to appear in the full range. Geijera parviflora definitely fits in the dry, sun-hardy end. It has a reputation of being very hard to germinate and establish, but I think there are local nurseries which have it. Love the plant, and it must be as tough as old boots once established. Are you growing it? I believe Petalostigma pubescens would be hardier than triloculare. In practice, I find that different people look at the same trees in my yard (I bought some labelled triloculare, I think) and are about evenly divided as to...

These plants are really sensitive to phosphorous in the soil. It also looks like a bit of overwatering. They are tricky to keep happy in pots and still a bit tricky in the soil, as they don't want too much food and need to be well-drained. I think you have there a combination of overwatering and too much phosphorous. (You probably didn't give it that, it often happens in nurseries where they feed all plants the same, when Proteacea plants need different fertilising).

Why take the risk? Macbirch, I understand exactly what you're saying. Planting natives does sometimes/often seem like a risk because we just don't have the collective knowledge about natives as we do exotics. About 2 years ago, I wanted to plant a hedge along the boundary between my native garden and my neighbour's property. I really liked the idea of using waratahs, but at that stage I'd never tried to grow one, and, since you don't see them around that much, thought they must be difficult. I decided not to take the risk and planted callistemons instead, at least they where natives. Anyway, I've since had great success growing 2 waratahs (even moved one), so I've decided to take out the callistemons, which aren't getting enough sun anyway, and replace them with waratahs. My point is that if I'd had the confidence in the first place, and got some decent advice from my local nursery, I wouldn't be now, 2 years down the track, going to all the work and expense of replacing the callistemons with what is afterall, a plant indigenous to the Blue Mountains! You'd think there'd be a waratah nursery here wouldn't you? No, I have to drive 40 minutes just to get to a native nusery, and that looks like it could close down any time soon. Waz, young people like you are the key. I hope you never grow exotics, never learn about them or decide you like them. Oh, and I hope you and Artie continue to be outspoken about people like me who grow roses. If I build another house and start a garden from scratch, things will be different.