Sue - where to start? I just checked your page and see that you are a busy mum with young kids - with that in mind - there are a few things which you will need to consider:

1. Will the kids play in this area? If so, you may want to avoid planting too many grevilleas (can cause skin reactions) and wattles (can cause hayfever with pollen).

2. Do you want a formal look? a cottage look? a native bush look? Do you want to mix with exotics or have predominantly natives?

3. Do you want to have functionality - eg shading of house/lawn? Screening of road/neighbours?

4. Do you have favourite colours?

5. What type of soil do you have?

6. How cold/hot do you get?

Sorry for so many questions - but whenever I see the question "what can I plant" - the answer so much depends on what type of garden you would like (look for your outcome first, and then plant towards that).

With native plants, you can have almost any type of garden you want - I have a bush/native type of garden out back, but a cottagy potager garden out the front with natives mixed with deciduous fruit trees, strawberries, citrus and other exotics. It really depends on the look you would like to have.

I am more of a nov ice than i thought.
1. No kids playing
2. Native bush look
3. No real function other than looking nice
4. like white and red shades
5. ? will investigate
6. Quite hot in sydney summer, rare frost in winter
Hope this helps you to help me
sue

Sue - ok - if no kids playing and you want a native bush look then you might want to go for some taller small trees or large shrubs at the back, and have some smaller pretty things underneath. It's hard to explain - but if you can imagine a bush setting with trees and undergrowth.

Being from WA - I am most familiar with WA natives - but plants which will give you a beautiful red and white can include the eucalyptus torquata (grows to about 4 to 5 m) and has sparse shade - not too dense so things will grow underneath. Silver princess is another eucalyptus which has a weeping growth and the most beautiful red flowers with silvery bits on the buds. I have three dwarf euc. ficifolia in my front yard - the grafted ones "Summer beauty" etc - and they are gorgeous as well. They will only get to about 4 m.

For some reason, odd numbers always look better - so you could plant maybe three trees across the seven metre span, and under plant with a mix of smaller plants. If you want to screen a wall, then I would plant densely at the back with taller shrubs - but if there is no wall, and you want it to look visually attractive from both the house and the outside, then you may want to just whack the 3 trees in the middle of the bed.

For bush look planting, I would suggest repeating a lot of one type of plant for the undergrowth - in the natural bush there is actually not of a heck of a lot of variety in a small area - so you may want to either use a native grass, kangaroo paws, native irises or similar as your repeat plant. Also, if possible, try to avoid planting in straight lines, try to avoid having straight lined garden beds (curves are much nicer on the eye). Mulch with wood chips/ tree mulch.

Plants that you may want to try for undergrowth - would include :

* eriostemon (comes in pinks and whites - star like flowers),

* correas (native fuschia - fuschia like flowers which come in orange/red, red and green, white),

* croweas (star like flowers comes in purplish red, pinks, whites),

* grevilleas - of all varieties - birds just adore them,

There are so many other plants - I think all you can do is go out to a good native nursery near by and buy whatever you think is pretty. Not very technical, I know, but it's kind of what I do. Zanthorrea.com.au is a native nursery in Perth and on its website they have a plant guide - it tells you the conditions the plants grow in (eg shade, dry, wet) and also the height and width. I have found it very helpful. Floraforfauna.com.au is also very worthwhile to visit.

I am sure others on this site will give you their tips on what to plant and what designs have worked for them. I have planted so many plants and love them all - so it is hard for me to pick favourites !!

Hi Sue. Agnes has already said so much really helpful stuff that I will just add my recent local experience in choosing plants for an area close to you - I am in Newcastle so our climate is very similar. I'm in the middle of a major landscaping job to turn my backyard into native paradise - a Backyard Blitz WITHOUT a dozen buff guys behind the camera, ready to leap out and do all the hard yakka!

