boronia

Cottage gardens have charmed for centuries. If you'd like a timeless garden of your own, that's easy to maintain, consider going native. Taking inspiration from the classic English cottage garden model, you can create a beautiful informal tapestry of colour using purely Australian natives - mixing flowering shrubs, groundcover, grasses, bulbs, annuals and climbing plants. Australian native plants are drought-hardy...

As the days begin to cool, a new wave of colour invades the garden. Clockwise from top left: Japanese maple, pin oak, azaleas, crepe myrtle. Colours glow as Japanese maples turn fiery red, crimson and gold. In cooler spots, pin oak will turn a brilliant scarlet and the orange leaves of the crepe myrtle make a last splash of colour...