Blooming in the Blue Mountains

From the King Protea to vibrant camellias, there’s plenty that blooms in a winter garden. Here are some of the plants blooming at the Blue Mountains Botanic Garden Mount Tomah to use as inspiration in your home garden.

This species always elicits much admiration when it’s in flower. The flowers are the largest of all protea species which is why its regarded as the King Protea. The species refers to the similarity in appearance to an unrelated plant, Cynara cardunculus - the Globe Artichoke. This plant can be found in the beds in the South African Rock Garden near the Visitor Centre.

Camellias flower all through autumn, winter and spring. Camellia reticulata is one of the best winter flowering species. It comes in a variety of sizes and colours and is a hardy beautiful plant for the garden. With their velvety texture, these plants can be found in the Garden’s Residence Garden, along the Explorers Walk, the Brunet Garden and the Formal Garden.

Crocus are a very popular group of bulbous plants. They flower from late summer to early spring. This species flowers in mid-winter in profusion and on a sunny winter day, the blooms open creating a stunning carpet of flowers. This is an easy growing plant in many gardens and is suitable for a garden bed or growing in turf. It can be found at Tomah under the big oaks in the Residence Garden.

This beautiful dwarf wattle was found locally near the Garden at Clarence. It is rare and only occurs in three places, Clarence being one of them. It flowers profusely in August and grows well at the Blue Mountains Botanic Garden. This plant can be found near the World Heritage Education Centre garden beds.

Narcissus have been grown at the Garden from when the location was a cut flower farm in the 1940’s.  Since then, the collection under the Gardens have grown in varieties with more than 120,000 bulbs in the Brunet Meadow. With representatives of each of the 13 divisions of narcissus grown on this site, the best time to see collection is from July through to September, with the peak season in August.

 Head to the Gardening at Home section of our website for expert advice.