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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...
The African violets are undoubtedly among the cheeriest indoor plants available, yet people are sometimes disappointed with their performance. To help you grow better African violets, Don looked at some of the more common problems with this plant and how to overcome...
Growing plants in pots is fashionable and makes enormous sense as the trend in Australian cities is for smaller gardens and spaces. Even productive plants such as citrus can be grown in containers. How to pot a citrus What you will need: A large tub or pot. Your...
[metaslider id=31337] Maidenhair ferns are soft and lacy plants which have a variety of uses both indoors and outside. With more than 200 species of maidenhair and many more cultivars, choosing a favourite may be difficult, but they are attractive and rewarding plants...
In the wild, plants are nourished by a constant diet of decaying plant and animal matter. But in the artificial environment of the garden, plants need to supplement their diet with fertilisers. Spring is the time to fertilise your garden including any lawns,...