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Now is the perfect time to go to your nursery and choose an autumn foliage tree for your garden. It’s also a great time to plant a shrub or tree, because anything planted now will have a chance to send its roots out and establish, rest over winter and then power away...
Don thinks that ‘Iceberg’ is possibly the best garden rose that has ever been bred. It produces clusters of white, fragrant blooms for most of the year, and its disease resistance is legendary. Although we call it ‘Iceberg’ in Australia, it has different names in...
All elm trees have a simple identifying feature: the leaf bases are one-sided, or asymmetrical. Don picked a leaf from a Chinese weeping elm and examined its base. One side was wedge-shaped (cuneate) and the other rounded (obtuse). This beautiful evergreen or partly...
Australia has some wonderful native birdlife and there are many ways to encourage our feathered friends into our gardens. Don recently asked bird expert Graham Pizzey for some clues on which native garden plants are attractive to birds. By choosing your plants...
Don looked at a stunningly happy and hardy plant called Portulaca
Australian native gardens have a reputation for being straggly, grey, and even ugly. However it is possible to plant a beautiful garden of Australian native plants on even a small suburban block. ‘Burke’s Backyard’ visited the garden of artist Betty...
At the front of Rainbow Ridge Nursery (see ‘New books’ this week) is an unusual hedge. Rather than just a straight row of plants this hedge appears to be plaited together or knotted as if made with a knotted cord. The design is based on a traditional...
Recently a photograph was sent into Burke’s Backyard showing what appears to be a number of eucalypt trees (See photo). In actual fact this is just one tree. Whilst this look may have occurred naturally it is an effect you can create in your own garden. How to...
In growing Australian cities there is an urgent need to build houses on increasingly smaller blocks of land. As an alternative to using land for high-rise buildings such as flats and units, designers are now looking at other ways of increasing residential densities....
Fireweed Recently on ‘Burke’s Backyard’ Don explained the dangers of fireweed, a pretty yet poisonous yellow flowering weed that is often found in paddocks and pastures. This plant is poisonous to both horses and donkeys, and other livestock can also...