Australian native flowering plants for a stunning mass display
Mass planting is the quickest way to make a big impact in your garden. A flower display that relies on repetition more than variety allows just one or two species to read as a single sheet of colour.
The plants in this guide are either carpets that cover the ground or single-stemmed flowers for a meadow look. It also covers how to plant en masse, including spacing, how many plants you need and how long a planting takes to knit together. For individual plants that flower well without needing numbers, see our guide to natives with spectacular flowers.
Shop Tools for Australian Gardeners
Everything you need in your garden.
Plants that look stunning in a mass planting
Carpets of colour
These are spreading plants that close over into a continuous sheet of flowers at ground level. They fill a bed easily or grow to spill over an edge. They also shade the soil, hold moisture and leave little room for weeds.
Cut-leaf daisy (Brachyscome multifida)
The species name multifida refers to its many-cut leaves and the genus name Brachyscome means short hair, a nod to the tiny bristles on each seed. It forms a dense mound 20 to 40cm high and up to a metre across, with flowers in mauve, pink or white. Massed, the plants knit into a soft, continuous mat that spills over edges and works well within rockery stones. Open daisy flowers like these are a popular landing pad for native bees and hoverflies.
It does best in full sun and well-drained soil, but it tolerates part shade and drought once established. Trimming it after a flush of flowers promotes more. Use a sharp pair of secateurs or garden snips to ensure a clean cut through the soft stems.
Shop Cut-leaf DaisyThis is an affiliate link to Nursery Near Me. We earn a commission if you buy through it. Find out more >
Common everlasting (Chrysocephalum apiculatum)
Common everlasting has silvery foliage and forms a low, spreading mat with masses of small yellow button flowers from spring into autumn. Chrysocephalum means golden head, and the papery bracts around each button keep their shape and colour, which is how everlastings earned their place as cut and dried flowers. In the wild it grows through native grasslands, which makes it a natural partner for 'Mingo' in a meadow planting.
It needs good drainage and does best in full sun, though it tolerates part shade. A hard prune rejuvenates old plants and a quality pruner handles the tougher stems cleanly.
Shop Common EverlastingThis is an affiliate link to Nursery Near Me. We earn a commission if you buy through it. Find out more >
A note on feeding
Heavy flowering tempts gardeners to fertilise, but many natives are sensitive to phosphorus. A standard fertiliser can do real damage, as our guide to why all-purpose fertiliser harms natives explains. If you feed at all, use a low-phosphorus native fertiliser.
Emu bush (Eremophila glabra 'Kalbarri Carpet')
'Kalbarri Carpet' is a dense, spreading groundcover with soft silver-grey foliage. Nectar-rich, tubular flowers cover it through spring and summer and honeyeaters visit them in numbers. Planted in a mass it forms a low silver carpet that spills over banks, retaining walls and rockeries. Eremophila means desert-loving, a fitting name for a genus built for heat, drought and poor soil.
Allthingsnative, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
It needs full sun and well-drained soil, tolerates drought and frost and dislikes excess humidity. If you feed at all, use a low-phosphorus native fertiliser. Tip prune it lightly after the main flush with a clean pair of secateurs and avoid cutting into old leafless wood.
Shop Emu BushThis is an affiliate link to Nursery Near Me. We earn a commission if you buy through it. Find out more >
Purple coral pea (Hardenbergia violacea 'Sea of Purple')
Used as a groundcover, 'Sea of Purple' scrambles about 2m across, which makes it the fastest way to cover a bank or bed with late-winter colour. Sandy, gravelly and poor soils are no problem for it and a lean site gives better flowering. Where the soil is clay, raise the planting into a mound. As a member of the pea family it fixes its own nitrogen with the help of soil bacteria, which is part of the reason it needs no feeding.
Give each plant room to scramble, but plant close enough that the stems meet and knit together within a couple of seasons. A light prune after flowering keeps the centre from going woody.
Shop Purple Coral PeaThis is an affiliate link to Nursery Near Me. We earn a commission if you buy through it. Find out more >
Matted flax-lily (Dianella amoena)
Matted flax-lily spreads by underground stems into wide mats, sometimes up to 5m across. The large, star-shaped flowers are blue to purple and sweetly fragrant, held on arching stems above grey-green leaves. Small, dark blue berries follow in autumn. The flowers are adapted to buzz pollination so native bees grip the bloom and vibrate their flight muscles to shake the pollen loose.
Takver from Australia, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Much of the grassland it once grew in has been cleared and matted flax-lily is now listed as endangered nationally and critically endangered in Victoria. Buy only nursery-propagated plants and never collect it from the wild. Keep weeds out of a young planting until the mat closes using a Cape Cod weeder.
Meadow drifts of single stems
Single flowering stems, repeated in numbers, give the classic meadow look. Planted through a low groundcover or grass, they appear to float above it.
Pink paper daisy (Rhodanthe chlorocephala subsp. rosea)
Pink paper daisy is the classic meadow annual. Papery daisies in pink and white sit on upright stems above grey-green foliage. The colour comes from papery bracts rather than true petals and the flowers keep it when dried. Rhodanthe means rose flower. It is an annual, so it flowers once and sets seed, and in a happy spot it often returns from its own seed.
Tangopaso, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Sow seeds in autumn onto a weed-free area and rake them in very lightly. Flowers appear about three months after sowing.
Grass trigger plant (Stylidium graminifolium)
The name trigger plant comes from the touch-sensitive column that carries the reproductive parts. When an insect probes the flower and brushes the trigger, the column snaps across in as little as 15 milliseconds and dusts the visitor with pollen, then resets after a few minutes. It is easy to grow and the dwarf cultivars 'Little Saphire' and 'Tiny Trina' stay at 30 to 50cm and are ideal for mass plantings.
