This area is rather biggish and some plants disappeared after the wild weather this year, but many will reappear, I’m sure they did so in the past. I named everything what’s there but the Maianthemum racemostum should come back as several species of Solomon’s seal.
Around the letterbox:
There is a grafted walnut tree “placentia” which already starts bearing. Underneath a very ornamental polygonum a fuchsia and one ornamental which could be a special hydrangea. There is also a forsythia shrub ‘Lynwood Gold’ and a nice blue flowered salvia which probably would profit a lot from moving it into a sunnier spot. At the garden edge is a luma apiculata, one of the novelty fruits which actually tastes nice.
Under and around the Feijoa:
The two feijoas actually bear fruit , even though they are in the shade. I think feijoas tastes much nicer than any other guava, which would not grow in Katoomba anyway. The other advantage is that they are fruiting very late in the season. The daffodils already coming up and will give a stunning display in winter. Right at the front there are some true primroses primula veris and alpine strawberries. There are also a couple of helleborus in that area, white and pink. There is a very poor thorny gooseberry shrub which urgently wants a sunnier spot. Some lillies flower well in summer. And there is another plant for the avid botanist: an elderberry,one of the rarer ones, I lost the tag. Either it is the red variety, or the blue or Sambucus canadensis. The spot is not very ideal either because elderberries like moisture and a fertile soil. The camellia which grows there, I believed it to be an ornamental one but he says that it’s the tea camellia, camellia sinensis, so it must be right.
A bit More towards the Water Tank under the first Hazelnut:
There is Herb Bennet or geum urbanum, and polygonum chinense. This Chinese knotweed is medicinal, but not the sought after polygonum multilforum. And there is a profusion of the Chinese Artichoke, a little fiddly but nice tasting root crop. Still in the sun you will find catmint, salad burnet, stachys officinalis and a tiny quince which is either a Japanese one or a Chinese. Under the hazelnut grows an epimedium without a name, I believe it is a hybrid. But in case you are after another medicinal one left from the hazelnut there is a good clump of epimedium wuhanense (and there is the other medicinal epimediumin bed 2). to make matters worse, you will find a fourth epimedium species without a name on the hilly bit. Close to the phone pole there are violets which I bought from the honeysuckle cottage nursery and the variety is “Dilly Dilly” they might have crossed with the wild sweet violets over the years though.
Further inside the little Woodland:
Still around the phone pole there is asarum canadense or American wild ginger, not a ginger at all but the roots have a slight ginger taste. On the hilly bit alexanders (smyrnium olusatrum) is coming up in bigger quantities anyone could use. But there is also one geranium with a lost name and cute Labrador violets, geum canadense, figwort, a red mitsuba and a variegated one (the red one needing more sun) and two plants pinellia ternata. Towards the property boundary are two ginkgo trees growing and some more elderflowers, there is an elderberry, some hydrangeas one of them being the h. quercifolia and an ornamental which I cannot name (big velvety leaves and stunning looking yellow flowers in early spring). One of the two species of cephalotaxus is growing there too, it’s the one with the longer needles. There is also a sizeable shrub of Siberian Ginseng Eleutherocaoccus senticosus. It’s actually time to dig it up for the root harvest and let the smaller ones around grow big. Further towards the sun woodruff comes up in early spring with fresh green leaves and fairy like flowers. In between there is a tiny English oak (or a German oak depending on your origin)
Further along the Sunny Edge:
Feverfew comes up were it wants and there is eriantis flowering in spring. further towards the house grows a healthy shrub of camellia sinensis, or Tea plant, a nice shrub of myrthus communis the culinary myrtle, a blueberry shrub an artichoke and underneath linaria vulgaris. Now another riddle for the botanist a small plant with feathery leaves, which is for certain a medicinal herb. The label is unreadable.
Right at the water tank and in the back:
The tree in front of the hazelnut by the water tank is one of the elaegnus species. I had keriberry growing there and it still comes up, but it is way too big for the spot. The trellis now has dioscorea opposita growing on it (it would probably better giving it a dedicated bed space). Right in the back on the little hill grows hoary mountain mint Pycnanthemum incanum and another mint which is not a mint cunila origanoides, both don’t spread and both die back in winter. There is also a chinese quince.
I’ll keep you updated!
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