Well, it’s well and truly Autumn; the leaves are falling and accumulating. This is pure gold for your garden! Why not pop out and buy a compost bin or two for your garden. Rake up all of the leaves and put them into the bins with the lawn clippings and kitchen...
Does your garden have flowers for picking? All great gardens do! Roses, lavender, gardenias, daphne & osmanthus all are great flowers for picking for perfume. Hydrangeas are great for style. Poppies, daisies and the very trendy gerberas always give a cheerful...
Sooner or later all people who grow plants will need to spray areas of the garden – even if it is with safe organic sprays like Eco Oil for small insects or Eco Fungicide for fungal diseases. So you need a sprayer. I have tested many sprayers and most I find to be...
Have you ever tried to grow new plants from cuttings? Well… Why not? The ideal day to do it is a cloudy or better still, a rainy day. This keeps the cuttings from wilting. You can try azaleas, camellias, grevilleas, lavenders or anything else that is lying about. Cut...
Last time we looked at false claims that some dog breeds are hypoallergenic. Some individual dogs seem to be hypoallergenic (that is, safe with allergenic people) – but no entire breeds are hypoallergenic. What about cats? There are some clinical studies that indicate...
I’ve had many emails recently from home gardeners with awful black rounded spots on the bottom of their tomatoes – about 10-50¢ size or even bigger. This is caused by uneven watering. It’s called blossom end rot and it appears after you let the poor tomato plants dry...
It’s time to look at the vegie garden. Chuck out any tired old vegies and replant with seed of beetroot, Chinese cabbage or Chinese greens, lettuce, silverbeet and many others. Whatever is available at the local nursery and hardware store will grow well. Any vegies...
As an Australia Day Ambassador I visited the Blue Mountains. Part of their activities was a gnome festival where my job was to judge the best ones. They were really apologetic & defensive about their gnomes. And worried about my views on gnomes, perhaps thinking I...
This has been a long hot summer – with really savage weather in so many areas. Blistering heat, flooding rains at times and bushfires in every state. Even where there were no fires, plants are burnt and damaged. This was a dreadful time. What can you do? Well keep...
With severe weather swings in recent months, most gum trees and many other trees as well have dropped huge amounts of leaves and bark. Obviously it has been a bad time for swimming pool owners, but the bushfire risks are rather more serious. Cleaning dead leaves,...