Australian Bush Life

Kangaroo Grass as a garden feature plant

Kangaroo Grass - Themeda triandra seed in head.

Ever been looking for a beautiful tufting, non-invasive native grass with unique flower/seed heads to stand out in your garden. Well you can’t go past Kangaroo Grass as a great ground cover plant. This is one of our favorites it has a great tufting form and from spring to autumn georgeous flower/seed heads develop and tower above the grass gently swaying in the breeze.

This stunning grass is reasonably common and easy to identify once in flower/seed. We are encouraging it to grow where ever we can it works well in rock gardens and also along pathways. It can take a bit of foot traffic but we generally encourage it to grow along the sides of our walking tracks, fence lines or lawn area where it doesn’t get too much wear and tear.

Kangaroo Grass a Bush Tucker Plant

Kangaroo Grass - Themeda triandra flower/seed heads

Kangaroo Grass is also a bush tucker plant with the large grass seeds being edible. They can be ground to make a flour and were commonly mixed with water to make a damper cooked on the fire by Indigenous Australians. We haven’t tried this as it would require quite considerable effort to harvest and grind to get enough flour to make a damper of a size worth eating – but it is on our list to try in the future!

Why plant non-native and often weedy feature grasses in gardens when such stunning local grass species are readily available from nurseries?

Kangaroo Grass a wildlife food

Kangaroo Grass - Themeda triandra grassland

Like all indigenous plants the Kangaroo Grass provides food and habitat for wildlife. The large grass seeds are generally eaten once they hit the ground by insects like ants and also larger wildlife particularly seed eating birds like pigeons and quails. The indigenous grasses generally all have a tufting format which provides the perfect hiding spots for many of our native ground dwelling birds such as the Common Bronzewing pigeon and Painted Button-quail.

Kangaroo Grass after bushfire

Currently we are busy trying to build up numbers of this indigenous grass which recovered in greater numbers on our bush block after the bushfire in 2009. So instead of harvesting seeds for eating we are currently harvesting the seed and working on good techniques to grow the grass from seed for planting out. This process is a little tricky but we have had some success this year and have found out that Kangaroo Grass seed has an after ripening time. Which means that after the seed is picked (dropped) then it still needs to ripen over another 6 months or so. We ensured that we packaged the seed away over last winter and this spring – summer we have managed to sprout some Kangaroo Grass germinants.

Small-leaved Clematis. Clematis microphylla. Flowers.

Since the bushfires in 2009 there has been a huge recovery of a quite rare climber the Small-leaved Clematis – Clematis microphylla. We had visually noted this plant prior to the bushfires but in the 18 months since the bushfire this plant has come back in abundance.

It was a welcome plant that quickly climbed up over dead limbs of burnt shrubs and bare slopes covering the ground. It is so vigourous that it completely shaded out areas that would have been open to weed invasion. The Small-leaved Clematis has delicate flowers in large numbers over winter and spring that cover the bush for many months – which is really beautiful.

Small-leaved Clematis. Clematis microphylla. Bird friendly climbing plant.

The Small-leaved Clematis was a critical plant for providing thick vegetation cover and shelter for our small bird life to return. We readily noticed the small birds returning about 10 months after the bushfire (Christmas 2009) when plants such as this one were thick enough to provide hiding places for the small birds that visit us like Superb Fairy-wrens. There are many other small birds such as pardalotes, spinebills & thornbills that also are regularly seen diving in and out of this plant.

Small-leaved Clematis is also a Bush Tucker plant with an edible root that can be roasted like a Yam Daisy (Murnong). We haven’t tried eating it though as we need to establish a population for eating purposes in our garden area. At the moment it is in the bush and we are leaving it to the wildlife. But we plan to grow and try harvesting this valuable plant as a food source…stay tuned for this experiment to come.

Common Hovea - Hovea heterophylla flower.

The Common Hovea – Hovea heterophylla is a recent find on our bush block. Although it is a reasonably common plant in our area we hadn’t seen it on our block until this year. It has just been flowering in the last half of August.

Obviously this plant must have been around before the bushfire to drop seed onto the ground but we hadn’t seen it and now all of a sudden we have found a single plant.

Common Hovea - Hovea heterophylla.

This plant is really pretty. Similar to Purple Coral-pea – Hardebergia violacia it is a small shrub but it’s difference is that it is more of a ground cover plant and not a climbing plant. Common Hovea flowers are a slightly lighter purple and the leaves are longer and thinner. This plant is very hardy and drought tolerant. Also like the Purple Coral-pea would attract wildlife.

Common Hovea is also known to be a Bush Tucker plant in that the young pods are edible. We haven’t sampled any yet or really learnt if there is any processsing required prior to eating or if they are just eaten fresh and raw. We still have this to learn.

Geoffrey Gurrumul Yunupingu is such a fantastic musician. We really like to listen to his music to get more in touch with nature (country). He sings in his local language and it makes you feel more connected. Although we can’t understand his language it is so beautiful to hear songs being sung in an aboriginal language as this is very rarely done. A highly recommended album one of our favorites!

Purple Cora-pea - Hardenbergia violacea. Flowers.

Well spring appears to be just around the corner again! The shortest day has passed and the next round of wildflowers are coming on now that it is late winter. One of the first to emerge in a full display of purple glory is the Purple Coral-pea – Hardenbergia violacea.

