Growing Australian trees from seed

Growing Australian trees from seed is something Doug and I have done for years. It's also the subject of one of my books 'From Seeds To Leaves' published by Black Inc, in Melbourne.

When I heard that oolines could be grown from seed and that Heather Bowen had established an ooline grove, I knew I had to meet Heather. And so I did. Since that meeting, five years ago, we've become close friends.

Last summer Doug and Heather had a friendly competition to see who could grow the best oolines. Heather won. Our excuse is that the oolines we propagated from seed didn't like spending the summer at Phillip Island. It was far too cold, the young trees said. It was too cold for me also! Only one of our young ooline trees survived the summer down south.

The bush garden surrounding Heather and Bob's home has a special area devoted to 23 young ooline trees grown by Heather from seed she collected herself from trees on their property. Now about 10 years old, the trees are most certainly an ooline grove.