Hello Hello dear gardening friends! September officially marks the end of Winter and the arrival of the most anticipated season for gardeners, nature, and sunshine lovers alike: SPRING!

Let’s open up the windows and let the fresh air in. Birds and baby animals are back, bees are busy buzzing around, flower buds are opening up, sharing their delightful fragrance and the new tender leaves are slowly unfolding. Plums, cherries, peaches, nectarines, apricots, almonds, ornamental pears and magnolias are putting on quite a show of flowers right now – and boy are the bees are loving it! We will be rewarded with some yummy fruit in a couple of months. You must be feeling more energized, soaking up some natural vitamin D from the sun and feeling motivated to spend more time in the garden. That is just perfect! There is so much to do out there.

Some of us have neglected the garden just a little bit over Winter and it has become quite a jungle (those guilty, raise your hands!) But stress not, it’s all good since gardening is about having a good time outside. You still have about two weeks before the soil temperature starts to rise and by then you should ideally have prepared your garden beds for the new plants you’ll be planting throughout September.

Ok, it’s time to roll up your sleeves. We have a lot of things to do in the garden, so here are some tips and tricks to get you going!

Bare Rooted Plants

• If you haven’t bought your bare root plants yet, the next three weeks is your last window to get them for this year. Bare root plants are usually cheaper than the same size potted plants available at other times of the year. They are very practical and easy to plant because they are dormant until early Spring. They have the time to get adjusted to their planting spot and do not suffer from transplant shock that can usually stunt plant growth for a little while.

Click here to see all our bare root fruits and trees!
Click here to see all our Bare root roses!
We are selling those out pretty fast, so get your order in asap!

If you have already planted your bare root plants, remember to keep the soil moist. They are starting to grow leaves and will need lots of water to grow properly and get established for the hot summer ahead. Here is a practical guide about how to best plant them. Click here.

Flowers

• Perennial flowers are just about to burst. You can easily pop them in your garden to give you some beautiful colours in the coming weeks. A perennial plant or simply perennial is a plant that lives more than two years. They survive over winter and come back again for more blooms!

• Annual/Perennial flowers complete their entire life cycle in a single growing season. Once mature the plant will flower, produce seeds and then die off. The newly produced seeds will then stay dormant until the cycle begins again next season. Some are considered annuals instead of perennials because they do not survive harsh winters. If you protect them from frosts and the cold during winter, they will come back in Spring. Some examples are Nemesia, Scabiosa, Salvias, Petunias and Calibrachoas.

• Edible flowers are a fun and easy way to add colour and flavour to all sorts of dishes — especially when you can pick them right from your own garden. Most edible flowers are best eaten raw – simply pick and rinse with water. Flowers will taste and look their best right after they have opened, rather than after they have been open for a few days.

• Deciduous Magnolias in store right now are in full bloom for the next couple of weeks! These trees look amazing!

• Climbers are a great way to add more greenery and flowers to any size garden. Since they can grow vertically, ideally on a trellis, they are perfect to hide ugly walls, separate spaces, create shade and attract more bees to your garden. Here are some great options that we have in store:

 

Trees

Planting trees is the best thing you can do for the environment, the world and your soul. Seeing a little sapling grow into a magnificent tree that will produce oxygen, flowers, fruits, shade and support a big diversity of wildlife, gives the greatest sense of accomplishment you could ever hope for!  WWF Australia aims to save and grow two billion trees by 2030. The time is now and together we can do this!

• Ornamental pears are the star of the season and are growing all across Victoria. They are fast-growing deciduous trees with glossy green leaves, loved for their summer shade, spectacular Autumn colours and masses of white flowers in Spring. They come in a range of shapes and sizes to suit your landscaping requirements. 

• Native trees are the best trees you can plant to support our wildlife. They are easy to grow since they are adapted to the local conditions and are great for water-wise gardens since they are mostly drought-tolerant!

• Best-sellers!  Here are our most popular and in-demand trees. These are easy to grow and have a fantastic appeal in any type of garden!

Indoor Plants 

They purify the air in your home, reduce toxins and bring some lush greenery to your living spaces. There are so many reasons to get some indoor plants! Click here to read more about the Top 10 Indoor Air purifying plants! 

• Palms are also a great option to add a little tropical touch to your indoors. We have some beautiful specimens in store.

Fruits

Soon we will be able to bite into our favourite sweet and juicy summer fruits. No need to be envious of the neighbour’s fruit loaded plants, as you can have your own, pick fresh fruit, and enjoy them when you feel like it.

• Berries are so yummy and easy to grow. We have a nice selection of blueberry, blackberry, and strawberries. Perfect for healthy breakfasts or desserts

• Fruit trees are the best investment ever! Plant them, take care of them and they will reward you with fresh fruit for many years to come! 

• Citrus plants. Imagine sipping on some fresh, home pressed lemonade or a mojito with limes and mint from your very own garden this Summer! We have a great selection of dwarf and full-size trees such as limes, oranges, mandarins, and lemons.

Vegetables & Herbs

Spring and Summer veggies such as tomato, peppers, squash, eggplants, zucchini, chillies and basil can be sown in pots or trays and kept in a greenhouse until the weather is above 18 degrees Celsius during the day and ideally above 13 degrees at night. Planting them in the garden right now might shock them, causing stunted growth and not perform well for you over Summer. So a little patience will go a long way! You can also plant them out in the ground, but make sure to cover them with some old bed sheets or garden plastic to protect them from frosts and cold nights.

Check the weather forecast for warmer temperatures and later during the month choose a few days that are overcast and rather cool to plant your small plants out in the garden. Remember to water them in properly. An application of seaweed fertilizers will help them settle in better in their new spot.

With the temperatures slowly rising and days getting longer, many Winter veggies will bolt, which means that they will go to seed and lose their lush leafiness. So it is time to go through it all and use them up. You can either use them generously in your kitchen or also harvest and freeze them for a steady supply over Summer. 

• Tomatoes are the superstars of the Spring and Summer veggie gardens! Sweet, juicy, easy to grow and very nutritious. Whether you like tomatoes in salads, pasta sauces, curries or in your burgers, we have a lovely selection to suit all your tomato dreams!

• Leafy greens such as lettuce, spinach, rocket, endive, silverbeet, mustard greens, and celery will grow well in the garden at the moment. Consider working out some space for them and plant them every couple of weeks for a steady supply. Fresh salad bowls will be a perfect addition to barbeques over Spring & Summer.

 

• Root Veggies such as carrots, radish, turnips, parsnips, and beetroot are also great to plant right now. Young beetroot leaves make a tasty, colourful addition to your salads.

 

• Culinary herbs will go really well with your Summer veggies, both as companion plants and as cooking condiments. We have a fantastic variety right now such as mint, thyme, oregano, marjoram, verbena, chamomile, etc. Many are great for green teas or are medicinal such as the pineapple sage or arthritis herb. Click here to see them all.

• Herbal/Medicinal Tea Herbs are perfect for brewing your digestive home teas. You can either dry the leaves up and store them or use them fresh. These aid with digestion, sleep and have many other beneficial & medicinal virtues.

 

Pruning, Repotting & Weeding

• Winter-flowering natives and non-natives can be pruned back and deadheaded to keep them nice and tidy. You can also prune back your evergreen trees to encourage new growth this Spring.

• If some of your potted plants have become overcrowded or looking sad, now is a great time to split them up and re-pot them. The sad-looking ones are usually root-bound and could use a light root trimming and then potting into a bigger pot, or a top-up with some fresh potting mix. Keep them partly shaded and protected for at least a week after this. Then you can give them a liquid or foliar fertilizer feed. Also remember to remove the dead, damaged and excessive growth to improve air circulation. Your succulents can be divided up and put into new pots. More plants!! YAY!

• Scraggy plants. In their prime, they looked fantastic! But now some plants are not performing well despite being pruned, fertilized and taken care of. They are prone to disease and put your other healthy plants at risk. They could be old and have dwindling strength. Consider pulling them out and replacing them with something that will perform for you. Remember to rework the soil and let it settle for a week or two before putting a new plant there. If you are unsure if your plant can bounce back, you can always send us a photo of the plant with some details and we will give you some advice.

• Stay on top of the weeds and pull them out as soon as possible, as with the longer days they will start to set seed and drop them…all through your garden! And you do not want that to happen, as you will be fighting weeds all Spring and Summer long if they start spreading in your garden.

Soil, Fertilising, and Mulching

• If you have poor soil in your vegetable beds now is the time to prepare them for Spring. Throw in generous amounts of rich compost, new soil, manure, and blood and bone meal turning it over, making sure to mix thoroughly. Let it settle for a week or two and it will be perfect for your tomatoes, eggplants, and capsicums during Spring and Summer. Make sure to add some calcium to your soil to avoid diseases such as blossom end rot.

• It is also a good idea to test the pH of the soil and amend it as necessary. Remember that the pH will change with the new additions so test it at various intervals. The aim is to get a neutral pH of 6-7, which vegetables thrive in. Sulphur (liquid or pellets) and pine mulch make your soil acidic whereas lime and mushroom compost increases alkalinity.

• If your soil does not hold on to moisture and goes dry way too fast, you can add some Soil Wetter to improve clay and compacted soil. This makes your plants thrive better as the soil humidity does not fluctuate wildly, and it allows watering and rain to penetrate to the roots where the plants need it rather than just running off the surface.

• Restore some beneficial microbial activity in your soil with some compost tea.

• Put some rich compost or well-aged manure around your fruit trees, to give them the well-needed boost for the Summer fruiting season.

• It is best to give some liquid feed to Winter/Spring flowering annuals every two weeks with a complete liquid fertilizer. You can also add some slow-release granular fertilizer that will feed your plants over a period of 3 to 6 months.

• You can put some fresh mulch around your plants to keep weeds at bay. If you are putting mulch for the first time, make sure to choose the right ones as they change the pH of the soil when they break down. Pine creates acidity, so it is great for Azaleas or Camellias, whereas straw or sugarcane are recommended for veggie beds.

 

Pests & Disease

In Winter, the cold temperatures keep garden pests and diseases under control, but unfortunately, they are always lurking around and ready to spring back to life. Let’s take a look at the most common problems you will encounter this Spring.

• Aphids will be back in the garden once the temperature rises, so you need to keep an eye out for them on new tender growth, especially on flower buds, roses and stone fruit trees. Numbers can increase rapidly if left undetected. Soon enough the ants will be back to farm the aphids and will be placing them strategically around the plants in your garden. Luckily, you can simply blast them off with the hose. You can also make some homemade aphid spray to use on affected plants. Mix 2 tsp vegetable oil, 1 tsp dishwashing liquid and some garlic cloves crushed,  mixed in 1lt of water and left to infuse overnight. This is completely safe for other beneficial insects.

Take pre-emptive action by planting some plants for the beneficial insect population like Ladybugs, Lacewings, Praying Mantises, Hoverflies and spiders. Some examples of beneficial plants are Queen Anne’s Lace, Cosmos, Lucerne and Calendulas. Marigolds are great to repel nematodes in the soil. Beneficial insects will control aphids and other pest populations in your garden.

• Ants like to farm aphids for their sweet dew. To control ants you could sprinkle some diatomaceous earth on the ground where there is a lot of ant activity but only when it is dry. You will have to reapply it after it has rained. It is a natural organic control method that will not harm other insects.

• Citrus gall wasps are starting to emerge in late Spring to Summer when there is new growth. You should inspect your citrus trees and shave off of any galls you see using a peeler. This is better than pruning them off, as pruning creates new soft growth that the wasps love. If you decide to prune the galls, make sure to dispose of them properly by either bagging and sun drying the stems, burning them, or submerging them in a bucket of water. Some extra protection can be given by setting up some wasp traps.

• Fungal diseases that can attack your rose plants are black spots, rust and mildew. Azaleas are vulnerable to petal blight, which thrives in high humidity brought by the rain and warmer temperatures. If you have noticed any fungal disease in the past on your plants, now is a good time to spray them with some organic copper-based fungicides.

• Leaf curl is mainly a disease of peaches and nectarines, though it may also affect almonds and apricots. It’s caused by the fungus Taphrina deformans and occurs wherever peaches and nectarines are grown. Some symptoms are leaves that are entirely or partially curled, distorted and are initially pale green in colour before turning red or purple. This will result in fruit that has raised, irregular rough patches, usually red in colour. Such fruit often falls off prematurely. You can treat this with commercially available copper or lime-based fungicide sprays just during bud swelling, but before they have opened. Once opened it is too late to spray as the leaves will get damaged. A second spray in Autumn, once the leaves have dropped will greatly reduce the chance of re-emergence of leaf curl.

That’s it for this month!

Keep yourself busy in the garden, there is no better therapy to stay mentally and physically fit! And as usual, stay safe lovely people  🙂

Gardening September 2021 Melbourne, Victoria, Australia.

Hello Hello, dear gardening friends! August is here and we start yet another exciting month in the garden. We are still getting a few frosty mornings in Melbourne, but the days are getting noticeably longer. This is the last month of cold Winter days, and soon we will be in jumping into the most exciting season: Spring! But before Spring gets here, there is a lot to do in the garden, to get it ready for this magical time of the year!

Right now native plants, Azaleas, and Camellias are reaching the end of their flowering season. Acacias and Hardenbergias are putting on dramatic displays and deciduous trees such as cherries and magnolias have swelling buds that are getting ready to burst open revealing their great unique beauty and delightful fragrance.

Despite the cold, we know how eager you are to get into the garden, but where to start? Here are some things to do in the garden:

With our list of things to do, winter will fly by and you’ll be ready to hop into spring!

What’s in store!?

Bare Rooted Trees! 

Bare-roots trees and roses are here! In winter, plants go dormant and they transplant much easier than when they’re in leaf. This includes your roses, fruit trees and deciduous ornamentals such as Poplars, Elms, Ash’s and Oaks, just to name a few. Every year, nurseries supply vast amounts of bare-rooted plants at much cheaper prices than if they were in their pots. This is because they are easier to store and transport, thus keeping costs low.

Choose trees with a good structure or framework. Check for any splits. And remember to prune your fruit and ornamental trees back before planting. This pruning is to remove any damaged branches and roots as well as prepare the overall shape for the spring.

We have a big range of bare-rooted fruit trees and ornamental trees already in-store and more coming in pretty soon, so keep an eye out for those on our website. Here are some that we have already received:

Click here to see all our bare root trees!

Bare Root Roses!

We have just received a shipment of thousands of bare root standard roses, so now is the best time of the year to get some in your garden, as they are of great quality. Whether you want 20 of the same colour or perhaps a fantastic mix of different colour roses depending on the garden colour scheme of your choice, you can get all of them in-store here in Campbellfield!
For more on how to plant your Bare Root Roses, Click here!

We have most of the roses in 2ft and 3ft standards with a few 4ft Standards!

To check out our full range of Bare Rooted Roses, Click here!

 

 

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• Tired of seeing the same old yard and want to spruce it up?