This indigenous plant is a climber, extremely hardy and will flourish in dry and sunny conditions. As with many of the pea family of plants Hardenbergia violacia responded well to the recent bushfire, it’s hard seeds survived the fire and the plants were one of the first to flower in the first winter after the bushfire event. Each plant can sprawl out metres across the ground, it readily droops over garden beds or will also willingly climb anything to reach metres off the ground. The purple flowers are truely striking most especially when the are climbing and flowering simultaneously with a wattle. How nature can provide the contrast of yellow and purple is amazing!

The Purple Cora-pea – Hardenbergia violacea is readily cultivated and sold in nurseries. Warning though if you live on a bush block which has a natural population of this species it is important to not plant out cultivated varieties as they can interbreed with the wild population. Mixing the genetic stock may cause the wild plants to loose their natural charateristics that have made them so tough in their local environment.

Purple Coral-pea – Hardenbergia violacea. Climber.

Often the nusery varieties have been cultivated for features such as size, colour or excessive flowering so can actually be quite different from the orginal wild species. Some nurseries specialising in indigenous plants will maintain the natural genetic qualities from local regions so it is always worthwhile trying to source plants from local indigenous nurseries this way for garden use. Although this is an easy plant to collect seed from and germinate, so their really is no need to buy from nurseries if you already have this plant in the wild.

The purple flowers have a variety of bush tucker uses. The flowers can be eaten raw, they make a great color addition to salads. Additionally the flowers were used to make a purple dye. The leaves can also be boiled to make a sweet tea.

Hardenbergia violacia is also an important plant for our wildlife. On our bush block we have readily seen ants carrying seeds underground and parrots such as King Parrots or Crimson Rosellas landing on the ground to eat the seeds. So if you do harvest seeds or flowers from the wild don’t forget to leave some for the wildlife too!

This documentary is a great account of  the impacts on Indigneous Australians when Australia was discovered by Europeans.  This seven part series covered topics that were never taught when I was at school and is the first time that there are clear and precise accounts, by Aboriginal Australians, about what really happened.

A not to be missed series. We noticed that it was about to be repeated in Australia on SBS – April 2010 – read the comments about the series. This series would be a fantastic resource for schools to learn about Aboriginal culture and how it was shattered by a part of Australian history. A part that was not taught when I was at school and is possibly still missed today.

The sixth episode is about “Corranderk” and the area that we live in which details the strong aboriginal links to this land.

More about Aboriginal culture and bush tucker foods…

Roots of Bushtucker plant Foothill Yam-daisy. Microseris lanceolata. Murnong (Wurundjeri).

In addition to experimenting with eating Murnong or the Foothill Yam Daisy – Microseris lanceolata on the BBQ this summer we tried roasting it. This round we harvested in early March there is still the odd flower on the plant but it has really slowed down and this is supposed to be a good time to harvest it. The last harvest for the BBQ was a month ago.

Roast Murnong (Wurundjeri) - Foothill Yam-daisy. Microseris lanceolata.

We pulled out the largest Murnong we had and this was worthwhile as the root system was much bigger than the last round we tried, maybe an extra month in the ground had also allowed the Murnong to store more in its roots prior to winter coming. We simply cleaned the roots with water and then added them to our roast meal just like all the other vegetables. The texture great and taste again was quite delicious as it was roasted alongside sprigs of rosemary and onions.

Indigenous Ground Cover. Ivy-leaf Violets - Viola hederacea. A bush tucker plant.

For all the same reasons and similar to the indigenous ground cover plant Kidney-weed – Dichondra repens, Ivy-leaf Violet – Viola hederacea is a also great indigenous ground cover plant. Ivy-leaf Violet – Viola hederacea is drought tolerant and holds a lovely form, green foliage all year around. Pretty little mauve and white flowers are abundant and continue flowering for months over the spring and summer. Another great lawn alternative, for low foot traffic areas and a fantastic weed suppressor as it has 100% ground coverage aving no bare ground for weeds to take hold.

Viola hederacea. Ivy-leaf Violet flowers can be eaten raw as bushtucker.

The flowers are also edible bushtucker food, eaten raw can add color and interest to any salad. Harvest only some of the flowers to ensure the plant reproduces and to leave some for the wildlife too!

Burchardia umbellata - Milkmaids after bushfire

More beautiful indigenous plants Milkmaids -  Burchardia umbellata and Early Nancies – Wurmbea dioica, that returned in huge numbers the spring after the bushfire event. All the indigenous plants, the lillies on our bush block are also

Wurmbea dioica - Early Nancies after bushfire

bushtucker plants. The underground tubers can be dug up after the flowering and fruiting season and eaten. Currently we don’t eat the lillies out of our indigenous bush as we are leaving them as habitat for wildlife, but in the future we may try to grow lillies in our bushtucker garden for eating purposes.

River Mint - Mentha australis. Indigenous Bush tucker Plant.

River Mint – Mentha australis is a really easy to grow, harvest and use bush tucker plant. Actually just like other mint plants it needs to be harvested regularly or it can take over an area quite quickly. River Mint is an indigenous plant that is great as a ground cover. Our plant was completely burnt in the bushfire but regrew itself from underground rhizomes (roots). After a bushfire plants like River Mint are really important as they cover the ground providing shelter to the bare soil and habitat for insects and other small reptiles like skinks to return after the bushfire.

River Mint - Mentha australis. Flowers.

For eating just harvest the leaves direct, wash and use as you would other mints. They are fantastic added to hot water as an infusion (tea) or also to roasts for a yummy minty flavour to your meat and vegetables.