Another shot from the friends garden I visited the other day ..This is a cultivar of our native Tea Tree ( Manuka.. or Leptospernum)..Famous for making the best honey.. The whole bush was just covered with these pretty pink blooms.. ready to feed up the honey bee's that come to visit..
I have never seen a Tea Tree with flowers! Never thought of them having flowers but actually the bees must need nectar from them. They must not flower when I'm there!! You were brave @busylady, good job you weren't going the other way & got caught taking seeds into NZ....we don't seem to care two hoots! When I walk through customs at Manchester you go through passport control & then out!
@happypat we will give @busylady the benefit of the doubt as I have seen seeds from our natives in souvenir shops.. so I guess they are ok.. the seed down easy in the wild si surprised the didn't grow..
@julzmaioro Yes but I doubt we could bring seeds into NZ. You are amazingly strict about bringing stuff in as is right for an agricultural based country. We don't seem to bother about things like that. I think I might buy some seeds next time, I would like to try growing tea trees.
@happypat We were learnt by past mistakes for allowing our Forebears to bring in the likes of gorse, ragwort, and boxthorn .. not to mention rabbits and opossoms.. it is good we learnt from some of our mistakes.. https://nzseeds.co.nz/collections looks like they do overseas orders .. be interesting to see if you can grow them .. I have seen them in UK gardens on tv before ..
Beautiful flowers, lovely pink. Manuka seems to be another one of those things that Oz and NZ dispute. I love manuka honey and haven't eaten other honey for donkey's years. I was a bit teed-off when it became so popular and expensive.
@julzmaioro@happypat@busylady Like the Kiwis Aussie border control is dynamite on bring in seeds and plant material for the same reasons. Big trouble and fines if you get caught. When we go to NZ for golf trips our golf shoes are inspected closely when arriving at each end in case there are grass seeds etc caught in the soles.
