Episode: 4
Title: Kings Park Wildflowers 2
Broadcast: 26th September 2015
Presenter: Trevor Cochrane

The gardens around Aspects of Kings Park, the café and restaurants demonstrate just how amazing these kinds of gardens can be and if you’ve ever thought of heading to Canberra or Holland to experience colour displays like Floriade, you might just rethink it after experiencing the colour show our own West Australian wildflowers put on here.

• Plants to look out for include the stunning Kangaroo paws, uniquely West Australian plants loved world wide for their free flowering forms. Our local emblem the red and green Kangaroo Paw tends to be best grown annual and readily from seed.
• You can buy them as seedlings in Sunnyvale punnets and treat them much like you would any normal flowering annual. They love sandy free draining soils and bright sunny positions.
• These plants are perennial which means they will live for many years in a home garden although some have been known in the past as being susceptible to black ink disease. However, the modern breeding has developed more robust plants able to withstand this disease.
•  A new Kangaroo Paw to celebrate the WA Botanic Garden's 50th anniversary! 'Anniversary Gold' is a sunny yellow variety of Kangaroo Paw and will be blooming brightly at the John Forrest Memorial roundabout throughout September.
• One of the biggest mistakes people make when growing Kangaroo Paws is to think you treat them like bush plants and don't care for them which is totally untrue. As flowers finish, you should prune them off at the base as this will encourage further flower production and extended colour displays. They do appreciate feeding, a controlled release plant food and supplemented occasionally with an organic base liquid plant creates strong vigorous growth all year round for most varieties.
• If you want to have your own West Australian garden, Kings Park has a terrific opportunity to learn from a Kings Park Master Gardener for free. Every Wednesday between 10am and 11am at the Zamia Café, they offer the chance to learn how to create your own botanical garden at home in your backyard.

Kings Park & Botanic Garden website:
http://www.bgpa.wa.gov.au/kings-park