If you’re starting a new garden bed you a whole new garden, winter can be a great time to start planning it.  Where will you plant that new hedge or fix up the old vegetable patch, build up an entirely new garden bed or landscape the whole backyard! We understand that this can sometimes be a little daunting so if you’re unsure, speak to one of our sales staff about our Free Garden Design service with Chris. He will be able to assist you with all your future garden plans!

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Our Garden Stimulus Deals are still going strong! We have heavily discounted over 70 of our top selling products to make gardening affordable even with a small budget! These products are in-store and ready to be shipped to you in just a couple of days!

Click here to see all our Garden Stimulus Deals!

 

Winter Garden Colour

Very often we tend to think of winter as being a very dull time of the year for the garden. We have put together a little selection of plants that will flower in winter or just add a splash of colour thanks to their vibrant foliage!

Winter Flowers

Indoor Plants

Some days it is just too cold to be outdoors gardening, and also, not everyone has the luxury of outdoor space for plants. If that is the case for you, you can always get some indoor plants to brighten up your living spaces.

Here are some important tips for indoor plants during winter:

• Indoor plants grow very slowly during winter, so no need to fertilise.
• Prune and remove dead branches to tidy up the plant.
• Keep your plants away from heaters and vents as these cause the plant to dry up and wilt pretty fast. So water your plants sufficiently.
• Keep an eye on the moisture level of the soil to avoid over-watering.
• As the trajectory of the sun has changed in the sky, you might need to move the plants to a sunnier/brighter spot.
• Clean the windows for maximum sunlight and also the leaves of your plants of dust, to allow them to photosynthesise efficiently.

The Vegetable Garden – Herbs

Some great companion plants for all these are herbs are sage, winter thyme, parsley, mint, chives, coriander, dill, oregano, marjoram. They deter pests such as caterpillars. Basil does not tolerate the cold and should be grown in warmer months.

Edible Flowers

Flowers such as Pansies, Violas, Nasturtiums, Calendula and Borage are great for the winter patch! They add colour, diversity, repel pests and most importantly are tasty and pretty additions to salads!

To see our full selection of Fruits, veggies and herbs in store. Click Here!

Native Plants

Native plants are beautiful! They provide shelter and food for wildlife and promote biodiversity and stewardship of our natural heritage. They are unique because they are perfectly suited to the environment that they belong to. This means that they should survive on local rainfall patterns and in the local soil! Here is a selection of the most popular varieties we have in store right now!

Click here to see all of our Natives!

Garden Tasks: Preparing the garden for Spring!

Pruning, Repotting & Weeding

• If you forgot to prune your roses at the end of the last flowering season, you can still do it now, to get them ready for the new spurt of growth in Spring. Make sure to use clean secateurs. Pruning is best done mid to late Winter or early Spring – remember to hold off until the most severe frosts have passed in frost-prone areas.

• Apricots are best pruned in Autumn, but you can still do it lightly once they have started flowering, which is right about now, to keep them tidy and manageable. Avoid pruning if your area has late frosts. (Pruning in Winter allows entry of bacterial gummosis in many stone fruit. More about this lower in the article). Other Deciduous fruit trees could also use a fresh trim now!

• Winter-flowering natives and non-natives can be pruned back and deadheaded to keep them nice and tidy. It is also a good time to prune back your evergreen trees to encourage new growth this Spring.

• If some of your potted plants have become overcrowded or looking sad, now is a great time to split them up and re-pot them. The sad-looking ones are usually root-bound and could use a light root trimming and potted into a bigger pot perhaps, or the same one with some fresh potting mix. Keep them partly shaded and protected for at least a week, then you can give them a liquid or foliar fertilizer feed. Also remember to remove the dead, damaged, and excessive growth to improve air circulation. Your succulents can be divided up and put into new pots. More plants!! YAY!

• Scraggy plants. In their prime, they looked fantastic! But now some plants are not performing well despite being pruned, fertilized, and taken care of. They are prone to disease and put your other healthy plants at risk. They could be old and have dwindling strength. Consider pulling them out and replacing them with something that will perform for you. Remember to rework the soil and let it settle for a week or two before putting a new plant there. If you are unsure if your plant can bounce back, you can always send us a photo of the plant with some details and we will give you some advice.

• Stay on top of the weeds and pull them out as soon as possible, as with the longer days they will start to set seed! And you do not want that to happen, as you will be fighting weeds all Spring and Summer long if they start dropping in your garden.

Soil, Fertilising, and Mulching

• If you have poor soil in your vegetable beds, with a couple of small Winter crops still growing, you could start harvesting and emptying the beds to prepare them for Spring vegetables. Throw in generous amounts of rich compost, manure and blood and bone meal and turn it over to mix it thoroughly. Let it settle for a week or two and it will be perfect for your tomatoes, eggplants, and capsicums during Spring and Summer. It is also a good idea to test the PH of the soil and amend it as necessary. Remember that the PH will change with the new additions so test it at various intervals. The aim is to get a neutral Ph of 6-7, which vegetables thrive in. Sulphur (liquid or pellets) and pine mulch make your soil acidic whereas lime and mushroom compost increases alkalinity.

• Over the winter the microbial activity in your soil is very low because of the cold. In the next couple of weeks, you can prepare some nice compost tea to give it a microbial boost for spring.

• Put some rich compost or well-aged manure around your fruit trees, to give them the well-needed boost for the Summer fruiting season.

• It is best to give some liquid feed to Winter/Spring flowering annuals every two weeks with a complete liquid fertilizer.

• You can put some fresh mulch around your plants to keep weeds at bay. If you are putting mulch for the first time, make sure to choose the right ones as they change the PH of the soil when they break down.

Pests & Disease

There are always pests and diseases lurking around, but we do not see them a whole lot in Winter. Thankfully the cold gets rid of a lot of pests and gives us a nearly pest-free garden until the temperature starts to rise.

• Citrus gall wasps emerge in Spring, often timing emergence with the onset of a flush of new growth. You should inspect your citrus trees and shave off of any galls you see. Pruning the galls off, will only cause new tender growth in the plant, which will be more prone to attacks by the gall wasps. Some extra protection can be given with some wasp traps.

• There are a lot of fungal diseases that can attack your rose plants such as black spot, rust and mildew. If you have noticed any disease in the past, now is a good time to spray them with some organic copper based fungicides.

• Leaf curl is mainly a disease of peaches and nectarines, though it may also affect almonds and apricots. It’s caused by the fungus Taphrina deformans and occurs wherever peaches and nectarines are grown. Some symptoms are leaves that are entirely or partially curled, distorted, and are initially pale green in colour before turning red or purple. This will result in fruit that has raised, irregular rough patches, usually red in colour. Such fruit often falls prematurely. You can treat this with commercially available copper or lime-based fungicide sprays just during bud swelling, but before they have opened. Once opened it is too late to spray as the leaves will get damaged.

That’s all Folks!

You probably thought that there was not much to do in the garden at this time of the year, but hopefully, this article has given you some insights and motivation to get a smashing start to Spring! See you next month and happy gardening lovely people 🙂

Gardening August 2021 Melbourne, Victoria, Australia.

July is here, which means that half of the year is over already, and we are officially heading into the peak of winter with its daily dose of cold and rain! Don’t let the drab slow you down this winter. There is much to do in winter to get prepared for the spring growth plus you can enjoy the many benefits of gardening! Boost your physical and mental wellness, give yourself a sense of accomplishment, relieve some stress, boost your immune system and if you have a veggie patch, you get free nutritious veggies!!

Currently, Lavenders, Camellias, Daisies, Pansys and Violas are blooming beautifully and so are some natives such as Grevilleas, Banksias, Hakeas, Proteas and Kangaroo Paws. We can also start harvesting some winter veggies such as broccoli and snow peas. Some winter flowering bulbs are starting to bloom, such as the eager Daffodils!

With our list of things to do, winter will fly by and you’ll be ready to hop into spring!

What’s in store!?

Bare Rooted Trees! 

Bare-roots trees and roses are here! In winter, plants go dormant and they transplant much easier than when they’re in leaf. This includes your roses, fruit trees and deciduous ornamentals such as Poplars, Elms, Ash’s and Oaks, just to name a few. Every year, nurseries supply vast amounts of bare-rooted plants at much cheaper prices than if they were in their pots. This is because they are easier to store and transport, thus keeping costs low.

Choose trees with a good structure or framework. Check for any splits. And remember to prune your fruit and ornamental trees back before planting. This pruning is to remove any damaged branches and roots as well as prepare the overall shape for the spring.

We have a big range of bare-rooted fruit trees and ornamental trees already in-store and more coming in pretty soon, so keep an eye out for those on our website. Here are some that we have already received:

Click here to see all our bare root trees!

Bare Root Roses!

We have just received a shipment of thousands of bare root standard roses, so now is the best time of the year to get some in your garden, as they are of great quality. Whether you want 20 of the same colour or perhaps a fantastic mix of different colour roses depending on the garden colour scheme of your choice, you can get all of them in-store here in Campbellfield!
For more on how to plant your Bare Root Roses, Click here!

We have most of the roses in 2ft and 3ft standards with a few 4ft Standards!

To check out our full range of Bare Rooted Roses, Click here!

 

Garden Tasks!

Preparing the garden. Everything is bare so time to prepare!

Pruning

This is a big one! Winter is when all major pruning is done because you can see the full structure of the plant and remove any problem branches. Fruit trees, deciduous trees and roses in particular benefit from a good prune. Fruit trees bear fruit more prolifically and look healthy after a good prune.

Pruning Standard Roses

1. Remove all the new, soft growths.

2. Cut back any dead, damaged or dying wood.

3. Remove all the suckers. These are buds that are growing from the understock and are found below the bud union.

4. You should cut it back so that it resembles a claw, don’t worry if you think you have been too ruthless. The plant should have 4-5 main leaders ready for next season.

Your rose will now have been cut by almost 2/3 of what it was. It may look like a lot but it is necessary and they love it! If you’re unsure, ask our staff or take a walk around the neighbourhood and find some of your local rose enthusiasts. Check out how much they will have cut their roses back by and you will be surprised! That’s one of the reasons they have such beautiful roses.

See how the big standard rose has been trimmed back, even though it had lots of leaves and flowers? This ensures that common rose diseases such as Blackspot, Powdery Mildew or Rust do not spread and affect the whole plant, since they are more vulnerable to those diseases during winter.

Protect your plants from Frost!

Frost forms from water vapour in the air, coming in contact with an object that is below freezing temperature. So basically, when the moisture in the air touches a cold windscreen, the moisture sticks to the windscreen and turns to ice!

When it comes to our plants, they expel energy continuously through the day and the night. Energy is warmth! During the day, their expelled energy is replaced by radiant heat from the sun, but at night time they become cooler as their warmth is not continually replaced. When the plant cools enough to get to freezing temperatures, frost can then form on its leaves.

Some plants can handle frost better than others. The moisture inside of the plant’s cells freeze and, like all frozen water, it expands, which can cause stress on the cells and therefore damage to the plant. When the ice is quickly thawed by the morning sun, it causes the most damage to the plant.

If your plants have been damaged by frost, don’t cut off the damaged foliage until the frosts have finished as this dead foliage will actually act as protection for future frosts.

How to tackle frost

• Cover your frost-sensitive plants with sheets, newspaper or straw, making sure to remove them the following day.
• Lightly water your plants before sunrise by a sprinkler system (or by hand if you’re really keen!) This can prevent frost from forming. You can lightly water frost affected plants, which gently thaws the ice, reducing the damage from the frost.
• Use plastic sleeves and stakes to protect plants in open areas

Weed Control

Weeds don’t have a seasonal preference, they’ll turn up any time! But our one saving grace is they turn up less often in winter and the established ones that need to come out are easier to see. The soil is moist, which makes it easier to pull out these little suckers.

For the tougher weeds like clumps of Crowsfoot and Crabgrass, Dandelions or Oxalis you made need a tool to get the whole root out. The importance of getting the whole root out is so it doesn’t re-sprout. We don’t want to have to weed again! You can use a hoe or even a butter knife.

Drainage

Keep an eye out for drainage problems in the garden. After heavy rains, you can easily spot places in the garden that accumulate water and form little pools. These spots are ideal for plants that do not mind waterlogged soil. You can also use gypsum or clay breaking liquid to break up the clay soil and amend it with lots of compost and organic matter, which will improve the drainage.

Transplanting and moving

With the nice cool weather, it is an ideal time to move or transplant plants as the plants have time over winter to grow new roots and be ready for spring. You can repot plants that have outgrown their pots and are getting root-bound. Remove the plant and trim some of the roots at the bottom, shake off some old soil and add some fresh ones at the bottom of the pot to give your plant a fresh start. They will love it!

Fungal Disease

Leaf curl is mainly a disease of peaches and nectarines, though it may also affect almonds and apricots. It’s caused by the fungus Taphrina deformans and occurs wherever peaches and nectarines are grown. Some symptoms are leaves that are entirely or partially curled, distorted, and are initially pale green in colour before turning red or purple. This will result in fruit that has raised, irregular rough patches, usually red in colour. Such fruit often falls prematurely.

You can treat this with commercially available copper or lime-based fungicide sprays just during bud swelling, but before they have opened. Once opened it is too late to spray as the leaves will get damaged.

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Get a Free Garden Design

If you’re starting a new garden bed you a whole new garden, winter can be a great time to start planning it. Once you’ve completed some of the steps below you can start to plan out where you will want to plant that new hedge or vegetable patch, build up an entirely new garden bed or landscape the whole backyard! We understand that this can sometimes be a little daunting so if you’re unsure, speak to one of our sales staff about our Free Garden Design service with Chris. He will be able to assist you with all your future garden plans!

Click here to get yours now!

 

Garden Stimulus Package

Our Garden Stimulus Deals are still going strong! We have heavily discounted over 70 of our top selling products to make gardening affordable even with a small budget! These products are in-store and ready to be shipped to you in just a couple of days!

Click here to see all our Garden Stimulus Deals!

 

Winter Garden Colour

Very often we tend to think of winter as being a very dull time of the year for the garden. We have put together a little selection of plants that will flower in winter or just add a splash of colour thanks to their vibrant foliage!

Winter Flowers

Indoor Plants

Some days it is just too cold to be outdoors gardening, and also, not everyone has the luxury of outdoor space for plants. If that is the case for you, you can always get some indoor plants to brighten up your living spaces.

Here are some important tips for indoor plants during winter:

• Indoor plants grow very slowly during winter, so no need to fertilise.
• Prune and remove dead branches to tidy up the plant.
• Keep your plants away from heaters and vents as these cause the plant to dry up and wilt pretty fast. So water your plants sufficiently.
• Keep an eye on the moisture level of the soil to avoid over-watering.
• As the trajectory of the sun has changed in the sky, you might need to move the plants to a sunnier/brighter spot.
• Clean the windows for maximum sunlight and also the leaves of your plants of dust, to allow them to photosynthesise efficiently.

