Dry Tropics Water Smart Gardens
Plant palette
This is the working Townsville household palette. It is drawn from the Zingspace Dry Tropics planting sheets, the Wildlife Palette, the 2009 Water Smart Garden plant library, and the current $990 plans. It is not a botanical collection. Each issued plan uses a short list placed on the real lot.
Birds and butterflies named below are the Townsville species this palette was drawn for. A garden can offer nectar, fruit, host leaves and structure. We do not promise a particular animal will arrive.
LOW dry edge and full sun MEDIUM ordinary garden soil, wet-season rain HIGH shade, drip line, or a true wet edge only
Ground
Keep the lawn you use. Plant the edges that stay in sun. Do not put these under dense canopy.
Ground · LOW
Spiny-headed mat-rush
The tough dry-tropics edge plant on the Zing Plant Pallette and on current Water Smart Gardens plans. Not under existing crowns.
Butterflies. Marked on the Dry Tropics planting palette as a butterfly plant. Structure and litter for lizards.
Ground · MEDIUM
Blue flax-lily · Paroo lily
Blue flowers, blue fruit, strappy leaves. On the historic palette and in current understorey / gap planting. Not a lawn substitute.
Butterflies and small birds. Palette butterfly plant. Fruit for small birds already using a Townsville yard.
Ground · LOW · colour
Scarlet bloodroot
The scarlet spike on the Dry Tropics palette. Use sparingly as colour in open, well-drained ground. Not a mass groundcover.
Butterflies. Marked as a butterfly plant on the 2011 Dry Tropics sheet.
Ground · LOW
Kangaroo grass
Open dry-tropics grass from the low-water native list. Keep it out of used lawn and out of deep shade. Seed and structure, not a crop.
Habitat. Seed and cover for ordinary garden fauna. Not a feeding station.
Shade
Land under existing canopy is an occupation zone. These plants go in genuine shade gaps, not into the statue bed that is already planted.
Understorey · HIGH
Native ginger
On the 2009 high-water native list and on current Water Smart Gardens plans. Blue fruit. Keep it off dry paths and off the western sun wall.
Small birds. Fruit and dense understorey. Not a wet-edge plant unless water is proven on the lot.
Climber · MEDIUM
Wombat berry
Orange fruit, fine leaves. On the Dry Tropics palette as a butterfly plant. A light climber, not a screen by itself.
Butterflies and small birds. Flowers and fruit. Do not confuse with weed vines.
Mid layer
Shrub · LOW
Dwarf bottlebrush
On the Zing Plant Pallette as traffic-island and dry-tropics shrub. Red brushes. Keep natural form.
Honeyeaters and lorikeets. Nectar plant on the Dry Tropics sheet. Drawn for yellow honeyeater, blue-faced honeyeater, rainbow lorikeet and scaly-breasted lorikeet.
Shrub · LOW
Dryander’s grevillea
Low-water native on the Tanya private-garden list and the Dry Tropics sheet. Pink-red brushes over fine foliage.
Birds and butterflies. Dual icon on the 2011 palette. Honeyeaters first.
Shrub · MEDIUM · colour
Scarlet fuchsia
The red on the original Water Smart Garden cover strip. Use as a colour shrub, not a hedge.
Butterflies. Palette butterfly plant. Nectar also used by honeyeaters when it is in flower.
Shrub · MEDIUM · fruit
Native currant
The native currant on the Zing Plant Pallette and the 2009 medium-water list. Current Water Smart Gardens plans may specify Carissa ovata for the same fence-gap fruiting role. Match the botanical name on the issued plan. Not a clipped box.
Small birds. Fruit. Figbird and other fruit-eaters on the wildlife palette.
Shrub · MEDIUM
Lime berry
Cream flower, orange-yellow fruit. On the Zing Plant Pallette as screening, and on the Dry Tropics sheet with bird and butterfly icons.
Birds and butterflies. Fruit and nectar. A citrus-family shrub, not a hedge.
Shrub · MEDIUM
Native gardenia
Cream, scented. On the historic screening list as native gardenia. Related Gardenia radicans was used as a low ground gardenia in Townsville private gardens.
Butterflies and moths. Scented night and evening flowers. Hawk moth is on the wildlife palette.
Canopy
No new canopy tree until existing crowns are mapped. These three are the household-scale trees from the Dry Tropics and Water Smart lists. Not street trees. Not into occupied crowns.
Small tree · HIGH / MEDIUM
Pink euodia
On the Zing Plant Pallette and the Aquarius Court rainforest pocket. Only where there is mature space clear of house, solar and existing canopy.
Ulysses butterfly. Host plant for Papilio ulysses, which is on the Zingspace Townsville wildlife palette. Also a bird tree when in flower.
Small tree · MEDIUM
Broad-leaved paperbark
On the Aquarius Court list and in Ross River revegetation schedules. A paperbark, not a street mahogany. Confirm size before placing near a small lot.
Honeyeaters and lorikeets. Nectar. Drawn for rainbow lorikeet, scaly-breasted lorikeet and the honeyeaters on the wildlife palette.
Tree · MEDIUM · fruit
Peanut tree
On the Zing Plant Pallette and the Dry Tropics sheet. Too large for a crowded rear garden. Use only where canopy-gap analysis says a tree belongs.
Fruit-doves, figbird, Torres Strait pigeon. Bird and butterfly icons on the Dry Tropics sheet. Fruit, not nectar, is the offer.
Vine
Vine · HIGH / MEDIUM
Birdwing butterfly vine
Named on the 2011 Aquarius Court plant list as Birdwing butterfly vine, for a rainforest pocket “attracting birds and butterflies”. Plant the native vine only.
Birdwing and swallowtails. Do not plant exotic Dutchman’s pipe (Aristolochia elegans and similar). That vine is a trap for birdwing larvae. Native A. tagala only, and only if the household will let it climb.
Wildlife palette
From the Zingspace Wildlife Palette. Ordinary residential fauna. Not a zoo list. Not a promise they will visit.
Birds
Butterflies and moths
Also on the wildlife sheet, not pictured here: red-tailed black cockatoo, dusky honeyeater, olive-backed oriole, rainbow bee-eater, rose-crowned fruit-dove, rufous-throated honeyeater, spangled drongo, white-gaped honeyeater, yellow-faced honeyeater, yellow albatross, Australian rustic, hawk moth, tailed emperor, white-lipped tree frog, brushtail possum.
Resources
Ask for the botanical name. Do not accept substitutions without checking. Prefer local-provenance tube stock where the species and the design agree.
Internal sources for this draft: Zing Plant Pallette drawing; Dry Tropics Planting Palette (draft for comment); Wildlife Palette (draft for comment); 2009 Dry Tropics Water Smart Garden plant photo library; Aquarius Court plant list (ZsT11-013); Tanya private-garden dry-tropics list (ZsT11-020); current Water Smart Gardens Snelham schedule. Google imagery was not used.
Do not plant
This page is a draft for Zingspace review. Photos are from the Zingspace plant library and the 2011 palette sheets. Wildlife photographs on the 2011 sheet may need a rights check before this page is issued publicly. Not CAD. Not a nursery catalogue. Not an arborist or zoologist report.