On Saturday 11 Nov we spent some time admiring part of the Australian Garden, which is quite entertaining because it surrounds the bird aviaries and, depending on the time of day, can be pretty noisy!
I’ve been kindly advised by Dunedin Botanic Garden staff that the above plant is Leptospermum ‘Mesmereyes’ – isn’t that a wonderful cultivar name?
And the photo below is Leptospermum ‘Tickled Pink’, another great name!
New Zealand native Leptospermum is known as manuka or tea-tree and we have many lovely cultivars. As far as I know NZ and Aussie varieties of Leptospermum have been crossed to create even better flowers and for better disease-resistance so I can only say that it makes it very difficult to say anything definitive about them! Beautiful flowers though!
Photo above is a crop that I took out of another photo of Leptospermum ‘Mesmereyes’
Photo below is what the above crop came from…
Photo below is another one I took of Leptospermum ‘Tickled Pink’
Since writing this post, I’ve just remembered that I planted ‘Tickled Pink’ in the last garden that we owned. It was just a young plant but flowered profusely right from the get-go. Its a fantastic plant!
Hope to do another post soon with other flowers from the Australian garden and I’ll see if Nigel got some good shots that I can include!
Posted by Exploring Colour (2017)
Further Reading – added 22 Nov 2017
Manuka – Leptospermum scoparium | from The Meaning of Trees
Leptospermum scoparium (manuka) | from T.E.R.R.A.I.N
You just can’t beat nature for creating perfection every time. Mel
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They’re very beautiful!
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Hi Liz. Is this the manuka plant that we get manuka honey from. I wanted to post photos of the plant taken from my trip until I realised there are so many varieties in NZ that look alike. Some white with pink centres.
Manuka honey is very expensive in SGP. Sold at 3 times the price for exact same brand as NZ. I only realised after I returned home. Shucks.
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If you come back and look at the page again Joanne I’ve just added a couple of Further Reading links – right down the very bottom of the post. You may find these helpful and interesting. The plants featured in my post are from the same genus, but they’re cultivars bred as garden plants so they’re different to the wild manuka.
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Nice post! I have a Manuka hedge for our native bees and other little beasties. I must get some pinks as well… 😊
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Thank you Rowena. My Dad used to look for coloured wild manuka and grew from them and we had lots of different shades of pink from various ones he’d found. Most of them were planted in a hedge. It was quite wonderful!
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Wow!
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Stunning flower!! And congratulation that Discover featured your blog, Liz!!
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Thank you Simone, exciting times! Leptospermum flowers have to be some of my top favourites! I also love our native Hebes (or Veronicas as they’re now known). Best wishes!
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Truly stunning
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Thank you very much. They truly did look stunning!
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so beautiful! Great photo shots!
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Thank you!
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Lovely post! Thanks for sharing.
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Thank you very much. So glad you enjoyed!
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What a beautiful garden, feel like I could just lie down and fall asleep for hours in it haha!
xx
https://colourpotblog.wordpress.com/
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wow, beautiful captures
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Thank you! The blossom looked amazing!
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Tickled pink, indeed, Liz! These are wonderful!
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Hahaha! Yes, the plants are really wonderful Pete and I’d love them for the names alone (!) but honestly, they’re gorgeous!
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They sure are!:)
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Lovely! What a rich colour the ‘mesmereyes’ are!
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Glad you said that Helen, they looked amazing! NZ Leptospermums are gorgeous in flower, the cultivars of course, but also in the wild!
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Awesome concept to capture colors
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So many lovely shades of pink.
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Yes, they were SO beautiful!
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