Bougainvillea plants in the Nursery

Written by Admin | 26 August 2010

Bougainvillea's would have to be one of my favourite tropical plants - not only do they come in amazing variations of flower colour, but they are also tough and low maintenance once they establish themselves in your garden. There is nothing more impressive than a 'wall' of Bougainvillea, grown up a trellis or dead tree, completely covered by flowers! We've just welcomed some new varieties of Bougainvillea in our nursery:

Bougainvillea Smartie Pants

Bougainvillea Smartie Pants, or Smarty Pants has beautiful, vibrant pink flowers. It is one of the toughest Bougainvillea’s with a good, strong root system. It is a compact, vigorous growing plant. Leaves and flowers are packed along the stems very densely, giving it a very distinctive look.

Bougainvillea Temple Fire, a dwarf Bougainvillea

Bougainvillea Temple Fire is a true dwarf form of Bougainv illea. It does not grow larger than about 60cm tall,  making it excellent as potted plants, border, or even bedding plant. Bougainvillea temple Fire is often used as bedding plant in Hawaii. It has a very compact, shrubby growth habit. Flowers are pink to deep red. Bougainvillea Temple Fire is best grown in full sun, with regular watering. This is a hybrid of Bougainvillea glabra and Bougainvillea peruviana.

Bougainvillea Killie Campbell

Bougainvillea Killie Campbell is a spectacular, vigorous plant with unique flowers with start out reddish bronze, and change to deep pink before fading to a lighter cream. This gives Bougainvillea Killie Campbell a multi-coloured look, which is stunning.  It has a weeping, less vigorous growth habit, which makes it excellent for pots, hanging over the side, or on balconies and window boxes.

Some of our varieties that we already stocked in the nursery are:

Bougainvillea Gloucester Royal

Gloucester Royal is the darkest of reds with new growth being purplish red. It is fairly large growing with dark green leaves. Bracts are a stunning wine-red with cream flowers. Colour is often compared to a good Claret!

Other Bougainvillea in our nursery include: Bougainvillea Purple Cascade, Bougainvillea Scarlet Glory, Bougainvillea Orange Glory, Bougainvillea Magnifica, Bougainvillea Klong Fire & others. You can buy our Bougainvillea here: Buy Bougainvillea 

Some general Bougainvillea growing info:

Bougainvillea information:

Bougainvilleas originally came from South America, but hybridisation didn’t start until the early 1900’s. All Bougainvilleas provide a spectacular flower show for the garden, although this colour is not actually the flower, but rather the bracts, which surround the tiny little flower. In warm climates Bougainvillea’s flower on and off throughout the year. In cooler climates, most Bougainvilleas will flower throughout summer.

Bougainvillea cultivation

Bougainvillea is best grown in well-draining soil, with added fertilizer in spring & summer. Choose a fertilizer containing high amounts of Phosphorus and Potassium for optimum flowering colour. Grow in full sun to part shade with plenty of light. Bougainvillea is very hardy and survives without much water once established. They appear to thrive on neglect and will put on a fabulous flower show in warm positions with plenty of sunlight.

Encouraging flowers by way of pruning is not always recommended, as strong vegetative growth will form if your Bougainvillea is hard pruned. Once in vegetative growth, Bougainvillea will produce long thorns, rather than beautiful flowers. If pruning is necessary to keep your plant under control, give it a light prune at the end of the flowering period. If your Bougainvillea has already gotten out of control, and there is no way out but to prune it back hard, apply a fertilizer which encourages flowering such as ‘Better Bloom’.

Very low maintenance & easy to grow, an asset to any garden, park or other spot!

Beautiful Tropical Foliage: Cordylines

Written by Admin | 24 August 2010

Propagation is from seed or cuttings. Cordylines can be pruned to shape & size, and off cuts can be replanted to create a brand new plant to add to the garden.

Cordyline responds well to regular fertilizing. Fertilise regularly, e.g. every 6 months, with a fertiliser designed for foliage plants, or any organic fertilizer.  

There are many varieties of Cordylines, of stunning colours and foliage. Here are some of our Cordy’s:

Cordyline Hawaiian Sunset:

A real stunner! Great colouring (enhanced in dappled light – but can grow full sun) with cupped, compact leaves. Hawaiian Sunset is sure to provide a great feature or potted plant in any garden.

Cordyline Nigra:

Purple to black foliage. Very hardy & low maintenance. Best in a well lit position.

Cordyline Pink Tip:

Pink Tip is a stunning variety of Cordyline. Leaves are a rich purple colour, with new leaves being a bright, hot pink. 

Cordyline Purple Compacta:

Purple Compacta is a stunning variety of Cordyline with a compact, miniature growing habit. Leaves range in shades from dark green mixed with a rich purple, dark red & chocolate. Leaves are short, wide & shiny.

Cordyline Purple Prince:

Gorgeous Cordyline with deep purple foliage. Very hardy plant and low maintenance. Grows 1.2-2m tall and is drought and salt tolerant. Flowers are pale pink

Cordyline Red Edge:

Bright green foliage with pink to red edges, darkening in colour with age. Very classy!

Cordyline Romba:

Bright, colour-adding Cordyline. Shiny green foliage with purple & pink shades throughout. Very hardy & low maintenance

Cordyline Rosebud:

Rosebud is a striking sun hardy Cordyline with dark red foliage, being lighter red to pink during autumn & winter. This medium-tall Cordyline provides great all year round colour and is very low maintenance. .