I spent a lot of time talking to the terrific people at our local native nursery, and visited the native plant society to find out what works well here. I ended up planting the following:

Trees:
* Summer Red flowering gum - grafted onto a rootstock that suits our climate here
* Acacias - Sydney Golden Wattle
* Grevilleas - Honey Gem and Kay Williams

Underplanting:
* Callistemon Little John (about 1m tall)
* Kangaroo paws - the Bush Gems range
* Filling all the gaps in the back and middle: Lomandra Tanika (about 60cm tall)
* And native purists should look away now ... I filled all the gaps at the front of the beds with gazania punnets. Not native, I know, but tough as nuts, great for smothering weeds, and just so lovely.

Like Agnes suggested, these underplantings are in large "Drifts" - clumped together, they look more natural and are easier to look after. This sounds like a lot of plants but I have a large area to cover. Phew ... I'm nearly done now! I have lost a few kilos doing all this! The last plants went in this afternoon and I just have to mulch now, but it is likely to rain here tomorrow so I will let that soak in first. I will water for this first summer, but after that, I intend this to be a water-free garden. All these plants should cope with our local natural rainfall.

Well not ENTIRELY water-free now that I think of it: don't forget some water for the birds to have a drink as they visit your beautiful garden. They will just love it. I hope you have as much fun as I am having here!

Ooh something extra I just thought to add. Do you have PowerPoint on your PC, Sue? I set up a program that showed my garden to scale and the sizes of different plants, to create an amateur version of those fancy garden plans you always see on the TV. Once set up, it is simply a matter of pasting in the plants you like, and moving them around to suit. Kindof like playing with lego. (I'm on a break from work at the moment and my hubbie reckons that this is displaced work withdrawal! But I just reckon I'm slightly pathetic ...)

If you have the program and know how to use it (basic cutting and pasting is all you will need to do), let me know and I will send you the file to play with. I found it was really useful to work out how many plants etc.

... oh dear ... I just read back over that and realise just how sad I sound. I THINK IT IS TIME TO GO BACK TO WORK!!!

thanks, I will visit a few nurserys with your feedback as a guide. Thanks for taking time to help.
Sue

Hi, it is just a few suggestions that you might like to also consider. I am not too sure how the following design principles would work in your situation as there are many factors to take into consideration but here are some basics.

Most plants fall into a distinct colour of foliage. Silvers, eg, olives, blue spruce, bird of paradise and festuca glauca. Burgandys, eg, guara, cordylines and fagus sylvatica purpurea. Dark green,eg camellias and chinese star jasmine, yellow based green, eg, viburnum emerald lustre and golden cane palms. and then the rest like azaleas, mock orange lilypillies etc. You can easily tell once it is pointed out. The trick is that some of these colour look better than others when placed together, they usually all look "good" but with a little bit of thought they can look "wow". Now you stated that you wanted a native bush look, when i redid my gardens to tolerate reduced watering, i placed my natives in groupings with their colours in mind as well as their different structure, the size of the leaf, grevillea mostly have a fine leaf, and were placed next to alders which have a larger leaf. and also the shape the plants will grow into. I used the structure of the bird of paradise next to flowing, breezy plants like polygala. I am now concerned that i have totally confused you and at the end of the day it is meant to be fun and many gardeners will tell you that they haven't truely got the garden "right" until things have been moved around abit. Please enjoy the new venture and hopefully when you look around nurseries you might see some examples much better than I have been able to explain them. regards Amanda

Sue,

The small grevilleas are worth considering, such as G. "Robyn Gordon".

Some of the small callistemons may be useful as well - take a look at the link below and click on "selected species and cultivars".

Here is a link that might be useful: callistemon

Take a walk around the neighbourhood and see what is growing, what looks good and how the garden is designed, mulched, etc. You may be lucky and see someone working in their garden who looks approachable and ask them what grows well. If you compliment them on their plants, they are more likely to open up and discuss them with you.

Also check out any local botanical gardens, parks, footpath plantings, visit nurseries, open gardens, etc. to get ideas on design and tree styles.

Actually, the best way to see what grows in your local are is to visit some native bushland. Once you read up on native plants, you will get an idea of what types they are. Also don't forget microclimates - you might have a WA type garden in one place, and a rainforest in another area.