Banksia serrata
Banksia serrata
Safety & Hazards
None known
Cultivation Details
Banksia serrata is a plant of the temperate to subtropical zone of southeast Australia. One of the easier species in the genus to cultivate, it requires a sunny position and a light, well-drained soil[1]. The plant is only found on sandy soils in the wild. The plant grows in areas where bushfires naturally occur at fairly frequent intervals. It has evolved mechanisms to allow it to survive this. Firstly, it has a thick bark that can insulate it from less intense fires; it can regrow from epicormic shoots, developing along the trunk about a week after the fire[2]. In addition, the heat of a fire stimulates the seeds to be shed from the 'cone', allowing the seeds to germinate and become established in the newly cleared soil[2, 1]. Plants can take several years to commence flowering from seed.
Propagation
Seed - surface sow in an ericaceous compost as soon as the seed is ripe or as soon as it is obtained and do not exclude light. Seal the pot in a plastic bag until germination takes place, which can take 1 - 3 months or more at 20°c[3]. When they are large enough to handle, prick the seedlings out into individual pots and grow them on in the greenhouse for at least their first winter. Plant them out into their permanent positions in late spring or early summer, after the last expected frosts. Cuttings of half-ripe wood, mid summer in sand in a frame[4]. The cuttings can be slow to form roots[1]. Cite as: Temperate Plants Database, Ken Fern. temperate.theferns.info. 2026-02-20. <temperate.theferns.info/plant/Banksia+serrata>
Pollinators
Birds, Insects
References
- [1]Australian Native Plants Society — http://anpsa.org.au/index.html ↩︎A series of fact sheets on Australian plants. Good photographs, brief description and information on uses, habitat, range, cultivation etc.
- [2]Flora of Australia — http://www.anbg.gov.au/abrs/abif/flora/ ↩︎The full information from the Flora of Australia - on-line. An excellent resource.
- [3]Growing from Seed. Volume 2. — Rice. G. (Editor) · Thompson and Morgan. · 1988 · ISBN - ↩︎Very readable magazine with lots of information on propagation. An interesting article on Ensete ventricosum.
- [4]The New RHS Dictionary of Gardening. 1992. — Huxley. A. · MacMillan Press · 1992 · ISBN 0-333-47494-5 ↩︎Excellent and very comprehensive, though it contains a number of silly mistakes. Readable yet also very detailed.
- [5]The Useful Native Plants of Australia. — Maiden J.H. · Turner & Co.; London. · 1889 · http://www.biodiversitylibrary.org ↩︎Terse details of the uses of many Australian plants and other species naturalised, or at least growing, in Australia. It can be downloaded from the Internet.