A friend of Dorothy

Thursday 11 December 2014

A few weeks back I was revising our landscape design plan.  I really wanted to have a row of mass plantings of flowering Australian Native Plants as a privacy screen along our western boundary/perimeter fenceline in the backyard.  I spent ages trying to find something that I really liked.  I decided that a dense row of Grevilleas would do the trick.

Grevilleas are a diverse genus of about 360 species of evergreen flowering plants in the protea family Proteaceae.  They’re native to rainforest and more open habitats in Australia, Papua New Guinea, New Caledonia, Indonesia and Sulawesi.  Grevilleas range from prostrate shrubs of less than 50cm (20 inches), to tall trees of some 35 metres (115 ft) tall.

After weeks of avid Internet searching I came across a stunning brand new Grevillea that was only released onto the market on 26 April 2014.  It’s a beautiful new hybrid that just happened by chance.  It’s called a Grevillea ‘Dorothy Gordon’ and it originates from interstate at the Myall Park Botanical Gardens near Glenmorgan in Queensland, Australia.  As soon as I saw it I knew it was going to turn into a “must have”.  Quite co-incidentally, 26 April 2002 was the day when I first got the keys to the old home that previously stood on our block of land (which was demolished back in March this year to make way for our Douglas 10M with a Chase façade).  That was always an easy date to remember, being the day after ANZAC Day.  I was on a mission – I’d become a “friend of Dorothy” (in more ways than I had ever envisaged)! 

Given the right conditions, the Grevillea ‘Dorothy Gordon’ should grow to a mature height of about 3 metres tall and 2 metres wide.  Dorothy Gordon has stunning, nectar-filled flowers which bloom pretty much right throughout the year, which will attract our local native parrots and honey-eaters (like the brightly-coloured Rosellas and Lorikeets).  Dorothy Gordon will also provide a regular supply of stunning cut flowers for St. Francis and for inside the new home.  I think the colour of this hybrid’s flowers will complement the deep Burgundy/Maroon-coloured glass splashback in our new Kitchen.      

Typically for me, all of the nurseries in Sydney that are the approved distributors of the Dorothy Gordon had no stock available and they’re only taking advance orders until more stock becomes available sometime in the New Year (2015).  Drat!  I didn’t give up.  Bingo!  I found a new supply of Dorothy Gordons at a nursery at Empire Bay on the New South Wales Central Coast (about 100km North-East of us).  They were only delivered to the nursery this week.  I was able to get 13 Dorothy Gordons.  I’ve transferred the payment into the nursery’s bank account.  Pete’s brother, Mark, who lives on the Central Coast, has kindly offered to collect them for us and we really appreciate his help with that. 

Unfortunately, the only plant size available is a 140mm pot size, so my Dorothy Gordons are only going to be small.  We’ll just have to be patient and hope they reach a suitable screening height ASAP.  Grevilleas apparently don’t like much in the way of fertilisers and they cannot tolerate any Phosphorus.

Here’s some pictures that depict more advanced and mature Grevillea Dorothy Gordons.  I hope you like them.

(Click on pictures to view enlarged images)