Comeback

Hardenbergia is flowering around the region—always a highlight of the approaching spring.

What’s extra good about the plants pictured below, though, is that they’ve more or less come back from the dead.

Hardenbergia violacea along the Coliban Channel near the Old Coach Road. The plant is coming back after an apparent poisoning episode.

Readers may remember our post from three years ago, deploring the fact that someone had methodically gone along the Coliban race poisoning the plants along the verge of the channel. If you want to see the results, grit your teeth and click here.

We couldn’t for the life of us see the rationale behind this bit of vandalism: the plants in question were unlikely to cause any damage to the channel—but enquiries to Coliban Water ran into a dead end.

Among the main victims were the extensive mats of Hardenbergia.

Well, they’re back: not yet as impressive as they were, but still pretty good. As a bonus: if you look hard enough you can see some flowering Narrow-leaf Wattles, unusual in our region.

Acacia aculeatissima, Coliban Channel, September 2026: a cute but unobtrusive plant, hard to see when not in flower.

Other victims of the mad sprayer—Grey Everlasting, Bush Peas, Dillwynia, Trailing Shaggy Pea—are mainly present as ghostly dead shrubs…but we can hope they can make a comeback, too. Watch this space!

Bernard Slattery