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If you want a bright, happy, tropical-style garden but you don’t live in the tropics, think about planting canna lilies. Cannas are undergoing a new wave of popularity now that warm colours and bold foliage are back in style. In our segment Don visited canna...
Last year Don teamed up with Cheryl Maddocks to create a stunning succulent ball. The succulent they chose to make the ball was Echeveria secunda (sometimes sold as Echeveria glauca), which has grey-green leaves arranged in flattened rosettes. The ball looks even more...
Camellias are amongst the world’s best flowering plants. They are hardy and disease resistant, most varieties have attractive, glossy green foliage, and they put on their fabulous flower display in the cooler months of the year when the rest of the garden often...
One of the best things about winter in Australia is the fragrance of daphne in flower. Winter daphne (Daphne odora) originally came from China. As well as the green-leafed variety with pink and white flowers, there is also one with a creamy yellow border to the leaf...
You may remember about two years ago on Burke’s Backyard we did a tremendously popular courtyard makeover using blue metal dust (also known as crusher dust or quarry sand), an inexpensive but very classy looking material. The stark white of the buildings was...
All about Frangipanis Frangipanis (known by their botanic name Plumeria in America) bring a heady, romantic fragrance to the garden, as well as a wide choice of warm, tropical colours. In Australia, frangipanis are sold by colour, rather than variety, and the further...
Blue ginger (Dichorisandra thyrsiflora) is not a true ginger, but it has ginger-like, arching stems and vibrant, purple/blue flowers in autumn. This exotic Brazilian perennial is the perfect plant for moist, shady spots in the garden and looks particularly good teamed...
Don looked at some of the plants that produce their perfume through the summer months. Perfume adds atmosphere and a wonderful feeling of romance to any garden. The next time you visit your local nursery, think about buying some fragrant plants. Roses (Rosa sp.) Roses...
The theme of our first program for 2003 is outdoor living – extending the indoor living areas out into the garden. Many Australian houses have poor access to the backyard, with one door and perhaps a few small windows, so the occupants feel closed in and trapped...