Be a Plant Hero
Retired college lecturer Dr Judy Clark may have been born in Australia, but her enthusiasm for growing her native plants only started years after she settled in the UK in 1977.
“I was never interested in growing them when I was young,” she said. “I did a chemistry degree, travelled the world, and came to England where I became a lecturer and researcher.”
Judy eventually came to reside in Hastings, in Sussex, and in 1996 bought a house with a good-sized back garden. She started gardening
by learning from friends, growing typically English garden plant, such as irises, roses and geraniums.
By accident she bought a bottlebrush shrub, or callistemon and became hooked. She sought other Australian plants, but few were available, so her mother in Melbourne sent seeds of Australian native species and she managed to raise some bottle brushes, Banksia marginata and kangaroo paws (anigozanthos), planting them outdoors and finding they thrived ‘more by luck than judgement’, in a warm, sheltered spot in her clay soil, with grit added.
“I joined the Australasian Plant Society, which opened up a whole new world. I met founder Jeff Irons, who encouraged me to try a wider range of species and introduced me to the delights of correa in 2003.” Trips to Tresco gardens in the Isles of Scilly, Logan Botanic Gardens in Scotland and Wakehurst Place in Sussex were also influences.
After taking early retirement in 2006 her interest burgeoned and Judy now grows many plants from Australia, along with others from the Southern hemisphere in the various habitats created in her south east-facing sloping garden. She has tried honeymyrtle (melaleuca), claw flower (calothamnus) many small daisies and the Australian blackthorn, Bursaria spinosa.
She now has 26 varieties of correa in the National Plant Collection she holds for Plant Heritage and recently became a Plant Guardian, looking after more than 25 other plants that are rare.
Over the years she has learned by trial and error. “The key is good drainage. Research where things come from and try to create similar conditions in the garden and be prepared to experiment.”