PLANTS
Fusion White is a unique showy
indoor plant. Boasting light
green and white patchy foliage
with marbled variegation. To
offset the leaf, underneath are
hints of purple.Fusion White is an upright
and compact plant. Perfect
containers, great for indoors
or patio foliage plant.White prefers light shaded to
a bright filtered environment.
Keep the soil moist, never
drench the soil or let it dry out.Available in all good garden
and hardware stores.Calathea leitzeiBrighten up
your home with
Fusion White
can handle a little more warmth and
dryness, too. It’s a reliable perennial, and
will seed and naturalise freely, creating
pretty drifts of orange-yellow fl owers in
spring, and into autumn in places where
temperatures remain mild.
The California poppy (Eschscholzia
californica) likes cool, rainy winters and
hot, dry summers, so it does well in many
parts of Australia. The fl owers are usually
a vibrant orange, but they also come in
yellow, pink, red or cream. Easy to grow,
this is a great annual for fi lling in gaps
between plants. Sow directly in the soil
from autumn to spring in warm areas,
or from spring to summer in cooler zones.
They self-seed readily, so remove spent
fl owers if you don’t want them coming up
everywhere, and don’t grow them if you’re
in the country, or in a suburban area
near bushland, where they might escape.
The California tree poppy (Romneya
coulteri) is a woody perennial best suited
to a Mediterranean-like climate with dry
summers. Also known as the Matilija
poppy, it has blue-grey foliage and large,
lightly scented, crinkly white blooms with
ayellow centre, which appear from late
spring to summer. It’s a large, sprawling
plant, growing 1.5–2m tall and spreading
vigorously via root suckering, so it needs
to be put in a spot where its enthusiasm
can be contained. Cutting it down to its
base after fl owering and leaving it dry until
itrains helps to slow down the growth.GROWING TIPS
All poppies prefer a sunny spot and will
grow in most soils, provided the soil is
well drained. Improving the garden bed
with some compost or well-rotted manure
before planting poppies gets them off
to a good start. Water regularly to get the
plants up and running, and liquid-fertilise
every three weeks during the growing
season for better fl owers. Remove dead
flowers to maintain the display and to
avoid unwanted seeding.Cutperennial
PHOTOSpoppies back in autumn. GA
ISTOCK, VIRGINIA CUMMINS, GAP PHOTOS/FRIEDRICH STRAUSS, GAP PHOTOS/FIONA LEA, LUKE SIMON