Solve a problem, find a plant or look for a design inspiration
Although grasses are fashionable in gardening circles at the moment, many of them really don’t perform very well. A notable exception is a gorgeous new blue coloured Australian native grass. It is called Mingo, which is claimed to be the aboriginal name for...
Robinia Problems Don looked at a street tree planting of golden robinias (Robinia pseudocacia ‘Frisia’). This was a vogue tree in Australian gardens and landscapes during the 1980s and it is still tremendously popular today. However, before you plant a...
Ground Covers There’s nothing as tedious as pulling up weeds, and it’s a chore that takes up a lot of valuable time. Don’t despair – there are other things you can do to help control the problem. The first step is to mulch the garden, and then...
Plants produce most of their annual growth over the next few weeks, so it is important to fertilise them now. Most plants: use Dynamic Lifter, slow release fertiliser, or liquid Nitrosol (apply liquid fertilisers with a hose end sprayer). Lawns: use a complete lawn...
Spring Tart Up If your garden is looking at bit drab at the moment, why not give it a quick spring tart up? The best place to look for inspiration is your local nursery. The really good plant shops around Australia plan their spring displays so that customers can see...
Update Native Pruning About eighteen months ago Don visited the Cumberland State Forest Nursery in Sydney and talked to Steve Sullivan, Operations Manager, State Forest Nurseries about renovation pruning of native plants. They looked at a fifteen-year-old Grevillea...
Viewers’ Letters Giant Crepe Myrtle A few weeks ago on the program we showed a photograph of an enormous crepe myrtle (Lagerstroemia indica) growing in Donnybrook, Western Australia. It was about 10m (35′) high! Since then we’ve received another...
Don looked at a row of standard Hill’s weeping figs (Ficus microcarpa var. hillii) growing by the side of a driveway. These large, evergreen trees come from the rainforests of coastal Queensland. They have large, short main trunks or several main trunks...
Pruning Grevilleas Grevilleas are by far the most popular flowering Australian native plant grown in gardens today, which is hardly surprising when you consider that they attract native birds and many of them flower for most of the year. The only problem is that...
Weird Carrots Don reached into the Burke’s Backyard mailbag and pulled out two interesting letters from viewers with problems growing vegetables. Both gardeners enclosed photographs of twisted, bizarre-looking carrots. Carrots need a light, well-drained soil,...