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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...
Grafted Camellia About eighteen months ago we looked at a wonderful groundcover camellia called Camellia sasanqua ‘Marge Miller’. Don thought that this plant, with its lovely pendulous habit, could possibly make a very good weeping standard. He decided to...
Grevillea Garden Update Grevillea ‘Little Miss Muffet’ is in full flower at the moment in the grevillea garden. It is a hybrid between G. sericea and G. speciosa, and has very pretty pink spider-like flower clusters. Some of the grevilleas that were pruned...
Heavy Metals in Fertilisers These days most people realise that using too many chemicals on the garden could be damaging to the environment. We received a letter from Jo Erkelens, a very concerned viewer who purchased a packet of Yates Gro Plus Complete Plant...
Lawns A lush, green lawn adds beauty and value to any home, but many backyard lawns are thin and patchy, and struggle to survive. The problem is that most of us are ordinary gardeners, not greenkeepers, and we don’t have time to give our lawns constant care and...
Low Maintenance Garden People often write to Don asking for his advice on setting up easy care gardens. They explain that they love gardens, but they lead busy lives and don’t have much time to spend on maintenance. Over the years many experts have claimed that...
Years ago, nurseries were fairly boring places. The plants were rarely sold in flower, and not much effort went into presenting them. However, times have changed dramatically. These days nothing cheers gardeners up more than a trip to the local nursery. Not only do...