Making a comeback

After losing his house and garden to fire, MARTYN ROBINSON was surprised to see gardenias, camellias and other blackened plants sprouting new shoots

The resilience of non-native plants to regenerate after devastating fire may just surprise you

The resilience of Australian native plants affected by fire is well known, but what may not be discussed quite as much is that many common non-native garden plants can also survive fire pretty well.

About five years ago, our lovely timber house in the Hunter Valley, in New South Wales, burnt to the ground from a fire that started inside. All that was left was a layer of corrugated iron resting on a bed of charcoal, with charred remnants of the frame pointing skywards. While we waited for the insurance companies to decide what to do, we left everything as it was, including the charred ruins of the gardens that came right to the verandah’s edge.

The plants were so badly burnt that the species of the short sticks poking above the bare earth were only identifiable by their location. After rain over the next few months, however, something unexpected happened. Plants we thought were dead started sprouting leaves. While the bulbs weren’t really a surprise, some other plants, including camellias, gardenias and magnolias, definitely were.

When we realised very little of the garden had been lost, we were glad we had waited until spring to see what would regenerate before digging out stumps and starting again. Gardeners who suffered devastating losses in last summer’s bushfires might not have the same good fortune as us, because of the extreme intensity of those fires, but here’s what happened with some of the non-native plants in our garden.

Traveller’s palm This was burnt and scorched to the ground but was one of the first plants to show signs of growth. It was flowering again a year after the fire. All we did was cut back the dead remnants. We don’t really like it but have left it alone after its dramatic response.

Gardenia Blackened sticks showed bright green specks of shoots emerging after a couple of months. It is now bigger than it was previously, possibly because much of its competition was burnt away.

Hydrangea This burnt so effectively that there wasn’t a trace of it left above ground. By the time it started to make a reappearance, the bulldozer was clearing away the wreckage, so it was moved to one side. It resprouted from the ground up and produces pink flowers because all the ash turned the ground alkaline.

Camellia After being burnt to sticks and stumps, our camellias all regrew to their original size and flower prolifically despite the increase in alkalinity.

Magnolia Our two magnolias were a little further away from the building so they still had most of their larger branches but no leaves, and the bark was mostly charred and split. They both started resprouting leaves the following spring and flowered again the next year.

Murraya This plant seems to survive anything, so we weren’t surprised to see ours coming back from the fire.

Daffodil, snowdrop and other bulbs It also wasn’t a surprise to see these growing, as the important part – the bulb – was safely underground.

Our experience shows that a badly burnt garden may come back to life, even though it looks dead. It is uplifting after such devastation to see a garden regenerating, especially while your house is being rebuilt, and to feel you are getting your life back on track.