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Growing a beautiful plant in a pot is a satisfying experience, and plants continue giving joy year after year, especially as they can be moved indoors for brief periods when flowering. However, many pot plants tend to become drab and do not add anything to their...
Potted plants can be used to soften the look of hard surfaces for example where a paved area meets the wall of the house. The area can be softened further with the use of climbing plants. If these are trained on a trellis they are easy to control and will also provide...
This vibrant garden gives a contemporary image to an inner-suburban Victorian style home. There is a traditional structure to the garden reminiscent of Versailles but it is composed of brightly coloured materials, pebbles and columns. The simple plantings and hard...
In the past few weeks Burke’s Backyard has received letters concerning strangely shaped citrus. Two problems occur on citrus that will produce weird looking fruit but are not major problems and can be left untreated. These are citrus bud mite and Citrus Scab....
There’s nothing quite like a water feature in the garden because it always looks wonderful. Whether it’s a large water lily pond like Monet’s garden at Giverny, a Chinese network of water features or fountains and waterfalls in an Australian garden,...
One of the rather worrying things for many gardeners is the strange things you see on your plants. Leaves, branches and even fruit can develop pimples, lumps, bumps and all sorts of horrible things which can be very confusing. Generally lumps and bumps on plants are...
Root rot is a disease that can affect a range of plants in your garden and which can spread through the soil. It can kill plants in a very short space of time and can be difficult to control. Some plants are very susceptible to this disease. Don Burke recently looked...
Weeding is probably the worst part of gardening and you can waste vast amounts of time pulling weeds out of the garden. There are however a number of different methods that will address the problem. 1. Sprays Spraying the weeds in the garden with Round Up or Zero...
An Australian native plant that occurs naturally in New Zealand as well is Canberra Grass. In fact it is not a grass and has an appearance like moss but is from the same family as the carnation (Family Caryophylloceae). Plant Details Common name: Canberra Grass (in...
What do you do when you’ve got a pool you don’t want? One Sydney couple’s solution, has been to transform it into a low maintenance pond system which looks terrific. The swimming pool was not being used and the owners found it a chore to maintain....