The Vegetable Garden

It’s truly cold now, but it is just what some veggies love! Many people are concerned that nothing will survive in the cold weather, but that is just wrong because many winter veggies thrive and grow so well in the cold weather! It is even easier as you will rarely need to water the garden!

You can plant the whole range of brassicas such as cabbage, cauliflower, broccoli, Brussel sprouts.
Leafy greens such as Asian greens like mizuna, tatsoi, pak choi, lettuce, rocket, spinach, mustards, spring onions, leek, kale and swiss chard.
Legumes such as Snow Peas and Sugar snap peas are very easy plants to grow right now, just make sure to provide some trellis for them.
Root crops such as radish, beetroot, turnips, swedes, parsnips, carrots, onions, potatoes and garlic. All of those would take 2-3 months before harvest, except for radish which is ready in just 30 days, while potatoes take between 90 and 170 days and garlic that takes about seven to eight months!

You can now remove any protective netting that you were using to safeguard the brassica and Asian green plants from the Cabbage White Moth and its hungry progeny, the caterpillars. As the weather has cooled enough, the moths or butterflies no longer pose a problem.

Asparagus Time to cut back the asparagus to the ground, which has yellowed as expected and then top-dress the plants with a combination of compost, aged cow manure and some slow-release fertiliser pellets.

Check out our available range of fruits, vegetables and herbs.

Some great companion plants for all these are herbs are sage, winter thyme, parsley, mint, chives, coriander, dill, oregano, marjoram. They deter pests such as caterpillars. Basil does not tolerate the cold and should be grown in warmer months.

Edible Flowers

Flowers such as Pansies, Violas, Nasturtiums, Calendula and Borage are great for the winter patch! They add colour, diversity, repel pests and most importantly are tasty and pretty additions to salads!

To see our full selection of Fruits, veggies and herbs in store. Click Here!

Native Plants

Native plants are beautiful! They provide shelter and food for wildlife and promote biodiversity and stewardship of our natural heritage. They are unique because they are perfectly suited to the environment that they belong to. This means that they should survive on local rainfall patterns and in the local soil! Here is a selection of the most popular varieties we have in store right now!

Click here to see all of our Natives!

 

That is all for this July in the Garden tips and tricks article, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. Wishing you all the best, keep yourself warm and safe this winter!

Hello Hello Plants.

Winter isn’t coming, it’s here! June marks the beginning of winter. The stark trees, bitterly cold nights and cloudy days have done a pretty good job at reminding us all of that. But the best way to stay warm this winter is to stay active and get some gardening done!

Many may not realise that winter is the time avid gardeners do a lot of their preparation and planning. The garden reveals everything in winter. The deciduous trees and shrubs are now bare giving more space and light to areas that haven’t seen any since last year. The need for pruning becomes apparent and the bare skeleton of the plant makes it a lot easier to assess what needs to be done.

During winter we also clean up. We turn in the last of the autumn leaves into the compost heap and prepare our garden beds with compost, manure and mulch. Weeding, clearing decks and pavers are also best done now and then, after all that, there are even some things to plant!

Currently, Lavenders, Camellias, Daisies, Pansys and Violas are blooming beautifully and so are some natives such as Grevilleas, Banksias, Hakeas, Proteas and Kangaroo Paws. Bulbs are sprouting, getting ready for a spring display, and in the Veggie patch, there is a lot happening.

With our list of things to do, winter will fly by and you’ll be ready to hop into spring!

 

Bare Rooted Plants! 

It’s that time of year again! Bare-root is BACK and we have loads of Bare Rooted Roses ready to go in-store. In winter, plants go dormant and dormant plants transplant much easier and stress-free than when they’re in leaf. This includes your roses, fruit trees and deciduous ornamentals such as Poplars, Elms, Ash’s and Oaks, just to name a few. Every year, nurseries supply vast amounts of bare-rooted plants at much cheaper prices than if they were in their pots. This is because they are easier to store and transport, thus keeping costs low.

Choose trees with a good structure or framework. Check for any splits. And remember to prune your fruit and ornamental trees back before planting. This pruning is to remove any damaged branches and roots as well as prepare the overall shape for the spring.

We have a big range of bare-rooted fruit trees and ornamental trees already in-store and more coming in pretty soon, so keep an eye out for those on our website. Here are some that we have already received:

Plant Roses –  Bare Root Roses!

Now is the best time of the year to purchase your standard roses as we have hundreds of beautiful quality roses in stock. Whether you want 20 of the same colour or perhaps a fantastic mix of different colour roses depending on the garden colour scheme of your choice, you can get all of them in-store here in Campbellfield!

We have the classic iceberg varieties in 3ft and many colour varieties in 3ft and 4ft standards.

For more on how to plant your Bare Root Roses, Click here!

To check out our full range of Bare Rooted Roses, Click here!

 

Get a FREE GARDEN DESIGN!!

If you’re starting a new garden bed you a whole new garden, winter can be a great time to start planning it. Once you’ve completed some of the steps below you can start to plan out where you will want to plant that new hedge or vegetable patch, build up an entirely new garden bed or landscape the whole backyard! We understand that this can sometimes be a little daunting so if you’re unsure, speak to one of our sales staff about our Free Garden Design service with Chris. He will be able to assist you with all your future garden plans!

Garden Stimulus Package!!

Make the most out of our Garden Stimulus Deals! We have heavily discounted over 70 of our top selling products to make gardening affordable even with a small budget!
Click here to see all our Garden Stimulus Deals!

Garden Colour

Very often we tend to think of winter as being a very dull time of the year for the garden. We have put together a little selection of plants that will flower in winter or just add a splash of colour thanks to their vibrant foliage!

Winter Flowers

Indoor Plants

Some days it is just too cold to be outdoors gardening, and also, not everyone has the luxury of outdoor space for plants. If that is the case for you, you can always get some indoor plants to brighten up your living spaces.

Here are some important tips for indoor plants during winter:

• Indoor plants grow very slowly during winter, so no need to fertilise.
• Prune and remove dead branches to tidy up the plant.
• Keep your plants away from heaters and vents as these cause the plant to dry up and wilt pretty fast. So water your plants sufficiently.
• Keep an eye on the soil moisture level of the soil to avoid over-watering.
• As the trajectory of the sun has changed in the sky, you might need to move the plants to a sunnier/brighter spot.
• Clean the windows for maximum sunlight and also the leaves of your plants of dust, to allow them to photosynthesise efficiently.

The Vegetable Garden

It’s truly cold now, but it is just what some veggies love! Many people are concerned that nothing will survive in the cold weather, but that is just wrong because many winter veggies thrive and grow so well in the cold weather! It is even easier as you will rarely need to water the garden!

You can plant the whole range of brassicas such as cabbage, cauliflower, broccoli, Brussel sprouts.
Leafy greens such as Asian greens like mizuna, tatsoi, pak choi, lettuce, rocket, spinach, mustards, spring onions, leek, kale and swiss chard.
Legumes such as Snow Peas and Sugar snap peas are very easy plants to grow right now, just make sure to provide some trellis for them.
Root crops such as radish, beetroot, turnips, swedes, parsnips, carrots, onions, potatoes and garlic. All of those would take 2-3 months before harvest, except for radish which is ready in just 30 days, while potatoes take between 90 and 170 days and garlic that takes about seven to eight months!

You can now remove any protective netting that I was using to safeguard the brassica and Asian green plants from the Cabbage White Moth and its hungry progeny, the caterpillars. As the weather has cooled enough, the moths or butterflies no longer pose a problem.

Asparagus Time to cut back the asparagus fern to the ground, which has yellowed as expected and then top-dress the plants with a combination of compost, aged cow manure and some slow-release fertiliser pellets.

Check out our available range of fruits, vegetables and herbs.

Some great companion plants for all these are herbs such as sage, winter thyme, parsley, mint, chives, coriander, dill, oregano, marjoram, etc that deter pests such as caterpillars. Basil does not tolerate the cold and should be grown in warmer months.

Edible Flowers

Flowers such as Pansies, Violas, Nasturtiums, Calendula and Borage are great for the winter patch! They add colour, diversity, repel pests and most importantly are tasty and pretty additions to salads!

To see our full selection of Fruits, veggies and herbs in store. Click Here!

Native Plants

Native plants are beautiful! They provide shelter and food for wildlife and promote biodiversity and stewardship of our natural heritage. They are unique because they are perfectly suited to the environment that they belong to. This means that they should survive on local rainfall patterns and in the local soil! Here is a selection of the most popular varieties we have in store right now!

Click here to see all of our Natives!

Garden Tasks!

Frost! Winter is here!

Frost forms from water vapour in the air, coming in contact with an object that is below freezing temperature. So basically, when the moisture in the air touches a freezing cold windscreen, the moisture sticks to the windscreen and turns to ice!

When it comes to our plants, they expel energy continuously through the day and the night. Energy is warmth! During the day, their expelled energy is replaced by radiant heat from the sun, but at night time they become cooler as their warmth is not continually replaced. When the plant cools enough to get to freezing temperatures, frost can then form on its leaves.

You may notice under large trees there is little to no frost. Large trees shelter the plants and grass underneath. Their canopy radiates energy downward from the underside of their leaves, as these “breathe out”. This expulsion of energy keeps the area under the tree warmer for longer during the night. This is why planting your more frost-sensitive plants under trees and shelter can help protect them from frost.

Some plants can handle frost better than others. The moisture inside of the plant’s cells freeze and, like all frozen water, it expands, which can cause stress on the cells and therefore damage to the plant. When the ice is quickly thawed by the morning sun, it causes the most damage to the plant.

If your plants have been damaged by frost, don’t cut off the damaged foliage until the frosts have finished as this dead foliage will actually act as protection for future frosts.

How to tackle frost

• Cover your frost-sensitive plants with sheets, newspaper or straw, making sure to remove them the following day.
• Lightly water your plants before sunrise by a sprinkler system (or by hand if you’re really keen!) This can prevent frost from forming. You can lightly water frost affected plants, which gently thaws the ice, reducing the damage from the frost.
• Use plastic sleeves and stakes to protect plants in open areas

 

Preparing the garden. Everything is bare so time to prepare!

Weed Control

Weeds don’t have a seasonal preference, they’ll turn up any ole time! But our one saving grace is they turn up less often in winter and the established ones that need to come out are easier to see. The soil is moist, which makes it easier to pull out these little suckers.

For the tougher weeds like clumps of Crowsfoot and Crabgrass, Dandelions or Oxalis you made need a tool to get the whole root out. The importance of getting the whole root out is so it doesn’t re-sprout. We don’t want to have to weed again! You can use a hoe or even a butter knife.

Compost

You don’t have to throw those weeds into the green bin. Chuck them straight into your compost. You will want to start building up your compost, if you haven’t already, with all your garden scraps from your winter cleaning. This will all break down over winter and be ready to put into the garden in spring.

Clearing and cleaning

The leaves that have fallen can all be turned into empty or new garden beds. By doing this you will also aerate the soil, which not only allows more oxygen flow but more water and nutrients to work through. Any mulch leftover can either be scraped back and put in the compost or, if there’s not too much, turn it into the soil along with the leaves to break down.

Existing plants and garden beds

For your existing plants, you will want to reapply mulch to keep the soil warm and retain moisture in the soil around the roots.
You may notice some of your hedging plants are turning a little yellow. This is often caused by a nutrient deficiency that occurs during the winter months. It’s nothing to be worried about as it can be easily fixed by applying Dolomite lime to the soil. It takes a few months to take effect so be patient!

Transplanting and moving

With the nice cool weather, it is an ideal time to move or transplant plants as the plants have time over winter to grow new roots and be ready for spring. You can repot plants that have outgrown their pots and are getting root-bound. Remove the plant and trim some of the roots at the bottom, shake off some old soil and add some fresh ones at the bottom of the pot to give your plant a fresh start. They will love it!

Pruning

This is a big one! Winter is when all major pruning is done because you are able to see the full structure of the plant and remove any problem branches. Fruit trees and roses in particular benefit from a good prune. Fruit trees fruit more prolifically and healthily after a good prune. Roses, too, flower better and look much more beautiful.

For more information on pruning, Click here!

That is all for this June in the Garden tips and tricks article, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. Wishing you all the best, keep yourself warm and safe this winter!

Hello Hello Plants.

Let the cold weather begin! May brings the first frosts, cold nights and a blaze of Autumn colour and leaf fall from our deciduous trees and shrubs. There are lots of trees still bearing beautiful autumn foliage such as the Crimson Sentry Maples, London Plane trees and Golden Elms but by the end of the month, most deciduous trees will be completely bare and in their stark, sculptural winter form.

However, it’s not all grim for May as there are some beautiful flowers blooming and a lot of delicious fruit to harvest. Get some gardening gloves ready, as there are quite a lot of things to get done during this time, in preparation for the months to come.

Mother’s Day!

With Mother’s Day right around the corner, come to the nursery and get some lovely plants to treat your mum and grandmother. We have a big range of indoor plants to brighten up the kitchen or living room, some fragrant flowers, flowering trees and so much more at very low prices! Or you can also get a gift voucher, which might be more convenient. These can be mailed by post or emailed and can be redeemed in-store or even online.

Top picks for mum!

Forget the boring common bunches of flowers that everybody buys, and get something that will undoubtedly make mum happy for years to come! Here is a selection of the best fragrant and beautiful flowering plants that keep on giving!

What is flowering right now?

There are some beauties just about to flower, such as camellias, begonias, salvias, Dianthus and some delightfully scented daphnes.

• Cottage Flowers. Add some popping colour to your garden and attract and feed the pollinators.

• Camellias. Queens of the winter flowers, Camellias are attractive evergreen shrubs that are highly prized for the beauty of their exquisite blooms, their splendid evergreen foliage and their compact shapely habit.

 

May in the Garden

Frosts & Frost Coverings

On still, cold nights, frost forms on our lawns, windscreens and makes our early morning starts even more difficult, particularly getting out of bed!

In May, frost really only forms in regional areas and the very outer suburbs of Melbourne, where it gets cold enough to form ice. Conditions have to be still with no cloud, and temperatures that drop below freezing.

Cold air is heavier than warm, so frost stays low to the ground and often rolls downhill, pooling in low points or gullies. Hedges and fences can catch rolling frost down a slope, which can cause a rather frosty spot.

How does frost form?

Frost forms from water vapour in the air, coming in contact with an object that is below freezing temperature.

So basically, when the moisture in the air touches a freezing cold windscreen, the moisture sticks to the windscreen and turns to ice!

When it comes to our plants, they expel energy continuously through the day and the night. Energy is warmth! During the day, their expelled energy is replaced by radiant heat from the sun, but at night time they become cooler as their warmth is not continually replaced. When the plant cools enough to get to freezing temperatures, frost can then form on its leaves.

You may notice under large trees there is little to no frost. Large trees shelter the plants and grass underneath. Their canopy radiates energy downward from the underside of their leaves, as these “breathe out”. This expulsion of energy keeps the area under the tree warmer for longer during the night. This is why planting your more frost-sensitive plants under trees and shelter can help protect them from frost.

