BULLETIN

MWG 40th Anniversary - MWG is 40 this year and we want to celebrate! Are you interested in joining us on a bus tour to the Shoalhaven Heads Native Botanic Garden on Saturday October 10th? The committee would hire the bus but we will ask you to bring some party food to share for the picnic lunch. If we get the numbers we will lock it in.

Please indicate your interest via email to menaiwildflowergroup@gmail.com

Community Garden - Our Bootlace Orchid is budding near the mulch! We are open every Tuesday morning. There is always something to do and learn in the garden.

Out & about - here are some ideas for your calendar.

● APS Harbour Georges River (RSVP via their FB or aps_hgr_web@myyahoo.com )

○ Sun 23/08/26 - Bushwalk at Yeramba Lagoon, Picnic Pt. 10am - Orchid focus

○ Sat 12/09/26 - Tour of Sylvan Grove Native Garden, Picnic Point 10am

● SSC Bushcare - Thu 27/08/26 - Lucas Heights Conservation Area Walk - Explore Mill Botanist Dan Clarke. 9am - 12noon. Link to details & reservations

● SSEC Curlew Homecoming 2026 Festival Bundeena Sun Oct 11th - link to info

SSC Bushcare Fair Stall - Sun 20th Sept, 9:00 am–3:00 pm Biddy Giles Reserve Kirrawee, We are looking for people to help promote MWG and native plants to the community. Can you donate a couple of hours of your time? Contact us at menaiwildflowergroup@gmail.com

Working Bee - Sat 29th August 9:00am -12:00 Light refreshments and fun in abundance. Bring your gloves, hat etc. see you there.

Celebration of Lloyd Hedges - a wonderful celebration of the life of Lloyd Hedges was held on Sunday. Many thanks to Mary and the Hedges family for organising and thanks to our talented members Helen and Annie for their wonderful flower arrangements.

Looking forward to seeing you on Saturday.

Anthony Jackson - President

0408 600 521

Upcoming Meeting - APS AGM: Saturday 9th May 

Join us and bring a plate! Lucky door prize. Aust. Plant Society AGM: Activities start 9:30am - see separate email sent by Marion Payne Friday 1st May. Please help by bringing a plate. 

Guest Speaker - Thomas Mesaglio (iNaturalist Australia, UNSW) will speak on the flora of south-west Western Australia.

Walk - Woronora River Escarpment - Wednesday 13th May. Meet at  9:30 am at Thomas Mitchell Drive. Barden Ridge - link to full details

MWG Working Bee - Saturday 30th May is our next RFS Community Garden working bee. Come along and help maintain our beautiful garden.

From 9am. Lawn Mower - The community garden is soon to get a new electric lawn mower. Don’t be shy. Come and help us mow around our beautiful garden!

Friends of RNP are releasing Platypuses into the Hacking River at Jersey Springs. As members we can assist in the ongoing monitoring of the release. Will require attendance 1 hour before dawn or well into the night.

Express your interest in participating by contacting Anthony Jackson on 0408 600 521.

June 13th Meeting Speaker - Dr Beth Mott - currently working with Illawarra Lowland Grassy Woodlands (ILGW) and MWG are propagating grasses for her.

Looking forward to seeing you on Saturday.

Anthony Jackson   President  Tel: 0408 600 521

BULLETIN

Upcoming General Meeting: Saturday 11th April - 2pm

Join us and bring a plate! Lucky door prize.

● Guest Speaker - ‘Invasive Species’ presented by Carol Quashie Williams - Entomologist - Dept of Agriculture, Fisheries & Forestry. Text descriptions / pics of your bug problems to Carol in advance on tel: 0431 881 514 (say you're from MWG)... or if you don’t want to bug Carol too much just bring your examples or photos along on Saturday.

● Tips, Tricks & Lessons Learned - At our meetings we invite you to share your garden wisdoms or woes with us - can include pictures. Help might be at hand!

