An autumn spectacle

With winter fast approaching the garden at the Ngaio Marsh House is starting to retire before it bursts into life again come spring. But there's one plant, right by the path up to the house, that is breaking out all over and it's a West Australian native. The pincushion plant (Hakea laurina) is known as kodjet by the Noongar people and it is a visual delight. Judging from my grandmother's garden books it was in vogue for New Zealand gardens in the 1950s and 1960s. There's something about the shrub's vivid individuality that reminds one of Dame Ngaio herself.