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Gardening / Planning azalea blooms for spring
Gumpo azalea… an abundance of flowers.AZALEA time is rapidly approaching and, in fact, I have blooms on one azalea totally out of season, even with these severe frosts. Incidentally, I was told that...
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Gardening / Blossoms don’t mean it’s spring
BLOSSOMS from the flowering apricot are tricking some people into believing spring has come early this year. The trees in blossom over the last few weeks are almost certainly the flowering apricot,...
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Gardening / Busy time to get planting
Ballerina apples… perfect for a small garden.JULY is a busy time for planting, from bare-rooted fruit and ornamental trees to shrubs and the huge range of berry plants. It’s important with many fruits...
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Gardening / Great news for small fruit trees
Dwarf Meyer Lemon… ideal for container growing.THE increasing availability of dwarf fruit trees, which can be grown in reasonable-size containers, is great news for people who live in townhouses with...
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Gardening / Weeping with joy for spring!
Weeping cherries… no more glorious a sight.THERE is no more glorious a sight than a weeping cherry in full bloom in spring and there is none more upsetting than seeing a weeping cherry with no room to...
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Gardening / Strawberry fields forever
Strawberries… popular and so easy to grow.OF all the many varieties of berries, strawberries are the most popular and they are s-o-o-o easy to grow. Right now is planting time and my advice is always...
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Gardening / The ‘outrageously beautiful’ peony
PEONIES would have to be in the top 10 of popular plants in the world. I saw one description of these flowers “as outrageously beautiful in flower” and another, from a catalogue of 1928, as “the...
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Gardening / The growing ways of wisteria
A magnificent display of wisteria.WISTERIAS can be pruned at this time by counting, from the base of each stem, three leaf nodes (joints) or where a smaller branch joins the larger or main branch. This...
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Gardening / 50 shades of grey, sort of
A combination of silver, purple and white shrubs… English lavenders growing in combination with Cistus “Gallipoli Rose”, pink carpet thyme and Convolvulus cneorum.RED, orange and yellow flowering...
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Gardening / The joys and jelly of crabapples
The blossom of Malus ioensis plena... one of the most spectacular crabapples.LOW-maintenance crabapple trees are almost pest and disease free, and there are crabapples for ornamental purposes and...
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Gardening / Unsprung, but spring’s here!
Sunset brilliance of Mollis azaleas.WHILE it’s September, so far as the weather is concerned, most gardeners don’t consider spring’s sprung until October. However, nature presses on with bulbs and...
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Gardening / Colourful native plants miss the party
A display of Prostanthera ovalifoliaUNFORTUNATELY, Floriade still has no real displays of our wonderful range of native plants, which are bursting forth in colour at this time and could add to the...
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Gardening / The mighty power of mulching
A garden mulched with Canberra Organic Mulch.MULCHING may seem boring, but it’s one of the most important aspects of gardening. As the days warm and evaporation increases, it is time to mulch....
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Gardening / When mulch is a living thing
Convolvulus mauritanicus adds interest to a stone wall.LIVING mulches are perfect for small areas and cottage-style gardens because they don’t need renewing every few years and can be divided to...
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Gardening / What’s in a (complicated) name?
Syringa or lilac… flowering in a few weeks.WHY do plants have such complicated names, often with Latin or Greek origins? Why not use common names? Well, here’s one very good example; when we owned a...
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Gardening / Hedge your bets with conifers
Conifers can add a real architectural theme to a homeTO prune or not to prune, that is the question and now is the time to look at how and when to prune conifers. The optimum time to prune conifers is...
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Gardening / Steps in the right direction
A stone retaining wall with Bink’s paver treads.STRUCTURE is the most important first stage of a garden. Often, when I am discussing a new garden, people immediately start giving me long plant lists....
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Gardening / Give a gazebo a go
A free-standing, traditional gazebo… blends in well with a cottage garden atmosphere.A free-standing gazebo can be a real feature in a garden. It’s ideal for enjoying a summer evening with a glass of...
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Gardening / Time to get the colour ‘bulbs’ in
Liliums… provide height and bright colours for a backdrop to any garden bed.SUMMER and autumn “flowering bulbs”, which include corms, tubers and rhizomes, need to be planted without delay to keep the...
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Gardening / Perennials keep on keeping on
PERENNIAL plants are a mainstay of any garden. Some are evergreen, even when flowering has finished, and others hibernate for winter and appear, as if by surprise, in spring. Other perennials provide...
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