Bee friendly all year with beautiful correas

These winter flowers such as correas and native fuchsias are not only beautful but also important for pollinators.

A Western Honey Bee inside a correa flower.

Correas or native fuchsias are small shrubs with bell-like, tubular flowers that attract birds and insect pollinators with their nectar. Importantly, many of them flower through winter when other food sources are scarce and gardeners welcome additional colour. Some varieties can flower most of the year. There are 11 native species, found in all areas except the Northern Territory, with flower colours ranging from white and green to pink, orange and red. Correas are generally tough, drought-tolerant and pest-free plants and they thrive in coastal areas; some take frosts. However, they do need good drainage and they don’t like high humidity. The silver-leafed correa, Correa alba, takes full sun but many others such as C. pulchella and C. reflexa – and varieties bred from them – thrive in dappled light, making them useful in shadier urban gardens and bush gardens under trees. Plant breeders have extended the colour range and flower size, and developed plants that are more compact. A light prune after flowering will keep plants bushy and you can even form the compact varieties into a low hedge. Correas also grow well in pots.

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Ring in the Winter Season

The Winter Bells collection of 13 correas, bred by native specialist Peter Ollerenshaw, all flower in winter, many of them from autumn through to spring.

Catie Bec

Canberra Bells

Colours include white, cream, green and light pink to crimson.

Snowbelle

OMG

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Q&A

Our passionfruit vine has run amok, partially covering our lime and grapefruit trees. Will it suffocate them, reduce cropping or even kill them?

Al Green, Mylestom, NSW

The heavy foliage cover will stop essential sunlight reaching your citrus, which will stop them flowering and fruiting. It can also create a haven for pests. The sheer weight could also break branches. The passionfruit should tolerate a severe pruning but needs a large, strong support.

My red and orange grafted flowering gums are full of leaf but have rarely flowered in eight years. Will they ever flower or are they unsuccessful grafted plants?

Barbara Bourn, by email

If the grafts fail (and they often do with these trees), it affects all the top growth not just flowering. These plants should flower in their first few years. They need a full sun position to flower well. Too much high-nitrogen fertiliser (from the influence of lawn fertiliser or excess cow manure) encourages leaf growth at the expense of flowers. To your low-phosphorus fertiliser for natives you could add some potash to boost flowering.

My eight planter boxes (70cm x 60cm x 60cm) with Philodendron “Xanadu” and Syngonium get no sun for six months of the year. What could I add to fill gaps and hopefully have some flowers?

Graham McConnochie, by email

In such shade, not many plants will flower. You could try clivias, renga lilies (Arthropodium) and peace lilies (Spathiphyllum). Impatiens give masses of colour in the warm months but might need replanting each spring. Coleus have brightly colourful leaves, as do freckle face (Hypoestes); both also tend to die off in winter unless you’re in a warm climate. You could add pots of cyclamen already in flower to fill in for winter. Bloodleaf (Iresine herbstii) has ruby foliage all year. If you use freckle face, ensure you keep it in the planter boxes if you are in a state where it is of concern as an environmental weed.

Send your questions to [e-mail]. The best question for June wins an Aurus 450 Low Smoke Fire Pit with cover, valued at $149, bunnings.com.au. May’s winner is Heather Solly of Finniss, SA for her question about agapanthus

The Aurus low-smoke fire pit.