Some plants can handle frost better than others. The moisture inside of the plant’s cells freeze and, like all frozen water, it expands, which can cause stress on the cells and therefore damage to the plant. When the ice is quickly thawed by the morning sun, it causes the most damage to the plant.

If your plants have been damaged by frost, don’t cut off the damaged foliage until the frosts have finished as this dead foliage will actually act as protection for the future frosts.

How to tackle frost

• Cover your frost-sensitive plants with sheets, newspaper or straw, making sure to remove it the following day.
• Lightly water your plants before sunrise by a sprinkler system (or by hand if you’re really keen!) This can prevent frost from forming. You can lightly water frost affected plants, which gently thaws the ice, reducing the damage from the frost.
• Use plastic sleeves and stakes to protect plants in open areas

Weeding

Weeds run rampant this time of year. You may have seen more and more popping up in the garden such as Bindii, Capeweed and the culinary Mustard weed.

Due to the increase in moisture from the autumn rains, the soil is loose, making weeds easier to pull out. As some of these weeds are just starting to appear it is always good to get them out while they’re young and their roots haven’t taken hold. If your weeds don’t have seeds on them, chuck them into your compost for added nitrogen!

Free plant nutrition in your autumn leaves! 

Most of the leaves have fallen off the trees so we now have an abundance of free plant food!

Every year, hundreds of Victorians begrudgingly get out their rakes and green bins and begin to rake up those fallen leaves to toss out. But little do they know they are throwing away valuable material. Almost everything in the garden is recyclable and leaves are certainly no exception.

Leaves naturally fall around trees, creating a soft, decomposing bed around the base of the tree, keeping the soil protected and warm as well as eventually breaking down and improving the soil. Trees are very clever and prepare their own soil!

In smaller gardens, fallen leaves should be removed to allow the lawn to grow (as leaf littered lawns will die in patches) and prevent them from harbouring snails and slugs, as they love living in this moist environment.

Collect and store your autumn leaves for use throughout the year. It is best to try and compost or decompose your leaves from the beginning as dried leaves are a hot spot for earwigs to nest. These little pests usually help the decomposition process but they can also cause a lot of damage to your lush plants, much like snails and slugs! If you want to store them dry, store them in a sealed container so these pests can’t get in.

You can store your precious collected leaves in a large barrel, garden bin or even a garbage bag. Water them down to keep them moist and promote fungal growth, furthering the decomposition. If they’re stored in a large bin, layer them like you would your compost bin, with high nitrogen plants to replace the nitrogen the leaves have lost. (This would be a great use for all your pulled out weeds!)

Leaves can also be added to your compost if it is smelling bad from too much vegetable matter and this adds phosphate, potassium and other essential elements.

Leaves take 6-12 months to break down and become a beautiful mould.

Bare Root is coming…

It’s almost time for BARE ROOTED FRUIT TREES and other wonderfully cheap deciduous trees! Winter marks the time for bare root so it’s best to get your garden beds prepared.

Till your soil, creating a loose, well-draining medium and make sure it is free from pests and diseases. Turn in any fallen autumn leaves and ready compost you may have so it can rest for the month before planting. Give the bed a good watering to keep all your microorganisms happy and healthy!

More information about Bare Rooted plants & why we love them here.

Evergreen Fruits

If you haven’t done so already, get your citrus and evergreen fruit trees in the ground now. That’s all your lemons, limes and oranges as well as guavas like Feijoa, Chilean and Strawberry guava. Dig a hole twice the size of the pot and water the hole. Partly fill your new hole so that you can place the plant’s root ball into it so the top of the root ball is level with the top of the soil. Back-fill with a light, fluffy soil or well-composted soil, nothing too rich. Keep weeds and lawn away from the base of the tree as these plants have shallow roots and don’t want to compete for water and nutrients. Mulch around the base, keeping the mulch away from the trunk. This will keep the weeds away, and the soil warm and moist until the spring. Water once per week or as needed as even winter can be dry! Some fruits that you can harvest right now are persimmons, various citrus fruit, feijoas, raspberries and strawberries.

• Berries. Put in some delicious berries for that home grown home grown freshness.

• Citrus plants. We have a great variety in 4L pots that are on sale right now! These are fantastic varieties that were originally destined for Victorian fruit farms, so you know they were born to produce fruit, plus they are very affordable.

• Various fruit. Here is a great selection of the most popular and rare dwarf varieties, ideal for small spaces. Some are in limited quantities, so better hurry up.

The Vegetable Patch

Green Manure Crops

Late autumn-winter is bean and pea planting season. These wonderful, plentiful veggies are best planted now. They add nitrogen into an otherwise depleted veggie bed and provide an abundance of peas and beans at the same time! Two for one! At the end of the season, your veggie bed will be ready for your spring crop.

For a good green manure crop plant beans such as broad or fava, peas and oats.

Other things to note…

• Before planting Autumn and Winter veg, enrich your soil by top dressing with some compost and manure and let it settle for a week. If the soil is too hard from being baked by the summer heat, you can gently turn it over to incorporate some organic matter into it, which will make new crops grow better. If you have hard or clay soil you can also add some soil wetter to make water penetrate more easily and retain moisture.
• Give new seedlings a good boost with an application of liquid fertiliser after a week and they will reward you later on.
• Autumn and winter veggies that should either already be in the ground or need to be planted now are as follows:
  -Greens such as silverbeet, leeks, celery, watercress, lettuce, rocket, spring onion.
  -Herbs such as  parsley, thyme, oregano, coriander etc
  -Asian greens such as Pak Choi, Kailan, Choi Sum
  -Brassicas such as broccoli, cauliflower, cabbage, Brussel sprouts.
  -Root veggies such as beetroot, turnip, radish, parsnip, onions, carrots and garlic.
  -Legumes such as sugar snap/Snow peas and broad beans.

Check out our available range of vegetables and herbs.

Fertilizing

Due to the frequent rain in Autumn, nutrients leach away from the soil. Nitrogen or Nitrates are the most common essential nutrients that leach away, along with other highly soluble minerals such as calcium. You may tend to notice discolouration or yellowing leaves on your plants.

Use slow-release fertilizers or seaweed solutions instead of traditional instant “NPK” ones. These take time to break down and give a steady supply of nutrients for a few months. Choosing the right fertilizer for the right plant is important as these contain trace elements that the specific plants require which are often scarce in normal soil.

Click here for a full list of fertilizers.

Click here to view a chart of various possible deficiencies in plants. 

FREE Garden Design and FREE Weeping Cherry Tree!

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For the month of May, we have an exclusive offer you will not want to miss! Following your FREE Garden Design with Chris, if you pay for your plants selected during your design meeting on the same day and spend over $1000, we will give you a FREE Advanced Weeping Cherry 20″ Pot worth $300!!

There are 4 varieties to choose from:
Cheals
Rosea
Falling Snow
Subhirtella Alba

Weeping Cherries are the perfect small feature tree for the suburban garden and can even be planted in large pots or half wine barrels on the back patio!

Get in whilst stocks last. Limit 1 per customer, per Garden Design!

Click here to read more about this exclusive offer!

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Garden Stimulus! Best plant deals in Victoria!

Aussies have been hit hard by the government’s current job seeker package ending, and the dream of getting the garden finished before the house goes on sale becomes less of a reality. But we hear you!!

We have released our own stimulus package for growers and gardeners alike! Growers need to move their stock and gardeners need a break from the never-ending costs of their garden.

We have loads of new specials from in-store and growers across Melbourne and we’ve kept prices real loooow so you can still stay within your now tighter budget.

If that doesn’t stimulate your gardening, I don’t know what can!

Our top Garden Stimulus offers!

Hello Hello, dear gardening friends!

April usually marks the unofficial beginning of Autumn and the beginning of the longest season of the Kulin nation; ‘Waring’ or Wombat season! Unlike autumn, which lasts from March-May, Waring lasts from April to July. It marks the beginning of misty mornings, low temperatures and higher rainfall. Days begin to get shorter and brilliant fungi start to appear. And how can we forget the stunning change of foliage colour amongst Melbourne’s gorgeous deciduous plants!

All over the city, our giant trees are putting on a display of reds, oranges and yellows, their spent leaves colouring the footpaths and streets. Golden Elms and Ash are shining gold beacons, Scarlet Oaks and Maples produce vibrant lipstick reds and Japanese Maples start to really shine with varying colours, all on a single tree. This time of year is not only about colourful foliage. Camellia’s are beginning to flower, Native Violets are covered with upright purple flowers that the bees adore, Salvia’s and Gazania are continuing their summer flower display along with newly budding flowers of Pimeleas, Daisies and Alyssum.  

Free Weeping Cherry offer with Garden Designs!

Make sure to check out our Free Advanced Weeping cherry offer that comes with our Free Garden Design service by Chris! Click here to read more!

Preparing the Garden

Autumn is a very busy time of the year for gardeners. Soils still retain their summer warmth and become moist with more rainfall, making it a great time to plant and prepare garden beds. Free mulch literally falls from the sky with autumn leaves, which can be turned into the soil or compost, making your soil fluffy and rich, ready for planting. It is also a good time to turn in any aged compost and mulch, and remove spent summer vegetables, ready for your next crop. You may have already begun this process following our ‘March in the Garden’ article, but if you haven’t, you definitely need to get onto it now! It may not seem like it but this can take some time to do, but boy is it worth it.

What to Plant

Your garden is now becoming prepped for new planting. Deciduous trees, are best planted in autumn. The soil needs to be soft, well-draining and have minimal nutrients in it. Make sure you haven’t added any extra fertilisers into the soil before you plant a deciduous tree or shrub as this can give it a rude awakening. Deciduous plants are going into dormancy for winter and won’t require any fertiliser until late winter-early spring. Birches, Elms and Ashes make for great planting now. Weeping Cherries and Japanese Maples are ideal feature trees for a small suburban garden and are beginning to put on quite a show!

For the non-deciduous plants that are ready for autumn and Winter flowering, they will require some food to produce their beautiful blooms. Beautiful autumn and winter bloomers such as Camellia’s and Azalea’s will need a fertiliser such as Osmocote Controlled Release Fertiliser: Roses, Gardenia’s, Azalea’s and Camellia’s. The right balance of nutrients and minerals coupled with the correct soil pH produce the perfect blooms. If your flowers aren’t forming correctly or the colours aren’t right, it could be a pH or fertiliser problem so this is something to keep in mind when they first start to form.

It is not commonly known but autumn marks the start of the best planting time for natives. It is ideal to plants natives from autumn through to spring when the temperatures aren’t so harsh. And there are some absolutely iridescent natives that put on a spectacular show during this time of the year. Victoria’s floral emblem, Epacris impressa or Common Heath is currently putting on quite a show throughout the Wombat State and other forests. Though usually flowering in late autumn, it has decided to start early this year. Other stunning flowering natives include Banksia’s, which are much loved by cockatoos, Crowea and Correa. Click here to see all our Native plants!

Get your spring-flowering bulbs in the ground by the end of April. Refrigeration or cooling of bulbs in the soil during winter help produce taller flowers with better blooms in the spring. Some of the best producing bulbs are Daffodils, Tulips and Iris.

Fungi and Mushrooms

As the days get cooler and the nights longer, autumn provides a fantastic opportunity to throw on some warm clothes, get outside into the fresh air, and go mushroom foraging.

Mushrooms are rich in B vitamins: riboflavin, niacin, and pantothenic acid. The combination helps protect heart health. Riboflavin is good for red blood cells. Niacin is good for the digestive system and for maintaining healthy skin.

The mushroom season in Victoria depends on many factors, however, as from April to June are fairly ideal for foraging, with many tours operating during these months.

Important note about wild mushroom safety: While Victoria has a good variety of edible, wild mushrooms, the region is also home to a number of mushroom species that can cause illness and/or death. These include the yellow stainer (Agaricus xanthodermus) and death cap (Amanita phalloides). The Victorian Government’s Better Health website has further information on the risks of consuming wild mushrooms in Victoria.

You can also visit Facebook groups such as Australia & New Zealand Fungus Identification But always be cautious with online advice.

Mushroom foraging guided tours

Instead, look into mushroom tours offer a great chance to learn how to correctly identify edible mushrooms (and avoid the poisonous ones). Here are some tours that you could join:

-Mushroom Foraging & Lunch at lil’ acres,Woodend, Vic 3442.
-Maxs May Mushroom Meander- Red Hill, Victoria.
-Mushroomtours, Moorooduc.

Growing your own mushrooms!

There are several great workshop and mushroom growing suppliers in Melbourne that can assist you in this fun adventure.
-Milkwood (Online)
-The Mushroomery (In Person)

What to do if mushrooms pop up in the garden or pots?

Mushrooms growing in your garden beds or pots are an indication of healthy soil. The mycorrhizal/fungal network connect individual plants together and transfer water, carbon, nitrogen, and other nutrients and minerals. The actual mushroom is only the fruiting body of that network and is responsible for spreading spores to colonise new places. They also assist to decompose organic matter and make it available to other plants. So if you see mushrooms or fungus growing in your patch or pots, you can safely leave them there. Inform your children that these are poisonous and not to eat them. Pets usually are not interested in mushrooms, but if you have a curious pet, it would be better to pull them out. 

Mulch

Mulch that was laid down in spring or summer last year should still be thick enough to protect your plants this Autumn, so you do not need to top it up. As a matter of fact, if your mulch has not broken down much and is still quite thick, i.e over 4 inches, you might want to remove some of it to keep about 1-2 inches tops. A thick mulch layer will retain too much humidity over in the cool and wet Autumn weather and create the perfect environment for a host of diseases, especially fungal ones, that will spread to and affect your plants. Excess mulch can be saved for later or be added to the compost heap.

The Vegetable Patch

Most summer crops that have provided a bounty of fresh veggies are now looking a bit scraggly, reaching the end of the lifecycle. They can be pulled out, chopped up and composted as long as they are disease-free. Some chillies, capsicum and eggplant can be left a little longer in the ground until they are done fruiting. You can try to keep your chillies and capsicum going over winter by having them in a pot, protected from the cold and frost over the coming months.

• Harvest most of your summer crops because the cool weather prevents them from growing any more or ripening. There are many great ways to preserve excess produce such as Fermenting, Canning, Snap Freezing, Pickling, and Drying. You can also donate the excess to charity associations such as Foodbank and Fareshare. You can also look into swapping produce at swap meetups, which you can find via Local Food Connect.
• Before planting Autumn and Winter veg, enrich your soil by top dressing with some compost and manure and let it settle for a week. If the soil is too hard from being baked by the summer heat, you can gently turn it over to incorporate some organic matter into it, which will make new crops grow better. If you have hard or clay soil you can also add some soil wetter to make water penetrate more easily and retain moisture.
• Give new seedlings a good boost with an application of liquid fertiliser after a week and they will reward you later on.
• If you are not too keen on Autumn or Winter veggies you can plant some green manure crops to allow your soil to improve while waiting for Spring and Summer planting. But if you are, here is a little list of what can be grown right now:
  -Greens such as silverbeet, leeks, celery, watercress, lettuce, rocket, spring onion.
  -Herbs such as  parsley, thyme, oregano, coriander etc
  -Asian greens such as Pak Choi, Kailan, Choi Sum
  -Brassicas such as broccoli, cauliflower, cabbage, Brussel sprouts.
  -Root veggies such as beetroot, turnip, radish, parsnip, onions, carrots and garlic.
  -Legumes such as sugar snap peas and broad beans.

