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Gardening / From spring to glorious autumn
Dutch floral roundabouts… great competition to create the best landscaped roundabout.WE left Canberra in September, in early spring with little in flower (even at Floriade) and arrived in Holland 24...
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Gardening / Shades of green in all their glory
An easy care green garden with just a touch of colour.CAN you imagine a green-only garden, with no flowers? Increasingly green is the go, if nothing else for low maintenance. Listening to attendees at...
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Gardening / Playing favourites with flowers
The Cornus capitata… for late spring flowers.I AM often asked what my favourite flower is, particularly during garden talks. Cedric BryantTaking the cue from the famous English gardener Christopher...
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Gardening / Meet the queen of the climbers
Clematis… large-flowered hybrids are the most popular for a spectacular floral show.CLEMATIS is the queen of climbing plants with its stunning flowers, and it’s so easy to grow. It is a genus of more...
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Gardening / Oleanders get some bad press
Nerium oleander… best to wear gloves when handling it. SOME readers might be shocked at the mere mention of Nerium oleander. Never plant this in the garden, all parts are poisonous, they say! I...
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Gardening / Caves hold the secrets of climate change
CLIMATE change is on everyone’s lips and those possibly affected most are farmers, horticulturists (especially commercial food producers) and gardeners. Cedric Bryant.We are seeing hotter summers and...
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Gardening / Call of the summer gardens
NOT everyone heading to the coast in summer is a beach lover, but looks forward to other forms of relaxation. One alternative is the Eurobodalla Regional Botanic Gardens, five kilometres south of...
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Gardening / Tidy up the roses for an autumn show
Roses… pruning now will provide an autumn floral show in about 50 days. Photo by hdwallpaperbackgrounds.netMID-January is the ideal time to not only dead-head roses, but to give them a good prune and...
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Aloha to lots of local hibiscus
THE mere mention of the word hibiscus conjures up images of Hawaiian hula girls with flowers behind their ears. These sorts of tropical hibiscus certainly grow in our northern climes, but not in the...
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Get carried away into autumn
Hydrangeas flower well into late autumn.WHEN we had our nursery in Yass, 25 years ago, the traditional time to plant was spring. In the US, garden centres always recommended autumn planting and the...
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Gardening / Getting a sense of the Red Centre
Sturt’s Desert Pea in the Red Centre Garden… grows on the median strips of Alice Springs. THE Red Centre Garden, at the Botanic Gardens, is a great, underrated tourist attraction. The best time to...
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Gardening / Plant now for winter flowers
The toughest of the tough… Elephant’s Ears. NOW is the time to plant for a winter floral display; particularly after the soaking rain, the roots will become established before winter. Some of the...
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Gardening / Enjoying fuchsias before the fall
An ideal time to take cuttings of geranium and pelargonium. MAYBE it’s a strange time to talk about fuchsias, when in only a few weeks their leaves will fall. But it is a great time to see them in...
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Gardening / Here come the spring bulbs!
Plant bulbs in colour groups close together to support each other in windy weather. THE great spring bulb planting time is about to begin; bulk bulbs will arrive at local garden centres in the next...
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Gardening / Sweet and seasonal, but why?
Sweet pea trials in the Royal Horticultural Society gardens in Surrey, England… amateur growers submit seeds for evaluation, hoping their sweet peas are selected as a new variety. ST Patrick’s Day, on...
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Gardening / The call of coloured themes
Loropetalum “Plum Gorgeous” makes a great hedge as seen here in Manuka. FROM time to time, I am asked to create gardens with coloured themes, the most popular being the soft pastel flowers of pink,...
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Gardening / Time to make the most of camellias
Camellia sasanqua “Hiryu”… makes an excellent screening hedge.AUTUMN is the time for planting camellias. When we had our Yass nursery, one customer expressed surprise we didn’t have a particular...
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Gardening / Glorious show of autumn colour
An Acer palmatum… stunning leaf colour throughout the spring to autumn.AUTUMN is a glorious time in Canberra with cooler days and the spectacular show of autumn leaves. We owe much to the early...
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Gardening / Planting secrets for success
AUTUMN is the main planting time of the year for most plants; as one well-known garden writer said: “Summer planting is as inappropriate as wearing a bikini in church”. Cedric Bryant. The most...
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Opinion / Time to stand up for neglected street trees
THERE are 600,000 trees lining our parks and streets and almost nothing is being spent on our urban forest, arguably the most valuable asset in the ACT. No formative pruning of new trees is taking...
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