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Don showed how to create a lovely, soft visual effect in the garden with a Clayton’s hedge – the hedge you have when you don’t really have a hedge. An ugly masonry fence along the front of a house was completely covered by a creeping fig (Ficus...
This week’s program was a Come & Save My Garden special. Don Burke and Scott Cam were on the road, knocking on doors and asking people if they needed any help with their gardens and homes. They pruned, nailed, planted and fertilised their way across the...
Bromeliads are native to tropical America. Many are epiphytes, that is they live on other plants but do not parasitise those plants. Rather than growing in soil, they are found up in the forks of tree branches, surviving mainly on the moisture and nutrients they...
Every week part of Burke’s Backyard is filmed in Don’s garden. It is an indigenous native garden, which mostly features plants that are native to the local area. A well-manicured, emerald green lawn offsets the areas of bush. Don grows two varieties of...
Don looked at some practical ways to save water and keep the garden alive and functioning through the drought. Watering the lawn If there are water restrictions in your area and you want to conserve water, it doesn’t hurt to let the lawn yellow off a little....
If you’ve always wanted to grow a lush, green lawn but you’re not having much success, the problem could be soil compaction. Grass does not grow well in compacted soil. Don’s tip Simply stamp your foot on the ground! If it feels fairly hard...
Jackie French says that when you serve mint, don’t be boring! There are many different forms of mint available, all with their own distinctive flavours and uses. Growing mint The genus Mentha includes around 25 species of perennial and annual herbs from Europe,...
Don and the Burke’s Backyard team visited a garden that was being invaded by golden bamboo. This vigorous, running bamboo spreads by means of long, underground stems (or rhizomes). Every year new rhizomes are produced, and each rhizome is capable of suckering...
Persimmons (Diospyros kaki) are outstanding trees for the backyard, and deserve to be much more popular in Australian gardens. They have been cultivated for centuries in China and Japan, and although they are believed to have been derived from a wild species, they are...
Growing your own salad greens and herbs is very satisfying, and you don’t need a lot of space. You can grow a few greens in large pots or troughs, or tuck them into the flowerbed. In no time at all you’ll be enjoying your first harvest. In our segment, Don...