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If you live near the bush, it’s a good idea to keep an eye out for any weed seedlings and remove them immediately. Weeds are always a worry in bushland areas, particularly in places where there are high water and nutrient levels. Don pulled up some weeds growing...
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....
Every week, parts of Burke’s Backyard are filmed in Don’s garden. It is a native garden, which includes many plants that are indigenous (that is local) to the area. Over 200 species of birds visit the garden throughout the year, including silver eyes,...
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...