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Autumn is a great time to do garden improvement and maintenance, for example constructing a pathway or a pergola, sharpening your tools, improving your soil or mulching the garden beds. A little time spent on jobs now will help your garden power away in the spring....
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...
Baby’s tears is a ground cover plant with tiny leaves. It grows in moist areas and has a moss-like appearance. Details Common name: Baby’s tears, angel’s tears, helxine. Botanic name: Soleirolia soleirolii. The plant is named after M. Soleirol, a...
Most backyards have an old patch of lawn around the house, worn by years of constant human and pet traffic. Many home-owners solve the problem with a concrete path, but what about a more visually exciting alternative? Roger Apte demonstrated how to lay a stepping...
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...