Cordyline Suzies Choice:

Stunning bright hot pink foliage with purplish markings and edges – colours brighten with age

Pruning Frangipani plants (Plumeria rubra)

Written by Admin | 20 August 2010

My husband and I used to live in an old 1940’s Queensland Rail railway carriage. However nostalgic this may sound, it was time to move into a new house once the termites became too numerous to fight, and a new baby was on the way! I couldn’t imagine a baby crawling on the crumbling concrete floor, or having her sleep peacefully with our resident Carpet Python in the kitchen…

It was time to move into our new home, with one unfortunate side effect – we had to leave our gardens behind. Although we still see the gardens, as we have now turned the old railway carriage into our nursery packing room, it’s still a shame to have so many beautiful plants and see so little of them. We decided to move most of the plants and re-plant them in our new gardens, which now double as gardens for mother stock plants. One of the plants, or trees really, was a Frangipani, of around 4 meters high. It’s definitely the way to start a garden, with nice tall trees to grow into it, but moving the tree was a challenge!

I needed to prune it down, not only for convenience sake as this was a really tall heavy tree, but also in the best interest for the tree. Moving plants can cause them to loose or damage a few roots, and it’s good to offset that by cutting back the foliage, or in this case the branches. Plants tend to loose moisture through their foliage, which can be contained by cutting them back a bit. Lucky for us, Fiskars has been kind enough to send us some of their tools for us to review, including secateurs, hedging shears and one of their Easy Reach Pruning Wands. The Easy Reach Pruning Wand has been brilliant for this job, as it has a very high vertical cutting reach.

Anyone who has every pruned a Frangipani tree, or taken cuttings of it, knows how messy they can be, or even dangerous if you get the caustic sap in your eyes, nose or mouth. It can also cause skin irritation in some people. Rather than standing on a ladder, close to the source of the bleeding sap, you can stand safely on the ground, away from the drip. I started to prune my Frangipani on a ladder with a pair of secateurs, but ended up with sap all down my back, so I was very happy I could finish the job with the pruning wand. The Fiskars pruning wand will also be great for pruning the tops of my Lilly Pillies and other fairly tall shrubby plants where I never ventured before as it was too high. And frankly, I’m a big sook on ladders so I’ll pick the pruning wand over the ladder any day!

The Fiskars Easy Reach Pruning Wand is really easy to use, nothing like the old fashioned rope operated style pruners – it cuts like a dream with ease. It could handle much bigger jobs than my Frangipani, which is relatively soft. Give it a go yourself or come and check my out – it’s sure to be at the front of the garden shed from now on!

Keep an eye on our blog, or subscribe to it by entering your email address on the right hand side, as we’ll be giving some Fiskars and Hozelock products away for FREE soon!

Online Nursery Plant Packaging Methods

Written by Admin | 17 August 2010

The thought of buying plants online at an online nursery may spark the question: ‘How are the plants packaged?’, and ‘How will they be sent'?’. The idea of mail ordering plants is relatively new, and not surprising seeing the huge popularity of the internet, and home shopping. Plants are surprisingly resilient and, with the proper packaging and preparation, can successfully be transported to all parts of Australia. Therefore, plants make excellent products for online shops.

Depending on the nursery, plants will either be sent via Australia Post or via courier. We (National Tropicals Online Nursery) always use Australia Post for all our mail order plants, but we ONLY use the Express Post option. It is very important to make sure your nursery uses the fastest transport method possible, so your plants arrive at your home as quick and healthy as possible. Couriers are another great way of transporting nursery stock, but they do not go to all parts of the country. For example, our nursery is located in Rosedale, Queensland, and couriers will not come here. We need to drive to Bundaberg which is 80 km away from us, to pick up nursery stock and supplies.

Packaging is another issue with two major possibilities. You will find nurseries who prefer posting their plants potted, and nurseries who prefer posting plants without soil, also called ‘bare-rooted’. Bare-rooted is a bit of an unfortunate name, as the roots of the plants are not actually bare! We always use the bare root method in our nursery as we believe there are major advantages for the plants and our customers. Understandably, it might sound like a less favourable method of sending plants, but when we compare the two packaging methods, the soilless way is by far the better way to go.

Not only are the roots of soilless nursery plants better protected during transport, as they do not shake around in loose dirt, the plants are also much better secured in the cardboard boxes, avoiding stem breakage. Our boxes can be thrown, tossed, shaken and dropped, and we can guarantee they will not move an inch! When this is done with plants which are packed in pots and soil, they will end up everywhere, with broken roots and possibly damaged foliage.

Also, soil harbours many, many pests and diseases. When you, for example, check certain states’ quarantine regulations, it will always state ‘soil and soil matter’ is NOT allowed to enter the state. This is because a lot of pests and diseases thrive in soil. We also do not want to spread weeds which may be growing in the soil, from our nursery to your garden, or weed seeds which may be present in the soil. Using the soilless nursery packaging method also enables us to properly soak the roots in seaweed solution, strengthening them and protecting them for the journey.

Soilless packaging of nursery stock also has benefits for you, or more so, your wallet… soilless plants can be beautifully packaged in compact boxes, and save weight by leaving out the weight of the soil. They can therefore be posted much cheaper, such as our flat rate postage of only $9.95 per order, for as many plants as you would like to combine in your order from our nursery. They then also fit into express post satchels, ensuring they arrive at most places in Australia overnight, or Wednesday!

So when you are browsing online nurseries, make sure you check their packaging methods, it can make a huge difference to the health and condition of the plants when they arrive at your doorstep!