Sowing seeds of a native lifestyle

“My whole being is gardening,” Chandi Dissanayake explained to me as we walked along.

“I love to see the flowers and if I have spare time I am in the garden doing planting, weeding.”

I asked her if she had favourite plants.

“My favourites are Australian natives,” she said.

“Grevilleas are the best. I do have banksia and hakeas but actually my most favourite is eucalyptus ficifolia.

It is called summer red.”

Chandi and husband Rukman Heenkenda, originally from Sri Lanka, moved to Geraldton in 2011.

She worked in Perth at the Burswood gardens around what is now known as the Crown Casino.

In Geraldton, Chandi works for Bunnings in the plant care section and the nursery.

“I do have a diploma in horticulture and a diploma in agriculture,” she said.

“My diploma in agriculture came out of Sri Lanka and my horticulture studies were at Murdoch TAFE for two years.”

I noted she had a small vegetable garden and a shade house and I asked if the avocado growing in a pot would be successful here.

“I am going to find it out,” she said.

“I do have experience in them but this is the first time this one has flowered.

“It is flowering now, so I am not too sure.”

Chandi’s advice for gardeners is the best plants to grow in Geraldton are natives as they grow easy and are very water wise.

“Once they are established you don’t need to spend a lot of time treating them and they are beautiful,” she added.

We share a common source of tube stock for native plants, as the last time I came up from Perth, my partner and I called into the Muchea Tree Farm to pick up 10 Geraldton wax tube stock to be planted in the wicking baskets in Marine Terrace. Chandi’s new home is on a big block of land in Strathalbyn, off Sunnybanks Drive.

We discussed soil types and questioned the need to select soil for natives.

Chandi said native plants liked the soil around Geraldton and because of that they didn’t need a lot of input via fertilisers and soil analyses. Although I have been told the very coastal white sandy soil is usually alkaline, plants such as saltbush and pigface and some reeds do thrive in that environment.

Inland, the soil can vary from yellow sand to red loam, so testing the pH is good practice, depending on where your garden is.