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Jubilee Garden nestles at the foot of Mount Wellington in Hobart. On the day Burke’s Backyard visited, the garden was a blaze of autumn colour. This is not a cutting edge, modern garden. The owners, Joy Stones and Ted Cutlan, have filled their garden with...
Shovels and spades are designed to do different jobs in the garden. A shovel has a scooped blade and is used for moving garden material, such as mulch, sand and dirt. A spade is a cutting implement. It has a flat blade and is used for digging, cutting edges and...
This lovely garden features a row of sasanqua camellias (Camellia sasanqua) planted as a privacy screen along the front fence, and a charming arbour over the gate. Don showed how to plant and train climbers over the arbour, to create a really spectacular entry to the...
Native to tropical America, bromeliads are members of the Bromeliaceae, or pineapple family. These plants come in a wonderful variety of sizes, shapes and foliage colours. Many of them are epiphytes, in other words they live up in the forks of tree branches and exist...
A Burke’s Backyard viewer emailed Don to ask if there were any plants suitable for an apartment balcony exposed to extreme seasonal conditions. Don visited the viewer during a recent trip to Melbourne. He created a potted garden using spineless yucca (Yucca...
When Scott Cam laid new turf in his backyard it looked fabulously lush and green. Now, only two months later, the lawn is struggling to grow. It’s thin, full of weeds and ugly bare patches. Scott asked Don for advice on fixing the problem. Bare patches Don...
In this week’s Question Time, Don was asked about white curl grubs and chrysanthemums. White curl grubs Q: Mark from Padstow Vale wanted to know how to deal with large numbers of curl grubs in both his lawn and garden beds. A: White curl grubs are the larvae of...
Our first Plant of the Week for 2004 is Philodendron ‘Xanadu’. Philodendrons originate in tropical USA, the West Indies and South America, and are popular for their lush foliage and dramatically lobed leaves. Many are climbers, and do well as indoor plants...
Don looked at some of the trees and shrubs that flower through the warmer months. If you go to your nursery now and buy some of these plants, you’ll have flowers and colour in your garden every summer. Bougainvillea (Bougainvillea cv.) Spectacular...
Don visited the Bonsai Village, Omiya, Saitama Prefecture, where many of the top Japanese bonsai artists live. He felt very privileged to meet Mr Saburo Kato, the most famous bonsai artist in the village, and speak to him about his extraordinary creations. The Village...