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Whether you grew up with 'Snugglepot and Cuddlepie'
or if you just enjoy time wandering around a garden,
the iconic banksia is one plant that will always get your attention.
Here at the Australian National Botanic Gardens in Canberra,
there's plenty of examples of this Australian classic.
The 50th anniversary Banksia Garden is relatively new,
and the layout has been carefully designed
for visitors to enjoy the collection
while ongoing research takes place.
Horticulturist Janine Baines was part of the development of the site,
and looks after this recent addition.
Is it true that this garden was a bit of a birthday gift?
It was - we really wanted to have it open for our 50th birthday.
It's just such a milestone birthday.
We really needed a significant kind of garden
just to mark that time.
And the banksias themselves,
what is it about them that make it such an interesting plant?
So, they're found all over the country,
so a lot of species in the south-west of Western Australia,
then right up to the more arid parts of the middle of Western Australia.
There's one species that occurs in Kakadu,
and then there's a lot of species
that run down the east coast and through South Australia.
So, how's the garden laid out?
We've put the western species on this side, Costa,
which is really because we needed to build up that drainage enough
for those banksias to be happy.
So all the fussy ones are on this side.
So, they're in a mix of sandstone and ash -
very little kind of organic material in that side.
The eastern side is the soil that was actually in there already,
and we've just capped it with sandstone
which is really just about aesthetics more than anything else.
There's a lot more variety amongst the western species
than there is among the eastern, probably because
there's a wider variety of habitats that they live in.
So you'll get really vibrant colours
in the Western Australian species, more so than the eastern.
So you're getting into the reds and the pinks and the oranges
and, like, almost like salmony colours
in the Western Australian banksias.
But the eastern,
generally they're kind of just in
the yellow to orange colour range.
The foliage is quite different too.
As you can see on some of the western ones,
like, the foliage is a bit greyer due to the climate they come from,
whereas most of the eastern banksias,
the top side of the leaf is really green.
So how important is fire in the life cycle of banksias?
Banksias rely on fire to germinate seed.
Some banksias have a lignotuber as well
which assists them to survive fire so they will grow back from that.
So, they're not just relying on the seed.
We just wanted to display
basically what a burnt banksia cone looks like
and what then happens after a fire.
So, you know, in the bush you would have the burnt banksia cones there
and then you see down here we've got little seedlings coming up
from the open follicle that the fire has opened.
So it's just showing that story of regeneration,
just such a fantastic fire story that's not all about the end,
it's also about the new beginning for the new plants.
So, this is a relatively new garden,
but the plantings here look quite well-established.
We really wanted them to look established
from an aesthetic point of view.
To already be flowering was important.
But also just they cope better with the winter
if they're a little bit further off the ground.
The plants that were quite tricky, such as Banksia brownii,
we've actually grafted onto Banksia integrifolia
because the root stock just wouldn't really survive here.
You can see the graft line here. It's amazing.
Yeah, it's really easy to see that difference.
And so there's Banksia integrifolia underneath,
and then the Banksia brownii's been grafted onto the top,
and it's working really well.
And we've got about 50 specimens
in here that are grafted,
and that will continue,
especially with the species that we're more likely to lose over time,
so that we can replace them with much hardier specimens.
A grafted plant is buying you time, more than anything.
The soil here in Canberra is often heavy clay.
How did you go about dealing with those conditions for the banksia?
Well, we did a lot of work on the media that we used
rather than using soil.
So we built up the above-the-wall level about 3 metres,
but we've also excavated down below the natural ground level
another metre or so
so that we could fill that with pebble
and drain that water away down towards our treehouse garden,
which is happy to have the extra water.
There's so many different varieties here and around the country.
How can people have a go at them at home?
There's a few options.
I guess the easiest option is going to your local nursery,
seeing what occurs locally to you,
then you're not really gonna have to do any work to the soil,
doesn't really have to be in a pot.
So that's the easiest option.
Think about the smaller varieties of banksia
that will fit into a small garden
but they'll also fill in a pocket between other things.
So Banksia petiolaris and blechnifolia
are both groundcover banksias that are readily available
in a lot of the country.
They're really good ones to try.
And then of course you've got the old staples
like Banksia birthday candles and cherry candles
that are pretty bombproof as long as they get some summer water.
You and the hort team have done such an incredible job
to bring the garden to this point.
What's the future hold?
The future is really about replacing the plants that we've put in now
with grafted specimens
because we think that long-term that's probably the best option
for our most tender of species.
And planting them at the right time of year,
so really designing our program for planting
so that we're not putting things in here just before winter.
Yeah, we're really proud of what we've done.
And it's been a labour of love. We're all very passionate.
And banksias, I mean, who doesn't love banksias?
They bring something to the party every season.