Check out our available range of vegetables and herbs.

How to ripen up your green tomatoes!

You can either ripen your tomatoes indoors or on the vine. You can coax the ripening process from green to red when tomatoes are taken indoors—a much better plan than leaving them to wither on their vines. The key to ripening tomatoes is a warm, enclosed and dry environment. Tomatoes need warmth to ripen.

1. In the bag: To ripen a few green tomatoes, put them in a paper bag, close it up, and store them in a warm location in your home. Kept enclosed together, the ethylene they emit will stimulate ripening. You can add a ripe banana or apple as well to speed things up. Once a tomato is ripe, remove it from the bag and enjoy it right away. Check the bag daily for mould or rot and remove any spoiled pieces.
2. Box method: If you have several green tomatoes you want to ripen, consider using a cardboard box. Place them in the box so they do not touch one another. You can add a ripe banana as well. Close the box and, as with the bag-ripening method, check daily for mould and rot, or full ripening, and remove those tomatoes.
3. The windowsill approach: Try this if your tomatoes have already started to show some ripened colour. Simply put them on the sill of a window that gets sunlight. Inspect them daily for progress. You can also remove tomatoes you have ripening in a bag or box once they start showing signs of colour and continue their ripening on the window sill.

To ripen tomatoes on the vine you can try:

1. Removing flower clusters. Pluck new flower clusters from tomato plants that have already set fruit. Removing flowers will direct the plant’s energy into ripening the fruit already maturing on the vine.
2. Removing small or excess fruit. Pick small or excess fruit off of the tomato plant. Removing immature fruit or fruit you will not use will allow the plant to divert energy into ripening larger, already maturing fruit. Tomatoes that reach “mature green” size and have their first blush of colour can be ripened off the vine at room temperature.
3. Removing some leaves. Pinch away suckers and lower leaves. Tomato plants almost continuously produce new shoots–called suckers–between the main stem and lateral branches. Pinch or prune away this new growth so that the plant can channel its energy into producing and ripening fruit rather than producing new leaves. Leaves just above fruit or fruit clusters should be left in place to protect the fruit from sunburn. Leaves low on the plant that turns yellow or brown or diseased leaves should be removed. These leaves are taking energy away from fruit ripening.
4. Reducing water and food late in the season. Reduce water and fertilizer to encourage “mature green” fruits to ripen. Fertilizer–especially excess nitrogen–encourages new leaf growth at the expense of fruit growth and maturation. (Use fertilizer low in nitrogen 4-8-4 for tomatoes.) Reducing water as fruits reach mature size will enhance ripening (and concentrate flavour) and direct the plant’s energy away from new fruit set to ripening fruit already on the vine
5. Some gardeners swear by feeding their tomato plants unsulfured blackstrap molasses, saying that the molasses not only provides tomato plants with energy but also makes ripening tomatoes sweeter and increases microbial activity in the soil. Use about a cup of molasses per two gallons of water, applying no more than once per week.

Pests and Disease

Humid and cool conditions can cause a proliferation of pests and diseases in the garden. Identify them early, treat them, and keep your plants healthy all through Autumn and Winter.

• Leaf Miner and Citrus Leaf Miner. These are small nocturnal moths that lay their eggs on the underside of soft fresh leaves of citrus and other seedlings. The eggs hatch and the larvae rapidly burrow under the surface of the leaf, and it is these larvae that cause all the damage. The larvae feed on the epidermal cells of the leaf, creating a silvery snake-like ‘mined’ damage to the leaf, which eventually curls up. The best way is to control them is using eco oils, sprayed fortnightly above and below the leaf of plants.  This will also deter many other pests. A chemical/biological control is Spinosad (marketed as Success by Yates) is also reputed to be effective against leaf-miners.
• Cabbage Butterflies and Moths. White Cabbage butterflies lay their eggs on our Brassicas, such as broccoli and cauliflower. Little green caterpillars hatch from these eggs and then get to work chewing holes through the plants. There are several ways to control them.

• Netting- You can protect your young crop by covering them with netting that would prevent the butterflies from reaching them.
• Companion plants- Plant some strong-smelling herbs such as lavender, sage, and rosemary seem to discourage cabbage moths from settling and laying eggs. Try planting them around the edges of your patch to form an odour barrier. You can also plant decoy plants such as nasturtiums, dill, and mustard, which will draw egg-layers away from your main crops.
• Using decoy ‘Scarecrows‘- Cabbage moths are highly territorial and will avoid laying eggs where there’s already competition for food. Use little decoys around brassicas to send them somewhere else. Here is a great little printable template that you can use. Click Here to see the template. This template was created by the Australian Butterfly Conservation.
•  Dipel – An organic biological insecticide which is based on Bacillus thuringiensis var. kurstaki, which is an insecticide derived from beneficial bacteria found in soil, on plant surfaces and also in insects. It specifically targets caterpillars and is safe for beneficial insects such as ladybirds and bees.
• Other Pests. Thrips, Mites, Scales, Aphids, and Whiteflies are other bugs that cause a lot of damage to our plants. Here is a very natural way of controlling them by using nature itself. Bugs for Bugs is a company that specialises in integrated pest management (IPM) and is one of Australia’s leading suppliers of biological control agents. Here is a great little chart for controlling bugs by using bugs.

Click here to see their website. Or visit their Facebook page!

• Blackspot and Rust commonly affect Rose plants. If you notice any of those on your roses, you can cut them back lightly, remove the diseased leaves, spray the remaining leaves with some organic copper-based fungicide, and also fertilize them to encourage new growth and blooms.
• Powdery mildew is one of the most commonly occurring plant problems at this time of the year. It is a fungal disease that affects plant leaves and stems, coating them in what looks like a white or grey powder-like substance. In severe cases, powdery mildew can even spread to the buds, flowers, and fruits of plants. A simple remedy is a good spray of the following mix: 1 tablespoon baking soda with 1 tablespoon vegetable oil and 1 teaspoon dish soap in 1 gallon of water. Another option is a mix of 1 part milk with 10 parts of water. If this natural remedy fails to get rid of it, you can look into Sulphur based fungicides.

• Root rot and Wet Feet are the most damaging ailments our houseplants can suffer from, and one of the most common. An infection can destroy a plant literally from the ground up. It spreads quickly, and without prompt action, it’s soon too late. Roots of plants affected by root rot may turn from firm and white to black/brown and soft. Affected roots may also fall off the plant when touched. The leaves of affected plants may also wilt, become small or discoloured. Affected plants may also look stunted due to poor growth, develop cankers or ooze sap. Once root rot is identified, you must determine if the plant can be saved. If the entire root system has already become mushy, it is too late to save the plant. However, if some healthy, white, firm roots exist, try to bring the plant back to good health by replanting in fresh soil with good drainage.Click here to read more about wetfeet.

 

Here are our top Specials for this month!

Feature Trees

Tall Hedges and Screening

Borders

Colourful

SUPER CHEAP!!

Indoors

Edibles

Modern

Natives

Climbers

Groundcovers!

We will update this list with more specials during the week, so check back in! 🙂

Click here to see even more Specials!

That’s all for this month! Thanks for reading our Gardening in April Article. 🙂 

See you in-store here at 1477 Sydney Road, Campbellfield!

Gardening in Autumn, April in the Garden. Melbourne, Victoria, Australia.

Hello Hello, dear gardening friends!

As we are reaching the end of Summer here in Melbourne, we can all certainly feel the cool change and the days getting shorter. We put on extra layers to keep us warm, enjoy our favourite hot beverage and make ourselves cozy for Autumn.  This is the season that reminds us that our bodies, minds, and surroundings are always changing. It represents the preservation of life and its basic necessities. In a way, the autumn season offers us a chance to reconnect with ourselves.

As we harvest the last rewards of Summer, we enjoy this generous bounty by cooking delicious meals and we also preserve extras for the cooler months. In the garden, there are beautiful blooms to enjoy. Crepe Myrtles are putting on a beautiful display, along with Hibiscus, Hydrangeas, Roses, Oleanders, and several others. Rhododendrons and Camellias have a few flowers and many buds that are slowly swelling up for a lovely Autumn bloom.

Before the leaves start changing colour, there are many things to do in the garden to prepare for a beautiful Autumn, so here are the main points.

Planting and Watering

With the lower temperatures, you can put any plant in the ground safely without much risk of shocking or stunting them. It is an ideal time for many summer heat-sensitive plants such as Maples, Weeping Cherries, and Birches to go into the ground. They will have over 8 months to get properly established for the next summer. Just make sure to water them adequately and keep the soil moist, but not too wet. This is the best time for a large property and commercial landscape planting. As of March, the rate of evaporation of water from the soil is less, so you can water your outdoor and indoor plants less frequently, or adjust your irrigation system accordingly. Watch out for root rot, which can happen to plants that have poor drainage or excessive watering. Read more about this lower in the Pests and Disease section.
Click here for a little guide on planting your store-bought plants.

Lawns

The heat of summer and dry weather can be very bad for lawns if they are not watered properly. This is a great time to repair any dry patches or any damage caused during summer.

•   The first step is to dethatch your grass with a rake to remove the accumulation of dead grass and long runners. Thatch is a build of dead grass leaves, stems and root which leaves your lawn looking unsightly after it is mown.

• Aerate your lawn with a garden fork or aerator.  Almost all lawns will benefit from aeration, and a great lawn demands it. That said, most lawns do not need it. Lawns suffering from heavy foot traffic, excessive thatch buildup (more than 1 inch thick) or grown on heavy soils will benefit the most.

• Top dress with some fine compost and/or lawn fertilizer. Rake over to even it out and water your lawn to settle it in.

• Worn out, dry or dead patches can be over sown with some lawn seed or replaced with patches of instant turf.

Mulch

Mulch that was laid down in spring or summer last year should still be thick enough to protect your plants this Autumn, so you do not need to top it up. As a matter of fact, if your mulch has not broken down much and is still quite thick, i.e over 4 inches, you might want to remove some of it to keep about 1-2 inches tops. A thick mulch layer will retain too much humidity over in the cool and wet Autumn weather and create the perfect environment for a host of diseases, especially fungal ones, that will spread to and affect your plants. Excess mulch can be saved for later or be added to the compost heap.

If you do not have any mulch, well, now is also a good time to add about 1-2 inches of it on your topsoil to protect your plants.

Fertilizing

Due to the frequent watering in summer, nutrients leach away from the soil, especially from pots and planters. Nitrogen or Nitrates are the most common essential nutrients that leach away, along with other highly soluble minerals such as calcium. You may tend to notice discolouration or yellowing leaves on your plants. The best way to prevent leaching is by top-dressing your soil with organic matter, compost, manure, plus a thin layer of mulch to encourage microbial and fungal activity in the soil. Mycorrhizal fungi create tiny root-like dense webs in the soil that hold on to moisture and nutrients. Most importantly, they create a complex network for nutrient and resource exchange between various plants.

Tender new growth that comes from fertilization will now also be fairly safe from sun or heat damage, thanks to the cooler temperatures. You can fertilize potted plants, garden ornamentals and trees, flowers, lawn, citrus and other fruit trees too.

Use slow-release fertilizers or seaweed solutions instead of traditional instant “NPK” ones. These take time to break down and give a steady supply of nutrients for a few months. Choosing the right fertilizer for the right plant is important as these contain trace elements that the specific plants require which are often scarce in normal soil.

Click here for a full list of fertilizers.

Click here to view a chart of various possible deficiencies in plants. 

Dead-heading and Pruning

After the beautiful first summer blooms, many of the flowering perennials are now covered with spent flowers, which are busy producing seeds inside. Some plants have a big flush of flowers at once, such as catmint, while others flower more consistently over the flowering period, such as daisies. The longer you leave spent blooms on the plant, the more resources or nutrients they utilize to produce seeds, and the plant will feel that it has completed its life cycle, i.e producing seeds to ensure the next generation. The best thing to do is to remove spent blooms as soon as the flower petals shrivel up. This will encourage more flowers to pop out. Very often the late summer/autumn blooms do not look as spectacular as the earlier ones. However, you can give those plants a beautiful last late Summer-Autumn flush of flowers by doing some light pruning and removing all spent flowers, followed by an application of bloom-promoting fertilizer or seaweed solution, preferably by foliar application, and also around the root zone.  Make sure to deadhead your Agapanthus early, to prevent them from going to seed, as they can get quite invasive.

The Vegetable Patch

Most summer crops that have provided a bounty of fresh veggies are now looking a bit scraggly, reaching the end of the lifecycle. They can be pulled out, chopped up and composted as long as they are disease-free. Some chillies, capsicum and eggplant can be left a little longer in the ground until they are done fruiting. You can try to keep your chillies and capsicum going over winter by having them in a pot, protected from the cold and frost over the coming months. 

 • Harvest most of your summer crops because the cool weather prevents them from growing any more or ripening. There are many great ways to preserve excess produce such as Fermenting, Canning, Snap Freezing, Pickling, and Drying. You can also donate the excess to charity associations such as Foodbank and Fareshare. You can also look into swapping produce at swap meetups, which you can find via Local Food Connect.

• Before planting Autumn and Winter veg, enrich your soil by top dressing with some compost and manure and let it settle for a week or two. If the soil is too hard from being baked by the summer heat, you can gently turn it over to incorporate some organic matter into it, which will make new crops grow better. If you have hard or clay soil you can also add some soil wetter to make water penetrate more easily and retain moisture.

• Give new seedlings a good boost with an application of liquid fertiliser after a week or two and they will reward you later on.

•  If you are not too keen on Autumn or Winter veggies you can plant some green manure crops to allow your soil to improve while waiting for Spring and Summer planting. But if you are, here is a little list of what can be grown right now:

• Greens such as silverbeet, leeks, celery, watercress, lettuce, rocket, spring onion.
• Herbs such as  parsley, thyme, oregano, coriander etc
• Asian greens such as Pak Choi, Kailan, Choi Sum
• Brassicas such as broccoli, cauliflower, cabbage, Brussel sprouts.
• Root veggies such as beetroot, turnip, radish, parsnip, onions, carrots and garlic.
• Legumes such as sugar snap peas and broad beans.

Check out our available range of vegetables and herbs.

How to ripen up your green tomatoes!

You can either ripen your tomatoes indoors or on the vine. You can coax the ripening process from green to red when tomatoes are taken indoors—a much better plan than leaving them to wither on their vines. The key to ripening tomatoes is a warm, enclosed and dry environment. Tomatoes need warmth to ripen.

