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Wattles, also called acacias, are wonderful native plants. In fact, Australia’s official floral emblem is a wattle (Acacia pycnantha). More than 850 species of wattle grow in Australia, ranging from ground covers and charming shrubs to giant trees that provide...
One of the most fashionable things to plant at the moment in Australia is a hedge. In fact, hedges have been very popular for a number of years. Don’s step by step guide to hedging looked at plant selection, soil preparation, plant spacing, irrigation and...
This has been a very gentle winter and we’re facing what could be a very dry spring and summer in many zones of Australia. So visit your local nursery and plant now, as long as there are no major frosts in your area. You might be interested in cheerful flowering...
The arrival on bare branches of the elegantly sculpted, waxy flowers of Magnolia x soulangeana always lets us know that spring is edging closer. Amazingly, magnolia flowers have been harbingers of spring from time immemorial. Magnolias are among the most ancient of...
In 1999, Hugh and Karen Anderson invited landscape stone artist Neal Plummer and his partner, Natalie Hocking, to create a design in their Melbourne garden featuring Neal’s stone artistry. It took Neal and Natalie around two years to complete the work....
Don showed how to create some high-rise garden style using tillandsias, glue and an old terracotta pipe. How it was done 1. Don used an old glazed terracotta pipe, but a wooden pole or even a tree branch will work well. Light wooden poles may be hung, providing an...
Reusing garden leftovers Paul Pascoe emailed Don to suggest that Burke’s Backyard run a weekly item on how to use up landscape gardening leftovers for projects around the home. As an example, Paul and his son, Alex, discovered that some leftover plastic garden...
The luculia was introduced to the west by plant hunter, Ernest ‘Chinese’ Wilson. It occurs naturally on lightly wooded hills in the lower Himalayas to Yunnan, where apparently it grows in large forests. In the home garden it’s hard enough to get one...
Water-wise gardens are becoming more and more important as the drought bites hard and water restrictions are in place in many part of the country. Don showed a garden that will grow and survive in the driest areas of Australia, because it has mostly been planted with...
It is very important to mulch your garden. Mulch helps to stabilise soil temperatures in the root zone, it suppress weed growth and it assists with water retention in the soil. The garden in our story was not mulched and some of the plants were struggling to survive...