Lane Cove National Park is my closest national park here in Sydney. At one point, I would walk down there weekly with my husband but we fell out of the habit. We went down there for walk today and it was in generally lovely-and I’ll explain what I mean later on. The weather today has been a really nice day weather wise today-about 24 degrees Celsius and sunny. My perfect sort of summers day really.

One of the things I like about going for a walk in the national park is that I get to see all sorts of native plants in their natural habitats which I love doing. The first picture is of what I think is native cherry, or Exocarpus cupressiformis. This particular plant is one that I have been walking past for years, but I thought that it was a completely different species (some sort of she-oak, which are also native to Australia). So that I can make sure that I am right about what this is, I will be going back to visit it, take a closer look and do some reading on the subject. I love learning about new plants!

These hop bushes are quite common here in this national park. This particular species is the common hop bush, or Dodonaea triquetra. While I do see them dotted through the national park, I see them more along the edges of the national park, where they do particularly well on the disturbed ground next to the road.

Prickly tea-tree, or Leptospermum orientale, is another slightly scraggy-looking native plant. For whatever reason, I do love the messy nature of Australian natives in their natural habitats. A lot of this I think is because I grew up in England and the plants look so much different here in Australia.

This is where I find my walk gets me irritated. This is because a certain section is overrun by weeds. It has been like this for a long time and nothing seems to be getting done about it. A common excuse that I have heard when i talk about clearing really weedy areas like this is that there are too many weeds so we will never get on top of it.

For m this is completely the wrong attitude to have, as if you don’t start clearing the weeds and dealing with the problem, you will never get anywhere. Yes it will take a long time to deal with, but it can be done. Nature is also great at recovering, given the chance. Here in the national park, the seed bank within the soil should have plenty of native seeds within it (along with weed seeds of course)-give these native seeds the right conditions to germinate and they will grow. You have to start somewhere and, to be frank, I can’t stand the attitude mentioned above, as it is laziness and cheapness that is preventing any positive action. National parks are set up to protect natural areas, clearly the national parks organisational isn’t doing a great job!

In this picture, there are several weeds on show. There is cape ivy climbing up the tree in the background, the caster oil plant and probably more than one weedy grass here. Unfortunately, there is a large area around this spot that is covered by weeds.

This is my favourite tree species-the Sydney red gum. The fact that it has its roots growing through gaps in the rock. This is a large tree too, so has been there a while and seems totally secure in it’s position. This is one of the reasons I find them so fascinating to look at.

Here is another Sydney red gum (Angophora costata). I took this photo just because of the colour of the bark. The red colouring is the reason why I love this tree-you don’t see anything like this in cold, old Lancashire, England.

The next few images are of the scenery along my walk at various points. Scruffy-yes, interesting-absolutely and just different. It also smells pretty good too.

This little plant is Callicoma serrata, a plant I have written about before.

The next two photos are of a species of Hakea. You can usually tell the different species apart by the exact shape of the fruit, but I can’t get a good enough look the ones in this phot to compare with pictures in my books. It’s safe to say that I like this genus of plants too.

That was my walk through Lane Cove National Park. I always enjoy a walk down there, I just wish those responsible for its care would start working on improving in that one area. I am hoping to have more time to go on further walks over the next few weeks, that I should be able to share with you. Until next time, happy gardening.