I just wanted to post to extol the virtues of our local native plant societies.
Most of us have an informal group nearby who are a wealth of information and advice on plants indigenous to our areas. They will often grow and provide indigenous plants to the general public, or organisations (schools, councils, businesses) at a very low price.
The thing is, most of us don't even know that they exist. We didn't!
We recently joined the South Dandenongs Community Nursery, where we can not only obtain expert advice and plants (tubestock) for only $2, but from where we can also borrow books from their 'library'. These guys are unbelievably friendly and welcoming, seeming really pleased to have new members showing an interest in what they're trying to achieve. We are so impressed that we've volunteered our time on a regular basis to help with planting and whatever needs doing.
One of the major benefits to us is that we were able to take advantage of the expertise that one of the young volunteers (I think he's only 19 and is the Young Environmental Achiever of the Year), who came to our house today and spent an entire hour and a half going round the garden with me. He named all of our trees (and it's nice to know that I'm pretty good at plant ID ), pointed out all plants indigenous to the area, no matter how small, named them, ID'd all the weeds, including those we hadn't even noticed, took cuttings where appropriate and started an ID scrapbook for me.
I now know that the groundcover plant doing really well at the bottom of one of our gums (a Messmate Stringybark) is in fact Platylobium obtusangulum, which although not rare in itself, is certainly rare in this area. There are also several orchids around that I'd kindof spotted, but weren't sure what they were. He also ID'd things I would have just lumped in the grass category: Lomandra filiformis and Gahnia Radula for example. Of course, he also helped me to spot possible problem weeds (for us) such as Forget-me-not, Kikuyu, Euphorbia sp., Panic Veldt Grass, Cyperus, Paspalum and Broome. I knew we had a large one, but needed to ask someone if it was native or not - it wasn't. There are 2 seedlings by the front fence which I'm about to kill.
And he told me in which order to tackle the major problem weeds we've been working on, based on their invasiveness in this area: Mirrorbush, Sweet Pittosporum, bramble (blackberry to you), Wandering Trad, English Ivy then the aggies. He was impressed that we were bothering to tackle the aggies at all, because most people wouldn't as there are so many here, and agreed with our plan of attack (remove flowers, cut back foliage, feed with seasol to encourage new growth then spray with glysophate/seasol/detergent mix, over, and over, and over..... until we have time to dig them out). He was pretty impressed with your seasol and detergent tricks Fu
It was also great to get confirmation from someone else that our approach to gardening is good. He thinks people pay too much head to getting a nice lawn and mow to often. Most lawn weeds (dandelions, clover etc) spread but are not problem 'weeds' and he thinks people spend too much time focussing on them, rather than the real problem plants in their area. He also made a point of saying that most people, even in the Dandenongs, don't realise how much of a problem Mirrorbush and Sweet Pittosporum actually are because they just see them as natives. And he said that our purposeful avoidance of mowing/strimming around the trees and established shrubs is what had allowed natives like the Platylobium, orchids and sedges to do so well.
And Fu, you'll like this, he strongly recommends not clearing away the leaf litter etc from garden beds or the grass areas. He was really impressed when I said we believed the garden should be self-mulching and told him we cleared the driveway and paths by sweeping / raking the litter onto the beds or grass.
Oh, and, just so you know, I've tipped him to the use of molasses, as he'd never heard of it before. Just like the rest of us I guess!
Anyways, the point of this very long rambling post is that you should all find out if you have a native plant society or community nursery nearby and see if you can persuade someone to come take a look in your garden