1. In the bag: To ripen a few green tomatoes, put them in a paper bag, close it up, and store them in a warm location in your home. Kept enclosed together, the ethylene they emit will stimulate ripening. You can add a ripe banana or apple as well to speed things up. Once a tomato is ripe, remove it from the bag and enjoy it right away. Check the bag daily for mould or rot and remove any spoiled pieces.
2. Box method: If you have several green tomatoes you want to ripen, consider using a cardboard box. Place them in the box so they do not touch one another. You can add a ripe banana as well. Close the box and, as with the bag-ripening method, check daily for mould and rot, or full ripening, and remove those tomatoes.
3. The windowsill approach: Try this if your tomatoes have already started to show some ripened colour. Simply put them on the sill of a window that gets sunlight. Inspect them daily for progress. You can also remove tomatoes you have ripening in a bag or box once they start showing signs of colour and continue their ripening on the window sill.

To ripen tomatoes on the vine you can try:

1. Removing flower clusters. Pluck new flower clusters from tomato plants that have already set fruit. Removing flowers will direct the plant’s energy into ripening the fruit already maturing on the vine.
2. Removing small or excess fruit. Pick small or excess fruit off of the tomato plant. Removing immature fruit or fruit you will not use will allow the plant to divert energy into ripening larger, already maturing fruit. Tomatoes that reach “mature green” size and have their first blush of colour can be ripened off the vine at room temperature.
3. Removing some leaves. Pinch away suckers and lower leaves. Tomato plants almost continuously produce new shoots–called suckers–between the main stem and lateral branches. Pinch or prune away this new growth so that the plant can channel its energy into producing and ripening fruit rather than producing new leaves. Leaves just above fruit or fruit clusters should be left in place to protect the fruit from sunburn. Leaves low on the plant that turns yellow or brown or diseased leaves should be removed. These leaves are taking energy away from fruit ripening.
4. Reducing water and food late in the season. Reduce water and fertilizer to encourage “mature green” fruits to ripen. Fertilizer–especially excess nitrogen–encourages new leaf growth at the expense of fruit growth and maturation. (Use fertilizer low in nitrogen 4-8-4 for tomatoes.) Reducing water as fruits reach mature size will enhance ripening (and concentrate flavour) and direct the plant’s energy away from new fruit set to ripening fruit already on the vine
5. Some gardeners swear by feeding their tomato plants unsulfured blackstrap molasses, saying that the molasses not only provides tomato plants with energy but also makes ripening tomatoes sweeter and increases microbial activity in the soil. Use about a cup of molasses per two gallons of water, applying no more than once per week.

Pests and Disease

Humid and cool conditions can cause a proliferation of pests and diseases in the garden. Identify them early, treat them, and keep your plants healthy all through Autumn and Winter.

• Leaf Miner and Citrus Leaf Miner. These are small nocturnal moths that lay their eggs on the underside of soft fresh leaves of citrus and other seedlings. The eggs hatch and the larvae rapidly burrow under the surface of the leaf, and it is these larvae that cause all the damage. The larvae feed on the epidermal cells of the leaf, creating a silvery snake-like ‘mined’ damage to the leaf, which eventually curls up. The best way is to control them is using eco oils, sprayed fortnightly above and below the leaf of plants.  This will also deter many other pests. A chemical/biological control is Spinosad (marketed as Success by Yates) is also reputed to be effective against leaf-miners. 

•  Cabbage Butterflies and Moths. White Cabbage butterflies lay their eggs on our Brassicas, such as broccoli and cauliflower. Little green caterpillars hatch from these eggs and then get to work chewing holes through the plants. There are several ways to control them. 

• Netting- You can protect your young crop by covering them with netting that would prevent the butterflies from reaching them.
• Companion plants- Plant some strong-smelling herbs such as lavender, sage, and rosemary seem to discourage cabbage moths from settling and laying eggs. Try planting them around the edges of your patch to form an odour barrier. You can also plant decoy plants such as nasturtiums, dill, and mustard, which will draw egg-layers away from your main crops.
• Using decoy ‘Scarecrows‘- Cabbage moths are highly territorial and will avoid laying eggs where there’s already competition for food. Use little decoys around brassicas to send them somewhere else. Here is a great little printable template that you can use. Click Here to see the template. This template was created by the Australian Butterfly Conservation.
•  Dipel – An organic biological insecticide which is based on Bacillus thuringiensis var. kurstaki, which is an insecticide derived from beneficial bacteria found in soil, on plant surfaces and also in insects. It specifically targets caterpillars and is safe for beneficial insects such as ladybirds and bees. 

• Other Pests. Thrips, Mites, Scales, Aphids, and Whiteflies are other bugs that cause a lot of damage to our plants. Here is a very natural way of controlling them by using nature itself. Bugs for Bugs is a company that specialises in integrated pest management (IPM) and is one of Australia’s leading suppliers of biological control agents. Here is a great little chart for controlling bugs by using bugs.
Click here to see their website.
Or visit their Facebook page!

• Blackspot and Rust commonly affect Rose plants. If you notice any of those on your roses, you can cut them back lightly, remove the diseased leaves, spray the remaining leaves with some organic copper-based fungicide, and also fertilize them to encourage new growth and blooms.

•  Powdery mildew is one of the most commonly occurring plant problems at this time of the year. It is a fungal disease that affects plant leaves and stems, coating them in what looks like a white or grey powder-like substance. In severe cases, powdery mildew can even spread to the buds, flowers, and fruits of plants. A simple remedy is a good spray of the following mix: 1 tablespoon baking soda with 1 tablespoon vegetable oil and 1 teaspoon dish soap in 1 gallon of water. Another option is a mix of 1 part milk with 10 parts of water.
If this natural remedy fails to get rid of it, you can look into Sulphur based fungicides.

•  Root rot and Wet Feet are the most damaging ailments our houseplants can suffer from, and one of the most common. An infection can destroy a plant literally from the ground up. It spreads quickly, and without prompt action it’s soon too late. Roots of plants affected by root rot may turn from firm and white to black/brown and soft. Affected roots may also fall off the plant when touched. The leaves of affected plants may also wilt, become small or discolored. Affected plants may also look stunted due to poor growth, develop cankers or ooze sap. Once root rot is identified, you must determine if the plant can be saved. If the entire root system has already become mushy, it is too late to save the plant. However, if some healthy, white, firm roots exist, try to bring the plant back to good health by replanting in fresh soil with good drainage.Click here to read more about it.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Grower Clearance Sale!

We currently have a Grower Clearance sale for lots of big bushy plants. Click here to see all our specials for the month of March!

Tropical Touch!

You don’t need to travel to a tropical island to escape the pressures of modern life. When you have a tropical garden, every day is like a holiday! We all love little cosy troppo corners, and those are very easy to achieve with plants such as giant birds of paradise, palms, cordylines and gorgeous Frangipanis. In Melbourne, tropical plants grow best in an East-South facing garden.

Keep in mind that they are not frost-tolerant and should be planted in a spot sheltered from the wind. Plant them in layers to have the tallest ones at the back and the smaller plants in the front. Mix and match leaf shapes and colours to create contrast! Here is a great selection of plants to get you started!

Fabulous Flowers!

We have a fantastic selection of perennial flowering plants in store right now that are already flowering or just about to flowers, such as Gazania, Dahlia, Fuschia, Calibrachoa, Daisies, and Echinaceas. You can easily plant these in your garden to make it pop with interesting textures and colours all Summer long.

Happy Hedges!

Block out those pesky or curious neighbours with a nice thick hedge. Also great to block out some noise and wind. Transform your garden into a little oasis of peace with these great hedging options that are all on sale right now!

Fantastic Foliage!

Rather than relying on annual flowers for summer-long colour, think of plants with colourful and interesting foliage. Coleus is one such plant that is easy to grow and easily adds a splash of colour to any area of your garden. Here are some interesting options:

Racy Roses!

Roses are still blooming beautifully at this time of the year. It is also a good time to deadhead your roses and feed them with some balanced, bloom, or rose fertilizer for the last flush of roses of the season. Avoid overhead watering as this can cause fungal problems. Watering early in the morning is better than in the evening. Once established, roses are quite drought hardy so water deeply only every so often. They are available in several forms such as bush form, climbing form, carpet roses, weeping roses, and as standard (ball on a stick).

Click here to see them all!

Fresh Fruits

• Citrus plants. We have a great variety in 4L pots that are on sale right now! These are fantastic varieties that were originally destined for Victorian fruit farms, so you know they are born to produce fruit, plus they are very affordable.

• Various fruit. Here is a great selection of the most popular and rare varieties, ideal for small spaces. These are in limited quantities, so better hurry up.

Veggies, herbs, and greens!

• Leafy greens such as lettuce, spinach, rocket, endive, silverbeet, mustard greens, and celery will all grow well in the garden right now!

• Herbs are really easy to grow and can be grown in pots on your balcony or your patio. They will grow well in shaded, partly shaded, and sunny spots. You can harvest them by chopping the tops and they will simply grow back. You can also chop them up, dry them and create your own mixed herbs for later use. Once you start planting your own herbs, you will never buy them at the supermarket again.

Click here to see them all.

That’s all folks! March right into the garden with confidence and a smile, just like Leo here and get busy!

We hope to see you in-store here at 1477 Sydney Road, Campbellfield! 

Gardening in Autumn. March in the Garden. Melbourne, Victoria, Australia.

Hello Hello, dear gardening friends!

Holidays are over, the kids are back to school, and Melbourne is slowly resuming its activities in its little bubble in comparison to the rest of the world. Our thoughts go out to all those still affected by COVID. After all the sacrifices made by Victorians during the lockdown, we do deserve this little moment of calm and we hope you had a smooth start to the year so far. February is the time to stop being scared!

Scared of what you may ask? COVID? Yowies? Swooping Magpies? Well, yes to all of these, but most importantly: Stop being scared of putting plants in the ground because of the heat!

We usually have long hot summers with blistering heat waves, where we have to water our plants twice or more a day to prevent them from dramatically flopping over, shriveling up to a crisp. This year’s summer is cooler due to the La Lina polar vortex, but one downside to this cool weather is that tomatoes are taking forever to ripen up, and many of us are still waiting for that to happen. We have included a few tips on ripening up your tomatoes faster, later in this article. In February, there are fewer flowers on plants as most have put on their most lavish displays earlier this year, and are now covered with spent blooms. Some other plants such as Corymbias, Crepe Myrtles, Weigelas, Kangaroo paws, Daisies, and Roses are still flowering beautifully. In the garden, there is always lots to do, so here are the main points:

Planting and Watering

With the lower temperatures, you can put any plant in the ground safely without any risk of shocking or stunting them. Just make sure to water them generously and keep the soil moist, but not too wet. This is the best time for a large property and commercial landscape planting. As of mid-February, the rate of evaporation of water from the soil is less, so you can water your plants less frequently, or adjust your irrigation system accordingly. 

Dead-heading and Pruning

After the beautiful first summer blooms, many of the flowering perennials are now covered with spent flowers, which are busy producing seeds inside. Some plants have a big flush of flowers at once, such as catmint, while others flower more consistently over the flowering period, such as daisies. The longer you leave spent blooms on the plant, the more resources or nutrients they utilize to produce seeds, and the plant will feel that it has completed its life cycle, i.e producing seeds to ensure the next generation. The best thing to do is to remove spent blooms once the flower petals shrivel up. This will encourage more flowers to pop out.  Very often the late summer blooms do not look as good as the earlier ones.

You can give those plants a beautiful second late Summer-Autumn flush of flowers by doing some light pruning and removing all flowers, followed by an application of bloom-promoting fertilizer or seaweed solution, preferably by foliar application, and also applied around the root zone.  Make sure to deadhead your Agapanthus early, to prevent them from going to seed, as they can get quite invasive.

Fertilizing 

Due to the frequent watering in summer, nutrients leach away from the soil, especially from pots and planters. Nitrogen or Nitrates are the most common nutrients that leach away along with other highly soluble minerals such as calcium. You may tend to notice discoloration or yellowing leaves on your plants. The best way to prevent leaching is by top-dressing your soil with organic matter, compost, manure and encouraging microbial and fungal activity in the soil. Mycorrhizal fungi create tiny root-like dense webs in the soil that hold on to moisture and nutrients. Most importantly, they create a complex network for nutrient and resource exchange between various plants. Use slow-release fertilisers or seaweed solutions instead of traditional instant NPK ones. These take time to break down and give a steady supply of nutrients for a few months. Choosing the right fertiliser for the right plant is important as these contain trace elements that the specific plants require and are often scarce in normal soil.

Click here for a full list.

Click here to view a chart of the various deficiencies in plants. 

Pests and Disease

Warmer weather and humid conditions create the perfect mix for a host of pests and diseases for plants. Identify them early, treat them, and keep your plants healthy all through summer.

•  Rats and Possums love to nibble on our summer veggies, fruit and even blooms such as your roses! If left unchecked they will cause some real havoc in the garden. Avoid poisons at all costs, as these may kill other animals such as birds, cats, or even dogs. Opt for more natural ways of getting rid of these pests such as live traps, and release them somewhere far away.

•  Mosquitoes are always lurking around the garden waiting for unsuspecting gardeners. You can plant a range of mozzie-blocker plants to deter them such as Lavender, Marigolds, Citronella or Lemon Grass, Catnip, Rosemary, Basil, Scented Geraniums, and Lemon Balm. Plant as many as you can, ideally about 5-10 plants for a patio area. Remember, mosquitos breed in still pools of water such as ponds or the trays of water around your plants. If you have a lot of mosquitoes you may want to empty your pot trays and refresh the water regularly to wipe out that next mosquito generation.

Alternatively, here is an old mosquito repellent recipe that you could try. Some people swear by its effectiveness. Let us know how well it works for you! Take a big bottle of cheap blue mouthwash, 3 cups of Epsom salts, 3 stale bottles of cheap beer. Mix all three until salts are dissolved. Spray anywhere outside in the garden, pool areas, or sitting areas and the mosquitoes are gone for about 80 days!!

•  Powdery mildew is one of the most commonly occurring plant problems at this time of the year. It is a fungal disease that affects plant leaves and stems, coating them in what looks like a white or gray powder-like substance. In severe cases, powdery mildew can even spread to the buds, flowers, and fruits of plants. A simple remedy is a good spray of the following mix: 1 tablespoon baking soda with 1 tablespoon vegetable oil and 1 teaspoon dish soap in 1 gallon of water. Another option is a mix of 1 part milk with 10 parts of water.

•  Blossom end rot is a common disorder of tomato, pepper, cucumber, and eggplant. Blossom end rot is an environmental problem (not fungal) most often caused by uneven watering or by calcium deficiency. (These can be related; uneven watering can interfere with the uptake of calcium.) This common garden “disease” is often brought on by rapid growth from too much fertilizer, high salt levels, or drought. It can be fixed easily by applying a liquid calcium fertilizer or top-dressing with some blood and bone meal, which is high in calcium.