● Easter Show - due to unprecedented red tape and short deadlines we are sadly unable to participate in the Royal Easter Show this year.

● Barden Ridge Walk - 9th & 16th April 9.30am - check your emails for details

● Shire Farmers Market - we will be holding a community stall on Saturday 18th April. Message Anthony if you can help out - even just for 1 hour.

● Illawarra Grevillea Park Open Days - Illawarra Grevillea Park will next be open on the first two weekends in May starting Saturday May 2nd. Come to help, stay to wander. There may be an entry fee. BYO picnic. Grevillea Park is delightful and open only three times a year (first 2 weekends in May, July and September).

● MWG Working Bee - Saturday 30th May is our next RFS Community Garden working bee. Come along and help maintain our beautiful garden.

● Planting Days Invitation - Enjoy planting? Mudcrabs (Cooks River Valley Association - CRVA) invite us to their planting days at Sutton Reserve Sat 30 May; Sat 27 June; Sat 4 July https://www.crva.org.au/ for more information.

Looking forward to seeing you on Saturday.

Anthony Jackson

President Tel: 0408 600 521

We had our monthly meeting at the Illawong Rural Fire Brigade on Saturday 14th March. 

Many thanks to Rhonda Jackson, President of the Sutherland Shire Orchid Society, for her beautiful presentation on native orchids. 

Please enjoy of a collection of her favourite photos of species spotted in the wild and some others grown in her garden. 

Rhonda's experience and passion for orchids are very inspiring! 

Dendrobium speciosum

Dendrobium delicatum 

 Dendrobium striolata

Dendrobium teretifolia

Dendrobium aemulum

 Dendrobium linguiforme

Sarcochilus hartmannii

Photo credits: Rhonda Jackson 

We are thrilled to share some exciting news from the Sydney Royal Flower & Garden Show at this year’s Easter Show.

  

The Menai Wildflower Group had an outstanding showing, with a number of impressive results across several categories.

A huge congratulations to our talented contributors:

• Helen Patience, who was awarded Grand Champion for her stunning Black Tower Display.
• Jan Riley, who also took out a Grand Champion title with her beautiful Hoya plant.
• Cameron Kerr, who received a Highly Commended  for his exquisite miniature entry.
• Rie Vaarnela and Anthony Jackson, who also contributed to the group’s success with high-quality entries.

In total, the Menai Wildflower Group was awarded:

• 12 First Prizes (including the Grand Champions)
• 5 Second Prizes
• 2 Third Prizes
• 1 Highly Commended

These results are a testament to the incredible skill, dedication, and passion of our members.

Well done to everyone involved – you’ve done us all proud!

(Words and Photos by Marion Payne)

Menai Wildflower group are putting name tags beside the plants at the Illawong Rural Fire Station and the adjoining Mounds project. So far 120 have been done but there are more to go. The labels will allow keen native gardeners to see what the plants look like at different stages of growth. Here is Cameron in action.

 

   

 

Words by Lloyd Hedges

Photos by Cameron Kerr and Lloyd Hedges

Menai Wildflower Garden meeting 12/11/2023:

After the formal election of officers for the next year, member and qualified florist Helen Patience demonstrated the construction of a Christmas Log table decoration for the rapidly approaching festive season. The log is based on a slab of ‘Oasis’ (floral foam) that has been pre-soaked in water then decorated with a selection of seasonal plants and foliage.
In Helen’s demonstration these plants included:

• ·       Grevilleas – Kingspark Grevilleas for flowers and G. pilosa for foliage (watch out it’s as prickly as the holly it looks like and be careful as some people are allergic)
• ·       Flannel flowers, they’ll last well
• ·       Paper daisies, including Rhodanthe and Xerochrysum species
• ·       Lilly pilli
• ·       Billy buttons
• ·       Kangaroo paws (the red ones look very festive)
• ·       Christmas bush
• ·       Salt bush foliage
• ·       Gumnuts
• ·       Leather fern

Some tips from Helen:

• ·       Don’t push the Oasis into the water, allow it to slowly soak the water up.
• ·       Start with a structure of foliage
• ·       Cut the stems of the plants at an angle to maximise water intake.
• ·       Make the log as symmetric as possible.
• ·       Don’t make it so high or wide that it overfills the table or obscures guests.
• ·       Add some small Christmas decorations or ribbon to the finished log.

