Episode: #9 28/10/2006
Presenter: Neville Passmore

With water shortages in the headlines, one of the logical solutions is to grow plants that have spent a couple of million years adjusting to the capricious Australian climate.

Grass trees (Xanthorrhoea australis) are icons of the Aussie bush and one of the most impressive dry country feature plants. If you are lucky enough to have one growing in your garden in the right spot you have hit the jackpot, an alternative is to acquire a transplanted one.

A ripper miniature relative of the grass tree has been selected from the wild for growing in gardens. Called Nyalla (Lomandra longifolia ?Nyalla?), it is a Lomandra a plant now commonly used in landscape plantings around the country.

It is a slow growing beauty and in dry times the leaf rolls into itself presenting the most water saving shape, that of a needle.

As a contemporary landscape feature plant, the blue grey foliage Nyalla looks terrific as an individual in a garden bed.

It also has the look when grown in patio pots around the pool or entertaining areas.

So for Neville, this plant Lomandra ?Nyalla? is the Llyeton Hewitt of landscaping a tough and gritty little Aussie that can show the way for a world gripped by climate change.