July 26 wattles
By Deryn Thorpe
I took a drive from Perth to
Perenjori last week, winding through Bindoon’s orange orchards and the intense
green of the emerging wheatcrops.
While our agriculture showed
the diversity of food growing in WA it was the beauty of the mid winter
wildflowers, especially the brilliant yellow of our wattles, that captured my
attention.
My drive was to check out a
landcare project revegetating roadsides near Perenjori where Plantation and Landcare were planting
out some 150,000 seedlings of local area native plants including hakeas, melaleucas,
small eucalyptus mallees and wattles.
These seedlings, like the
wildflowers by the roadside, survive only on the rain that falls from the sky
and were chosen to create a relaxed yet colourful landscape that will enhance the
drive through the central mid west Wheatbelt.
Wattles are one of the first
plants to flower in winter and part of a big family containing about 900
species ranging from big trees to small shrubs.
They are a legume with roots
that adds nitrogen to the soil and are an early coloniser of disturbed sites
and post fire regeneration. Most wattles have phyllodes rather than true leaves
which is an adaptation to their dry environment. They are beloved garden plants
and most have fluffy yellow pom pom flowers and many have edible seed.
One of the most useful small
shrubs flowering now from Ravensthorpe to Geraldton is prickly moses (Acacia
pulchella), which grows 0.5m to 2m high and provides a protected habitat for
birds as it has small spines along its stems.
The revegetation team’s
wattles included the summer scented wattle (Acacia rostelifera), a shrub from
2m to 5m, dead finish (Acacia
tetragonaphylla) a spreading, prickly shrub growing 2m to 4m tall, Acacia multispicata a dense to wispy shrub from 0.2 to 2m
tall and Orange Wattle (Acacia saligna) a dense, often weeping shrub from 1.5m
to 6m tall.
I’m looking forward to
driving back that way late next winter when I expect the roadside to be a sea
of yellow and green.