• Blackspot and Rust commonly affect Rose plants. If you notice any of those on your roses, you can cut them back lightly, remove the diseased leaves, spray the remaining leaves with some organic copper-based fungicide, and also fertilize them to encourage new growth and blooms.

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Grower Clearance Sale!

We currently have a Grower Clearance sale for lots of big bushy plants. Click here to see all our specials for the month of February.

Colorful Foliage

Rather than relying on annual flowers for summer-long color, think of plants with colorful and interesting foliage. Coleus is one such plant that is easy to grow and easily adds a splash of color to any area of your garden. Here are some interesting options:

Fantastic Hedges

Block out those pesky or curious neighbors with a nice thick hedge. Also great to block out some noise and wind. Transform your garden into a little oasis of peace with these great hedging options that are all on sale right now!

Flowers

We have a fantastic selection of perennial flowering plants in store right now that are already flowering or just about to flower, such as Gazania, Dahlia, Fuschia, Calibrachoa, Daisies, and Echinaceas. You can easily plant these in your garden to make it pop with interesting textures and colors all Summer long.

Roses

Roses are blooming beautifully at this time of the year. Now is a great time to choose which one is your favorite in terms of color and scent, so make sure you check out our range of roses in full bloom now. It is also a good time to feed your roses with some balanced, bloom, or rose fertilizer. A good tip for more blooms on your roses is to dead-head the spent flowers regularly as this encourages more flowers. Avoid overhead watering as this can cause fungal problems. Watering early in the morning is better than in the evening. Once established, roses are quite drought hardy so water deeply only every so often. They are available in several forms such as bush form, climbing form, carpet roses, weeping roses, and as standard (ball on a stick).

Click here to see them all!

Fruits

• Citrus plants. We have a great variety in 4L pots that are on sale right now! These are fantastic varieties that were originally destined for Victorian fruit farms, so you know they are born to produce fruit, plus they are very affordable.

• Various fruit. Here is a great selection of the most popular and rare varieties, ideal for small spaces. These are in limited quantities, so better hurry up.

Veggies, herbs, and greens!

• Summer veggies such as peppers, eggplants, okra are currently fruiting and will be ready to harvest. Although it is too late to start them from small plants or seeds, you can always get some more advanced ones in pots and put them in the ground. Since we still have two months of summer left, they will grow well and bear fruit well into Autumn.

• Late Summer- Autumn Veggies such as Kale, Leeks, and Celery can be planted now as they prefer the cooler weather. Later in the month, once we get lower night temperatures, you can start sowing some cool-weather crops such as broccoli, cauliflower, and cabbages. If your current crops have already set fruit for the season and are slowing down or getting diseased, you can pull them out and try a second crop that you can push well into Autumn. Alternatively, you can plant some green manure plants to replenish the soil, then till them in, just in time for Autumn- Winter veggies!

• Leafy greens such as lettuce, spinach, rocket, endive, silverbeet, mustard greens, and celery will all grow well in the garden right now!

• Herbs are really easy to grow and can be grown in pots on your balcony or your patio. They will grow well in shaded, partly shaded, and sunny spots. You can harvest them and they will simply grow back. You can also chop them up, dry them and create your own mixed herbs for later use. Once you start planting your own herbs, you will never buy them at the supermarket again.

Click here to see them all.  

How to ripen up your green tomatoes!

You can either ripen your tomatoes indoors or on the vine. You can coax the ripening process from green to red when tomatoes are taken indoors—a much better plan than leaving them to wither on their vines. The key to ripening tomatoes is a warm, enclosed and dry environment. Tomatoes need warmth to ripen.

1. In the bag: To ripen a few green tomatoes, put them in a paper bag, close it up, and store them in a warm location in your home. Kept enclosed together, the ethylene they emit will stimulate ripening. You can add a ripe banana or apple as well to speed things up. Once a tomato is ripe, remove it from the bag and enjoy it right away. Check the bag daily for mold or rot and remove any spoiled pieces.
2. Box method: If you have several green tomatoes you want to ripen, consider using a cardboard box. Place them in the box so they do not touch one another. You can add a ripe banana as well. Close the box and, as with the bag-ripening method, check daily for mold and rot, or full ripening, and remove those tomatoes.
3. The windowsill approach: Try this if your tomatoes have already started to show some ripened color. Simply put them on the sill of a window that gets sunlight. Inspect them daily for progress. You can also remove tomatoes you have ripening in a bag or box once they start showing signs of color and continue their ripening on the window sill.

To ripen tomatoes on the vine you can try:

1. Remove flower clusters. Pluck new flower clusters from tomato plants that have already set fruit. Removing flowers will direct the plant’s energy into ripening the fruit already maturing on the vine.
2. Remove small or excess fruit. Pick small or excess fruit off of the tomato plant. Removing immature fruit or fruit you will not use will allow the plant to divert energy into ripening larger, already maturing fruit. Tomatoes that reach “mature green” size and have their first blush of color can be ripened off the vine at room temperature.
3. Remove some leaves. Pinch away suckers and lower leaves. Tomato plants almost continuously produce new shoots–called suckers–between the main stem and lateral branches. Pinch or prune away this new growth so that the plant can channel its energy into producing and ripening fruit rather than producing new leaves. Leaves just above fruit or fruit clusters should be left in place to protect the fruit from sunburn. Leaves low on the plant that turns yellow or brown or diseased leaves should be removed. These leaves are taking energy away from fruit ripening.
4. Reduce water and food late in the season. Reduce water and fertilizer to encourage “mature green” fruits to ripen. Fertilizer–especially excess nitrogen–encourages new leaf growth at the expense of fruit growth and maturation. (Use fertilizer low in nitrogen 4-8-4 for tomatoes.) Reducing water as fruits reach mature size will enhance ripening (and concentrate flavor) and direct the plant’s energy away from new fruit set to ripening fruit already on the vine
5. Some gardeners swear by feeding their tomato plants unsulfured blackstrap molasses, saying that the molasses not only provides tomato plants with energy but also makes ripening tomatoes sweeter and increases microbial activity in the soil. Use about a cup of molasses per two gallons of water, applying no more than once per week.

That’s it for this month!

We hope to see you in-store here at 1477 Sydney Road, Campbellfield! Stay safe and enjoy your garden!

Gardening February. Melbourne, Victoria, Australia.

Happy New Gardening Year 2021 to all of you! We are thankful that the challenging rollercoaster ride that was 2020 is finally over. Despite the hardship of lockdown, we believe that somehow, some good came out of it. Many of us broke free of that daily grind and got to spend more quality time with close family, learned new iso-skills, and took time to enjoy the little things. Some discovered a newfound love of plants, but in our opinion, the best thing was spending more time in the garden!

Here at the nursery, we were swamped with orders from people wanting to create a little oasis in their backyard whilst isolated from their everyday life. This onslaught kept us really busy and we are very thankful for this extraordinary support from you all! We hope that you had a great start to this year and are feeling just as excited about plants and gardens as we are!

The month of January is named after the Roman god of doors, Janus, because this month is the door into the new year. Janus is also called the two-faced god. He represents all beginnings and possesses the ability to see the past and the future. We do not have the latter, unfortunately, but we can learn from the past and plan for the future! And when it comes to gardening, planning is essential. Let’s have a look at how we can put all the odds in our favour and begin (or maintain) the best garden possible in 2021!

Last year we wrote an interesting article about the Top Garden Resolutions to start the year. Click here to read it.

Melbourne in Bloom
Magnificent blooms can be seen on every street corner right now, such as gorgeous purple Jacarandas, pink Weigalas, Canna Lilies, Agapanthus, Corymbias, Crepe Myrtles, Daisies, and so many others.

If you are planning a garden makeover or if you are starting a brand new garden this year and need some help, make sure to check out our FREE Garden Design(Click Here) service with Chris, to help you plan your dream garden! We take everything into consideration when designing, such as your plant preferences, the soil type, the amount of sun your garden receives, your local council requirements, and many other things that you would not even think mattered!

If you spend over $300 you can get FREE DELIVERY to Metro Melbourne and major regional centers! 🚚

Get a FREE 6ft Weeping Cherry tree worth $100, your choice of Pink or White, when you spend $500 in-store or over the phone!

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Is Summer the right time to plant?

Summer is actually a great time to plant trees, shrubs, flowers provided the temperatures stay below 30 degrees. Here at the nursery, we plant and transplant thousands of plants during this time as the warm temperatures, combined with a good supply of water and the right nutrition, cause amazing growth and big bushy plants in no time. However, proper considerations and care must be taken in order to get the best results for your plants during this time, as we all know those hot Melbourne summer days can be real doozies! 

What is your garden type?

The most popular styles are Coastal, Formal, Cottage, Japanese, Native and Tropical. (Click on links to view plants in each category). We currently have a stunning variety of gorgeous plants in the nursery to create any type of garden you wish.

 

What we have in store for you! 

Garden essentials: Top 8 most popular plants!

There are some plants that are just proven winners. They are hardy plants that are easy to take care of and thrive in a variety of conditions. Ideal for those looking for a fantastic garden within a certain budget.

Weeping wonders!

Weeping trees are a stunning feature in almost any garden. They add interest to the landscape all year long with their long weeping branches that sway gracefully in the wind. They soothe the mind and evoke feelings of serenity We have the most amazing range of weeping trees for your garden in the store right now!

Click here to see all our Weeping Trees.

Evergreen Specials!

Here are the best evergreen hedge and screening options to block out the neighbors! These do not shed their leaves in winter and give you year-round privacy. They are generally fast growers.

Cascading beautes!

Trailing/Cascading plants have long, trailing stems. Growing them in pots hanging from the ceiling or sitting on a shelf is a great way to show them off, enabling their stems to cascade down for dramatic effect. They also make great additions to pot planters and retaining walls.

Plants for Shaded Areas. 

There are some tricky spots in the garden that tend to get only a few hours of sunlight or only filtered light. Here are a few plants that are perfect to add life and colour to those shady spots.

Flowers

Now that we are in summer, flowers in the garden are competing with each other for the attention of pollinators. That means brilliant colors, big blooms, and an abundance of nectar and pollen accompanied by sweet scents to attract the bees and butterflies. Geraniums, Scaevolas, daisies, Echinacea, Salvias, Petunia, and many more are in full bloom right now.

• We have a fantastic selection of potted colour in store right now that are already flowering or just about to flower. You can easily plant these in your garden to make it pop with interesting textures and colors all Summer long.

• Companion plants: To naturally deter many pests such as aphids and slugs, here are a few flowers that you can plant from seed or seedlings right now: marigolds, sunflowers, asters, delphiniums, foxgloves, snapdragons, cosmos. Nasturtiums and marigolds are the best companions for Summer tomatoes and capsicums.

Roses

Roses are blooming beautifully all over Melbourne at this time of the year. Now is a great time to choose which one is your favourite in terms of color and scent, so make sure you check out our range of roses in full bloom now. It is also a good time to feed your roses with some balanced, bloom or rose fertilizer. Keep an eye out for aphids that love to feed on the fresh new flower buds. A good tip for more blooms on your roses is to dead-head the spent flowers regularly as this encourages more flowers to form. Avoid overhead watering as this can cause fungal problems. Watering early in the morning is better than in the evening. Once established, roses are quite drought hardy so water deeply only every so often. Most varieties are available in several “forms”, or shapes, such as bush form, climbing form, carpet roses, weeping roses, and as standard (lollipop shape).

Click here to see them all!

 

Fruits, Nuts & herbs

Going into your garden, picking your own fruit, and enjoying it as fresh as it can be is really a special feeling. If you choose a dwarf variety, you do not always need much space for them, as they are happy to grow in big pots and you can trim them to your preferred size. Now if you have space, by all means, plant a full-size variety and put them in the ground, and let them grow into bountiful monsters! 

Many fruit trees tend to drop immature fruit when it is too hot and the soil lacks moisture. So make sure you keep them very well watered in January. They usually tend to keep only a certain number of fruits.

• Here is a nice selection of fruit and nut trees that we currently have in store.

• Citrus plants. We have a great variety in 5L pots! Citrus trees have been hard to get and in high demand for the past year, but this new batch is full of big, bushy, and healthy plants. These are fantastic varieties that were originally destined for Victorian fruit farms, so you know they are born to produce fruit, plus they are very affordable.

• The secret to home-cooked, delicious meals is a garnish of fresh garden-grown herbs!

Bulk Deals!

To make it easier for you to fill up the garden we have lots of bulk deals on popular, winning plants, sold by the tray in 3-inch or 6-inch pots! This is the most cost-effective way to fill up big spaces and transform your garden in no time!

Click here to see all our bulk deals

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Tips for a Successful Garden in 2021!

With last year’s lockdown, so many of us were stuck at home and we started gardening to keep ourselves busy and make the best use of our time. Many were new gardeners with little experience and did their best to take care of their new plants. Customers shared their success stories with us, but there was also a bit of disappointment from plants dying, despite everything being done correctly. When this happens you can be discouraged from planting again. Gardening is a series of trials and errors, and we learn from mistakes, or from the experience of others. Some plants are very hardy and tolerate a wide range of conditions, while some are very delicate and require near perfect conditions. Here are some of the main points to keep in mind that will ensure successful planting.

1. Knowing Your Soil
2. Soil Improvement & Fertilizing
3. Watering 
4. Mulching
5. Sunlight & Orientation
6. Deficiencies, Pests, and Diseases

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1. Knowing Your Soil

Soil is a mixture of organic matter, minerals, gases, liquids, and organisms that together support life. The right mix of those components will determine if a plant will struggle or thrive where it is planted. If you have good soil on your property, consider yourself very lucky! Unfortunately, most newly developed properties in Victoria do not have good soil, which results in poor growth, stunted plants, or even the dreaded slow death of your precious leafy investments. The first thing to know is the type of soil that you have and its pH value. Soil types affect plant growth due to their properties such as water and nutrient retention, acidity/alkalinity, microbial and fungal activity just to name a few.

The most common soil types in Victoria are:

Gravel or sand –Soil fails to compact and runs through your fingers.
Loam –Soil compacts slightly but still fragments through your fingers.
Clay –Soil remains as a solid mass.

There are a few methods to help you determine what soil you have such as the Jar method or the Ribbon method. (Click on links to read more)

An ideal soil would be made up of 45% minerals (sand, clay, silt), 5-10 % organic material (plant and animal), 25% air, and 25% water. The ideal mineral portion would be a loam (Loam is made up of 20 – 30% clay, 30 – 40% silt and 30 – 40% sand).

Once you know your soil type, you can either choose plants that grow in these conditions or you can amend the soil to the requirements of the plants that you want.

Plants that grow well in Sandy soil:
This includes many of the Banksias and Grevilleas, Eremophilas, Kangaroo Paws, Westringias, Correas, Waratahs, Flannel Flowers and Callistemons.

Plants that grow well in Clay soil:
This includes some lily pilly, Eucalyptus, Banksias, Acacias, Carex and Dianella

Soil Ph is another very important factor to look into.