It grows in sun to light shade in well-drained soil that is kept reasonably moist, and it tolerates light frost. Plant tubestock at just about the mature width, which is 30 to 40cm for the dwarf forms. A slim hand-forged trowel makes quick work of planting a drift.
Swamp billy button (Craspedia paludicola)
Swamp billy button sends up slender reddish stems topped with bright yellow, ball-shaped flower heads about 2 to 3cm across. Each ball is not a single flower but a compound head of up to 300 small clusters, each holding a handful of tiny florets, which gives small pollinators plenty of landing space. Plant it in groups of at least three to five and the heads make a dense field of yellow.
In the wild it grows in swamps and seasonally flooded grassland, so it suits the edge of a pond, a rain garden or a low spot that stays damp. Cutting stems with floral shears for a vase extends the display if the plant is watered well. The drier-soil billy buttons are covered in our guide to yellow-flowered natives.
Chocolate lily (Arthropodium strictum)
Planted singly, the slender flower stems of chocolate lily are easy to miss. In a drift they make a field of mauve and the chocolate scent carries on a warm day. The small tubers were a food for Aboriginal people across south-eastern Australia, so the plant has a long history beyond the garden. It dies back in summer, so interplant it with a groundcover that stays green.
Mark the clumps before they die back in summer so they are not dug up by accident. It tolerates drought once established. Our guide to native lilies that flower in spring has the full profile.
Shop Chocolate LilyAlso listed as Dichopogon strictus. This is an affiliate link to Nursery Near Me. We earn a commission if you buy through it. Find out more >
Pink mulla mulla (Ptilotus exaltatus)
The feathery pink heads of mulla mulla look beautifully dense in a group. Ptilotus comes from the Greek word for feather, an apt name for soft, fluffy spikes made up of countless tiny flowers. It is relatively short-lived, so expect to replant every few years.
It needs excellent drainage and hot, dry summers, so it suits a gravel bed or a raised mound. A sturdy spade makes building a mound easier. See our guide to cottage-style gardens for how it best combines with other plants.
Kangaroo paw (Anigozanthos 'Bush Coral')
Quantity is what makes a kangaroo paw display. A group of plants makes a tall block of coral-red spikes above strappy foliage. They are the perfect addition to a bush-style garden. Honeyeaters such as the western spinebill perch on the stem and probe the flowers, and pollen dusts their heads as they feed. The red and green kangaroo paw is also the floral emblem of Western Australia.
Plant it in full sun in sandy, well-drained soil. Remove spent flower stems at the base to encourage more blooms and to reduce the risk of ink spot disease in humid conditions, using sharp secateurs for a clean cut.
Shop Kangaroo Paw hybridThis is an affiliate link to Nursery Near Me. We earn a commission if you buy through it. Find out more >
A grass to hold the meadow together
A meadow needs a base. Grass gives the flowering stems something to rise through and fills the gaps between them.
Kangaroo grass (Themeda triandra 'Mingo')
'Mingo' is a low, weeping selection of kangaroo grass with blue-green foliage and rusty red seed heads in summer. It stays well under the height of the wild species, which can pass a metre, so it works as a base layer between taller flowers. Each seed carries a twisted awn that coils and uncoils with changes in humidity, which helps shift the seed across the ground and into the soil.
It tolerates drought and frost and suits full sun or part shade. Cut it back by about two thirds in spring to refresh the foliage, using a good pair of pruners.
Shop Kangaroo Grass cultivarThis is an affiliate link to Nursery Near Me. We earn a commission if you buy through it. Find out more >
How to plant en masse
Keep each drift to one species
Repeat a single species in a drift in groups of 5 or 7. For a meadow look, let a low grass or a carpet plant form the base and repeat the flowering plants through it. Repeating the same plant in two or three places ties a garden together.
Work out spacing and numbers
Space tubestock close enough that the plants touch within a year or two. A useful rule of thumb is going by roughly 70 per cent of the plant's mature width. Check the mature width on the plant tag and start there.
To count plants, divide the bed area by the spacing squared. A 10 square metre bed at 50cm centres takes 40 plants (10 ÷ 0.25). At 60cm it takes about 28 and at 70cm about 20. Stagger the rows rather than planting in a grid, so the drift looks natural as it fills in.
Allow time to knit
Strappy plants such as dianella close over in 12 to 18 months at those spacings. Planting closer speeds the effect but raises the bill quickly. Pink mulla mulla is short-lived, so plan to replant it as the drift develops.
Plant and tend
Use tubestock for large areas, since it costs a fraction of potted plants and establishes quickly. A hori hori knife or a slim hand-forged trowel makes planting by the dozen quick. Mulch the gaps between young plants and water through the first summer, and terracotta ollas keep moisture steady while plants establish. Young plants can be scratched out by birds, and wire plant cloches protect them until they knit.
A haven for pollinators
A single species repeated across a bed gives a bold effect from a distance, shades the soil, crowds out weeds and asks for one routine of care per drift instead of a dozen. The benefit reaches well beyond the garden, but mass planting rewards a little patience.
For wildlife, large patches of the same flower are easier for many bees to find and the mix of shapes from open daisies to tubular blooms feeds a wider range of visitors including birds. Choose plants that flower in different seasons and the planting becomes a reliable haven for pollinators for most of the year.
keep reading
A Guide to Australian Native Gardening
How to plan, plant and care for a thriving native garden, whatever your experience level.
Read the guide →
_at_Bababi_Djinanang_native_grassland_Fawkner_(6317071503).jpg){kind=link}
