Australasia

Australasia: a slightly fluid geopolitical term that has at its heart, the islands of Australia and New Zealand – these lands that sat in splendid isolation for millennia where the flora and fauna evolved along different pathways to inhabit the various ecological niches to the way plants developed in much of the northern hemisphere.  

With a whole continent to choose from it is no surprise that there are many wonderful plants that have adapted happily to thrive in our gardens. To our eyes many are quirky, but things that in the 70s were new and exotic are now accepted as mainstream. Beautiful trees like Eucalyptus coccifera and Griselinia littoralis, or the most weird and wonderful trees like Pseudopanax ferox or Acacia pravissima. 

Amongst the various antipodean shrubs that have reached our shores are new and charming friends like the plethora of Pittosporums, or various Hoheria, Sophora and Corokia. So many gardens now offer homes to Phormium tenax and Cordyline australis, and there has to be mention of my most beloved Muehlenbeckia complexa and its even more delightful cousin Muehlenbeckia astonia. Oh, the list goes on, and on and on!