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About
If you are a gardener living in the Mount Alexander Shire (MAS) this tool is for you. It will enable you to confidently select indigenous plants that will thrive in your garden and create habitat for local wildlife, by putting local plant knowledge at your fingertips for 100 species found in MAS.
Many of us make hasty choices in nurseries, resulting in wasted money, time and very dispiriting results. Use this tool before you purchase plants to identify the right plant for you, your garden and for the environmental conditions of your site. Simply filter the list of 100 plants to find the plant you need, based on criteria that include plant height, tolerance to drought and waterlogging, horticultural uses and the wildlife that you want to attract and support through habitat creation. By growing local plants in local gardens, you can help create win-win landscapes that support both the wellbeing of people and biodiversity in our shire.
This tool was created by Dr Cassia Read who, over many years, collected ecological and horticultural information about local species suitable for gardens. She recorded this information in a database, accompanied by a large collection of photos. The database was developed into a website by Green Graphics with support from the Mount Alexander Shire Council’s Community Grants Program. Cassia continues to maintain and update the database and website.
All plants included on this website are found growing naturally across Djandak (Dja Dja Wurrung Country). We acknowledge the work of Dja Dja Wurrung in caring for Djandak over millennia and we hope this website will support the essential work of healing this upside down Country.
How to use the Plant Selection Tool
Use the various filters on the Plant Selection Tool homepage to find the right plant for you and your garden. The more criteria you filter on, the fewer plants will appear on your final list, so only use filters when you are sure they are necessary. The total number of plants on your filtered list will appear at the top of the page. You can filter plants species by:
- Minimum and maximum Height (meters), using the slide tool, or identify the Lifeform that will fill a space in your garden (i.e. tree, shrub, ground cover etc).
- Horticultural use to find plants that meet a particular need or style of garden bed, including plants recommended for a:
- Hedge – tend to resprout and become more dense after a hard-prune;
- Containers – grow well in pots;
- Grassy Woodland – grow well in dappled shade under an open tree canopy;
- Windbreak – tolerant of windy conditions and have an canopy that diffuses the strength of the wind;
- Screen – shrubs with a dense canopy that can screen out a fence or unsightly view;
- Shrub Mass – grow well in a mass planting of shrubs to create a bird refuge or create a mass effect to fill an area of the garden;
- Perennial Border – includes robust, flowering perennials that grow well and look good in a naturalistic garden border.
- Tolerance to various environmental conditions is ranked from low to good, based on their comparative tolerance to conditions encountered in the Mount Alexander Shire. You can only filter on species tolerance to Drought and Waterlogging, but information on tolerance to other environmental conditions, such as cold, soil compaction and acidity, is provided on the species pages.
- Biodiversity benefit to identify plants that will create habitat for local animals that you that wish to attract to your garden, or that you wish to support through creation of wildlife corridors.
To help you view your filtered list, you can sort plants by their scientific name, common name or sort in a random order. When you are done with filtering and want to go back to the full list, just hit the Reset button.
Acknowledgements
This website is supported by the Mount Alexander Shire Council’s Community Grants Program.
Information presented in this database was sourced from literature and plant databases from across south eastern Australia, local observations by Cassia Read, as well as information provided by the following experts:
- Ada Nano provided information about the habitat value of each plant species for wildlife living in Central Victoria.
- Dr Meredith Cosgrove collaborated in the early formation of this plant database and brought extensive plant knowledge and wisdom to bear on its evolution.
Frances Cincotta, owner/manager of Newstead Natives, provided information on local flowering times and shared her expertise about growing and propagating local species. Frances also reviewed plant species information presented on this website and provided photos.
- Ian Higgins, Friends of Cambpells Creek and local plant expert, reviewed this website, providing local insights and rigorous review of species classification. He also provided photos.
Key published sources of information for this Plant Selection Tool include the following online databases: Castlemaine Flora, Vic Flora (Flora of Victoria), Burnley Plant Guide, SA Plant Selector, Australian Plants Society, Yarra Ranges Local Plant Directory and City of Melbourne Urban Nature Planting Guide.