A soil’s degree of acidity and alkalinity is determined by measuring its pH. pH measurements are expressed as a number on a scale from 0 to 14 where 7 is neutral, less than 7 is acid, and greater than 7 is alkaline. Most soils have pH values between 3.5 and 10. In higher rainfall areas the natural pH of soils typically ranges from 5-7, whereas in drier areas the range is 6.5-9.

Soils with pH values of 6.5 to 7.5 are referred to as ‘neutral’, which is the ideal pH for most plants. Those with a pH less than 6.5 are acidic, and soils with a pH less than 5.5 are considered strongly acidic. To determine the pH of your soil, get a soil pH testing kit. It is much easier to use than you may think. Plants that grow in alkaline soils will grow in acid soils, but the reverse will not work. Most plants around the southern and eastern part of Australia grow in acid soils, however, in inland Australia the soils are more likely to be alkaline.

The soil pH is very important to your plants’ growth. If the pH is wrong, certain nutrients are made unavailable to your plant. For example, if the soil is too alkaline nutrients such as Iron and Manganese are not in a form that is available for uptake by the plant.  Your plant could be showing Iron deficiencies, so you apply Iron Chelate to fix the problem but little do you know that Iron will never make it into the plant because the pH of the soil is wrong!

The acidity of soil can be reduced by adding Lime, and alkalinity reduced by adding elemental Sulfur, Aluminium Sulfate, or Iron Sulfate for faster results. To ensure the desired soil pH level is maintained, these treatments will have to be repeated at regular intervals and they are a gradual process, which can take up to a year to achieve the desired results. As the plants absorb the nutrients, the soil will gradually revert to its natural state. Therefore, you will have to continually treat the soil. In some situations, it’s best to just plant what is suitable for that particular soil type and save yourself time and money!

Here is a map showing the surface soil pH from Agriculture Victoria. Click here to read more about soil pH in Victoria. 

Here are some plants that prefer Acidic soil:

Here are some plants that grow in Alkaline soil:

 

Saline & Sodic Soils (Salty soils) are also a significant problem in Victoria.

There are two types of salty soils: Saline soils and Sodic soils.

Saline soil is a soil with a high content of soluble salts that can draw moisture out of the plant through osmosis and cause dehydration. This can cause a decline in yield or even the death of the plant.

Sodic soil has high levels of exchangeable sodium that cause the soil particles to disperse instead of clumping together. This causes the soil to become less permeable, not allowing water and air to get through to the roots of the plant or allow excess salt to dissolve and be washed away.

Saline soils commonly have a pH below 8.5, whereas Sodic soils have a pH between 8.5 and 10. So from our previous pH segment, you will know that a pH level this high can severely affect your plant’s growth!

It is estimated that at least 59.0 % of Victorian soils are salty.

If you are buying soil in bulk from a supplier, it is always good to take a sample for a pH test and also a few buckets worth for planting a few plants in, to see how well they grow. Alternatively, most soils in bags, from trusted brands, are the best option, although quite costly if you have a big area to fill up.

Click here to read more about it and see a map of Salty soils in Victoria.

How to ‘Fix’ Salty Soils

Correct the pH gradually by adding acidic soil mix, elemental sulfur, composted pine bark(not fresh), and lots of organic matter. Preferably sheep, cow manure, or compost. Not mushroom compost and not chicken compost, which are too alkaline. 

Finally to make the soil more active with microorganisms, give it a good soak with water, then apply some liquid fertilizer like Charlie Carp, Gogo juice, or compost tea as these will introduce beneficial bacteria into your soil. These bacteria will break down the sulfur and normalize your pH over the course of 6 months to 1 year. 

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2. Soil Improvement & Fertilizing

•  The best philosophy is that healthy soils will produce healthy plants. “Feed the soil and not the plant” is the holy mantra of organic gardening. Improve the growth, health, and yield of your plants by nurturing the soil as an alternative to using fertilizers. You can do that by restoring the beneficial microbial activity in your soil with some compost tea and top dress your soil with compost, manure, and also some blood and bone meal. 

•  Turning the soil over is not recommended as it disturbs the delicate worm tunnels and fungal networks called mycorrhizae, which take time to build and are important for good soil-plant symbiosis. Tilling is only recommended to amend very bad soil.

• It is best to give some liquid feed to Summer flowering annuals every couple of weeks with a complete liquid fertilizer, to encourage healthy and vigorous new growth. You can also add some slow-release granular fertilizer that will feed your plants over a period of 3 to 6 months.

•  In addition to the normal microbial-dominated compost, feed your soil with a good mix of fungally dominated compost, made mostly from composted woody material such as woodchips, bark, etc, and Fungal compost encourages soil fungal networks called mycorrhiza, which are tiny white filament root-like structures that permit the plant to obtain additional moisture and nutrients. This is particularly important in the uptake of phosphorus, one of the major nutrients required by plants. When mycorrhizae are present, plants are less susceptible to drought stress. And also if you see mushrooms pop up in your garden, it means that your soil is healthy!

•  Finally, you can plant nitrogen-fixing plants such as Vetch (Vicia sativa), Comfrey (Symphytum), and White Clover (Trifolium repens). These are great for a chop-and-drop or turning over back into the topsoil. When they decay they feed the worms and microbes to produce humus, which is a dark, organic material, that greatly improves the soil.

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3. Watering

We all know about that overly dramatic plant that wilts when you forget to water it for one day! It just goes to show how vital water is to healthy plant growth. Not too much, not too little, plants need the right amount, at the right frequency. Here are 10 tips for better watering:

• Focus on the root zone. Remember that it’s the roots that need access to water, not the leaves. Wetting the foliage is a waste of water and can promote the spread of disease.

• Water only when needed. Automatic watering timers are especially useful; just make sure to watch the weather, and reduce frequency when rainfall is abundant, and increase the duration of watering when it is very hot. Too much moisture can be just as damaging to plants as too little.

• Water deeply and thoroughly. Lawns and annuals concentrate their roots in the top 6″ of soil; for perennials, shrubs, and trees, it’s the top 12″. In heavy soil, it may take hours for the water to percolate down 6-12″. Use your finger or a shovel to check the progress.

• Do a Soil percolation test, to determine how fast your soil drains water downwards and determine if it requires any amendment, and adjust your watering according to the results. Remember that clay soil for example has poor drainage and causes waterlogging, which kills plants by causing root rot.

• Water in the morning. If you do get moisture on the leaves, this gives them time to dry out. It’s much more difficult for plant diseases to get a foothold when the foliage is dry.

• Use the right tool. For efficient watering at the root zone, use a soaker hose or an even more precise drip irrigation system instead of a sprinkler. Make sure to calculate the flow rate of your dripper and the right duration to ensure that your plants are getting the right amount of water.

•  Replace your 12mm common garden hose with an 18mm professional one, for a higher flow rate and more effective watering that actually penetrates to the root of the plant instead of just wetting the surface. Wet topsoil does not mean that the water is going to where it is most needed.

• Know the watering requirements of your plants. Some plants need a lot of water, while some plants are drought tolerant, once established. Drought tolerant means, once established, the plant will be able to tolerate periods of low watering or dryness. 

• Apply a soil wetting agent if you have water repellent or hydrophobic soil. It will help with water absorption, particularly if you have sandy soil or pots that are filled with potting mix. Wetting agents break down the waxy residue build-up that is caused by lack of water in the soil. If you want to use a water-storing gel, remember, it will eventually dry out, so it is imperative that you continue watering.

• If you are going away for a few days, move your potted plants to a morning sun or shaded area, and make sure to give them a good drenching. Fill up the saucer with water for an extra supply. Also, look into wicking systems, or drip bottles for automatic watering.

Here are some outdoor plants that are drought tolerant:

Here are some indoor plants that are drought tolerant:

 

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4. Mulching

• When the summer heat comes round, it is important to have a nice thick layer of mulch on your soil to keep some moisture in the ground and also keep the roots of your plants cool. Mulch should be used to cover exposed dirt around plants for weed reduction and water evaporation control. However, the most common mistake when using mulch is spreading too thin or too thick around the plants. The suggested depth of mulch is 2-3” for new garden beds. This will reduce the frequency of watering and prevent your plants to go through heat and drought stress.

• If you are putting mulch for the first time, choose the right ones as they slowly change the PH of the soil when they break down. Pine bark mulch creates acidity when breaking down, so it is perfect for Azaleas or Camellias, whereas pea straw or sugarcane are recommended for veggie beds.

• Make sure to not mix in mulch with the soil, especially wood chips, as these steal nitrogen from the soil which is precious for plant growth. Wood chips are to be used as surface mulch only.

•  Do not put mulch too close to the trunk but rather around it, as this will encourage the roots to grow outwards to find water and make them stronger. Also, make sure to give the soil a good soak before applying mulch and then water the mulch. Dry mulch absorbs moisture from the ground, which is the opposite of its intended purpose! When watering over mulch, remember you will need some extra water to make sure it penetrates through the mulch and into the soil.

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5. Sunlight & Orientation of the Garden

The sun is essential for plants to grow. It provides light energy plants need to convert into food by the process called photosynthesis. Photosynthesis is the conversion of carbon dioxide, water and minerals into organic compounds that the plant uses to grow. During this process, the plant also produces a by-product: oxygen!

Some plants need full sun to thrive and others can cope with part to full shade. It is important to observe the amount of sunlight and shade your garden receives to determine what plants would grow well.

Within your garden, you are likely to have a range of micro-climates.  The orientation of your house and other structures create different conditions on your site.  This will affect the availability of light, warmth, and water for plants.

In Australia, each day the Sun moves in an arc that is always tilted at 32° to the vertical and with the highest point towards the north. Its path and highest point changes during the seasons.

North Facing Garden 
The sun spends most of its time in the northern sky as it travels from east to west.  In winter it stays low in the sky, so you want to maximize the amount of sunlight coming through from that direction. It is the ideal spot for plants that love full sun and great for indoor plants by the window.

South Facing Garden
A south-facing wall gets the most rain and will collect the wettest weather and is more protected from the warmer drying winds and sun from the north. If you have any plants that are not drought tolerant and prefer a bit of shade, this is an ideal spot for them. Many of the plants you find being sold as indoor plants are adapted to these shady areas.

East Facing Garden
An east-facing garden suits many plants that enjoy the milder morning sun but are vulnerable to the afternoon heat during summer. As most of our weather comes from the west, the east side can miss out on getting adequate natural rainfall.  So, keep an eye on plants there, to make sure it doesn’t get too dry, particularly beneath the eaves of the house. Growing dry tolerant plants here would be wise.

West Facing Garden
Most of the weather comes from the west, including warm north westerlies and cool south-westerlies.  It is also the direction of the harsh afternoon summer sun.  Melbourne’s summer afternoon sun is much more brutal than most would realize. On days above 30 degrees it is very hot and dry, causing some plants to die in a matter of hours if they don’t have sufficient access to water. This is where you will most likely want some protection.  Taller buffering shrubs or trees that can screen the home from the more aggressive weather is a good idea.

Here are some Indoor plants with low light requirements:

Here are some plants that grow in part shade or filtered light:

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6. Deficiencies, Pests & Disease

Most problems with plants can be fixed by reading the health of your plants, and taking prompt action if there are any problems. Take a closer look at the foliage and its underside. Is it looking as healthy as it can be, or are there signs of deficiencies? Most of them can be easily fixed with some good supplementation of nutrients or watering with some trace minerals.

Click here to view a chart of the various deficiencies in plants. 

Warm weather and humid conditions create the perfect mix for a host of pests and diseases with plants. Identify them early, treat them, and keep your plants healthy all through summer.

•  Powdery mildew is one of the most commonly occurring plant problems. It is a fungal disease that affects plant leaves and stems, coating them in what looks like a white or gray powder-like substance. In severe cases, powdery mildew can even spread to the buds, flowers, and fruits of plants. A simple remedy is a good spray of the following mix: 1 tablespoon baking soda with 1 tablespoon vegetable oil and 1 teaspoon dish soap in 1 gallon of water. Another option is a mix of 1 part milk with 10 parts of water.

• Aphids, thrips, and mites. With the warm weather, these sap-sucking insects find their way into our garden to feast on all the new growth. If there are not too many, you can leave them to help build the beneficial insect population that will then take care of the bad bugs for you later on. Adult aphids eat thrips and mites. Ladybugs also eat aphids, thrips, mites, and whitefly. If you have an infestation, on the other hand, you can make some homemade aphid spray to apply under the leaves of affected plants. Mix 2 tsp vegetable oil, 1 tsp dishwashing liquid, and some garlic cloves crushed,  mixed in 1lt of water, and left to infuse overnight. This is completely safe for other beneficial insects. Also, think of planting some beneficial insect plants that will attract ladybirds and they will take care of aphids for you. A favorite plant for ladybirds is the Angelica herb. • For ants you could sprinkle some diatomaceous earth on the ground where there is a lot of ant activity but only when it is dry. You will have to reapply it after it has rained. It is a natural organic control method that will not harm other insects.

• Psyllids are tiny (native) sap-sucking insects that are occasionally referred to as plant lice. They congregate in large numbers and can disfigure the new growth primarily on their chosen host plant of many Lilly pilly and Eucalyptus species. They are almost always found on the underside of the new foliage. They usually target unhealthy and vulnerable plants so make sure to keep your plants fertilized and as healthy as possible. New foliage can show signs of dimpling or bubbling and give the impression that it is a disease. Older foliage is often left untroubled. Although psyllid attack can occur anytime between early spring and mid – Autumn. The main times for control is October through March. This coincides with the breeding cycle of the insect. You can remove affected leaves and spray the plant with some natural products such as horticultural oils or neem oil. Ladybirds and lacewing insects are natural predators to psyllids so encourage them in your garden by planting some beneficial plants such as Angelica, dill, coriander, etc.

• Keep an eye out on your Rose plants for common diseases such as black spot, rust, and mildew. If you have noticed any fungal disease in the past on your plants, you can spray them with some organic copper-based fungicides.

 

Deadheading, & Weeding

• Deadhead the spent blooms on your summer flowering plants such as roses, cosmos, foxgloves, etc as this will encourage a second flush of flowers for the next month or so.

• Stay on top of the weeds. With the summer heat, weeds steal water from other plants, so make sure to pull them out by the root and mulch over. It is easier to get to them while they are still small so get onto them quickly! The best method for weeding is to weed after it has rained. Rain causes the soil to loosen, making it easier to get the whole root system of the weed out. It is important to get the whole root system and not just snap the top of the weed off. Snapping the top of the weed off basically encourages it to grow more! For bigger weeds like Dandelion, use a kitchen butter knife to get down into the soil next to the weed. It causes less disturbance to the soil than digging or pulling them out.

 

That’s it for this month!

Wishing you all the best in the garden! Keep smiling, be happy and as usual, stay safe lovely people  🙂

Gardening January Melbourne, Victoria, Australia.