Helen’s finished arrangement. Photo by John Prats.

Coincidentally Gardening Australia’s Clarence Slockee gave his tips for using natives in floral arrangements the Friday before which you can enjoy at Perfect for Picking. The flowers he suggested for a bouquet which will be available at Christmas are:

• ·       Banksia - there are 170 species. B. menzeii is good but so are other local ones you may find in your garden.
• ·       Hakeas provide both flowers and seeds as well as foliage. H. bucculenta and francisiana are recommended. Don’t cut into bare wood
• ·       Pelagonium austral (Austral Storksbill)
• ·       Geralton Wax
• ·       Teatree
• ·       Eucalypt foliage such as Argyll Apple
• ·       Grasses like Themeda triandra

Our thanks go to Helen for the wonderful demonstration of the flower arrangers’ art.

Greg Jackson

For about a kilometre along a Menai Creek there is a wattle which is quite stunning in flower. It is Acacia prominens commonly known as the Gosford wattle. This is mainly from the Hunter Valley-Gosford area but is found in other places. There is a disjunct population in the Hurstville-Kogarah area that in 1998 was declared an endemic endangered community.

The creek where I found it has no official name but is marked on some maps as LH1 because it drains the original Lucas Heights tip site that is now sporting fields and a golf course. While it is not relevant, I used to be involved with the macroinvertebrate testing of this creek and it received remarkably good results, A minus, usually.

As far as I know this is an isolated population so, is it endemic or was it introduced?

The argument for it being an extension of the Hurstville population is that the declared population reaches Oatley Park, only about 6kms away.

An argument for it being an introduced population is that a track has been bulldozed along the creek line, probably in the 70’s when the sewerage was put in, and large earth moving equipment is notorious for spreading seed around the country.

Does it matter?

If it is introduced it is a weed that should be eliminated from the natural bush where possible.

If it is endemic at the very least the Sutherland shire council should declare it a local species and their nursery should grow it and distribute it. The ecosystem along the creek may also become a declared extension of the endangered Kogarah/Hurstville population and require protection.

Which is it?

Glad I can leave this decision to someone else!

Lloyd Hedges

a) A secret area of a near extinct terrestial orchid of the Diuris genus has been found in NSW as part of the Wild Orchids Project, a project funded by the NSW Environmental Trust. No other details have been given at this stage so as to keep the current population and increase it in the future.

Two other terrestrial orchids are under investigation by the group. They are the endangered sandhill spider orchid and the crimson spider orchid.

All are under the endangered species list.

b) Western Australia has long been considered a hotspot for terrestrial orchids.  The Queen of Sheba is one of the rarest in the terrestrial world. As a result, a flowering of the plant and its subspecies is the reason botanists and photographers come to WA from all corners of the world to see and photograph them when these orchids are in flower - particularly the Queen of Sheba.

Graeme Davies

 

Two new Grevillea species have recently been described by Peter Olde, leader of the Grevillea Study Group. Both species, Grevillea gilmourii and G. milleriana are related closely to G. macleayana which occurs in the Nowra–Ulladulla region. Of great interest to us is the naming of G. milleriana which was discovered on Maddens Plains, just south of Sydney. This amazing discovery was quite serendipitous as it occurs in a perched swamp. Only one plant was found but the discovery confirmed the existence of the plant that has been seen and searched for much earlier (around 2000) but not collected.

Stay tuned for more details in future blogs or in upcoming issues of our newsletter.

Graeme Davies