Bill Richardson's Blog

Posted by Bill Richardson

Your watering checklist:

Insert your finger into the soil - if it feels moist, it doesn't need water

You can water in the late afternoon but make sure the leaves have a chance to dry off before nightfall

This will avoid fungal disease

Deep watering infrequently is better for established plants

Keep your watering can next to your tap for easy use.

You dont need to stand on the end of a hose and just spray your garden. Even in our strict watering regulations, we are still allowed to use a watering can. Add some seaweed or fish emulsion to help boost your plants along.

Roots need to grow down deep, so a good deep watering will encourage this and avoid roots looking for water near the surface.

Wherever you can, it is best to water in the morning to avoid fungal problems.

Posted by Bill Richardson

The three wise words to use : manure, mulch and compost. If you have heavy soil, (or, whatever soil you have), it will benefit from additives such as fallen leaves, grass clippings, kitchen scraps (not meat scraps) and any kind of well-rotted manures.

These ingredients will turn into the best compost; better than what you can buy. A good compost will attract worms to come and live in your soil and aerate it, which will help your plants to grow well and thrive.

You can also add supplements such as fish emulsion or seaweed (mixed with water), which will boost the health of your soil.

A regular watering with a weak solution of this "tonic" every few weeks will keep your plants strong and healthy.

Posted by Bill Richardson

Mushroom compost is one of the best soil improvers for dry soils.

As mushrooms are grown in a mixture straw, chicken poo and peat moss or coco peat, it will enrich your garden as well as acting as a water saver.

Mushroom compost retains water for a long time. Soil improvement certainly saves on water and creates a healthy garden. Improve the water-holding capability of your garden by adding your own compost and manures such as sheep, horse, cow and chook. You can add a handful of garden lime per square metre in winter.

If you don't have the capacity to make your own compost, buy one of the commercial mixes and add it to improve your soil.

Bring your soil to life and help your garden survive the hot summer ahead.

Posted by Bill Richardson

Here are some clever tips to help design your perfect garden:

Plant deciduous trees on the west side of the house

Install a rainwater tank

Put vegies plants and herb plants that use water close together for easy maintenance

Build compost bins to recycle all your kitchen scraps, leaves and grass clippings

Establish your own worm farm to make fertiliser

Keep the lawn area to a minimum

Plant fruit trees, especially citrus and water with drip irrigation

Install a grey water catchment tank to use on your garden

Grow Australian native plants and trees that are drought resistance

Now, you are well on your way to having that perfect garden!

Posted by Bill Richardson

It's true, a shaded garden will keep you cooler and the loss of water due to the hot sun will be reduced substantially. It will indeed, enhance your environment in summer.

Keep your autumn leaves, rake them up and use them as mulch. You can help your garden be 20 c cooler with shade in the summer months.

Also, use of pergolas, awnings, arbours and sails will help cut down on the suns rays beating down on your garden area. Try to block out that western sun that does so much damage.

By planting a deciduous tree on the western side, you will cut out the suns rays and cool your house.

Trees to use for shade:

Frangipanni

Crepe Myrtle

Ornamental Pear.

Try one of these for a cooling effect.

Posted by Bill Richardson

Is it time for a lawn substitute or a lawn look-alike? Maybe, it's just time to down-size your watering area?

Plant a lawn look-alike. You can use the efficient Lomandra or even some of the smaller Dianella grasses for great effect. Plant them 25 cm. apart and soon you will have a brilliant cover of grass that will never need mowing; a hardy plant for a dry situation.

However, if you insist on keeping that water-guzzling lawn, here are a few tips to help reduce watering and maintenance:

Firstly, why not reduce the lawn area and palnt some water-saving plants?

Mow your grass less often and it will not dry out as quickly as you think.

Lawn will always recover after a drought, so let it die off and it will spring back with the first rains.

Avoid using sprinklers and give your lawn more water, less often.

Feed it only in Spring.

Leave the lawn clippings on your lawn after mowing.

Better still, plant some natural Australian grasses that require little maintneance.

Good gardening to you.

Posted by Bill Richardson

The features of a subtropical garden can add a magical touch to your garden and create a wonderful feeling.

One of the methods you can use is to enclose the garden with a wall to protect the plants. This will protect it from the elements of weather which include frosts and winds. Walls can create a great atmosphere for plants and family.

Use water absorbant walkways mades from timber and use porous paths, which will allow water to soak into the ground.

Create a "jungle" appearance and plant a very dense garden of plants which have very bold foliage.

Grow a leafy canopy which will provide shade in the garden and help protect it from hot sun. This will help maintain your moisture levels for plants.

Try some of these wonderful plants:

Bromeliads

Chinese Star Jasmine

Globe Amaranth

Ixora

Yucca

Find the plants which suit your own micro-climate and they will thrive and give you much satisfaction.

Posted by Bill Richardson

Mulching cuts down on a lot of the maintenance jobs we usually have to do, so it is important we do it right the first time.

Use a thick layer of about 35 cm to cover the soil. If you need to, you can use a weed mat underneath and it will help eliminate weeds altogether.

A nice thick layer will also keep moisture in the ground and keep your plants from getting stressed when water is not available to them.

I t will also reduce the rate of evaporation and prevent run-off and water loss.

Some of the types of mulch you can use are sugarcane, straw, lucerne, pea straw; or even grass clippings if you don't have anything else to use.

Mulches actually improve your growing conditions and will cut out extremes of heat and dryness and keep a balanced regime for the roots of your plants.

How about mulching those areas in your garden that you've been meaning to do for ages and see the positive results?

<b>Go on, get to it!</b>

Posted by Bill Richardson

Now is an excellent time to get around to gardens and nurseries to choose colourful native plants for the garden.

Pick dry-tolerant plants to avoid the problem of having to water often. You have a choice at present to select some of the wonderful forms of bottlebrushes, waratahs and mint bushes. These are excellent choices to make.

Plant them in a sunny/semi-shade position which is well-drained and use a fertiliser which is suitable for our native plants. If you need climbers, choose from wisteria, jasmine, clematis, wonga vine or honeysuckle.

Despite water restrictions, if you choose carefully, you can have flowers right through summer. Use water-saving granules and some potting mix in the hole that you prepare for your new plant and mulch it well. The mulch will work like an insulating blanket that will keep your plants moist and help you save precious water.

Spread mulch about 10 cm. thick but keep it away from the trunks of your plants.

Good mulches can be made of pine bark, sawdust, mushroom compost, sugar cane, or you can use a mix of leaves and grass clippings. Plants look for food in the spring, so feed them with a complete fertiliser of slow release pellets or choose one suitable for natives if you have to.

If you need to use an insect repellant, choose a natural one like Pyrethrum and use it sparingly.

Posted by Bill Richardson

Any rainforest species you plant should be chosen so that they fit in with your soil type and the exposure to the elements that the plants will live in.

Choose your planting sites which are sheltered by other trees, or plants, or your buildings and fences.

Most plants will tolerate some strong sunlight if you can minimise wind. and there is little chance of frost damage.

If grown singly, rainforest plants will take on a rounded form. Make sure that the soil they will grow in is well drained, although some species can tolerates wetness to a degree.

Plant at least at 2 metres apart to allow room for development. but you can plant a little closer if you want quick cover.

By planning well at the early stage you will be rewarded with a beautiful garden using rainforest species.

Posted by Bill Richardson

The unfortunate fact is : that most species are too large for the small garden.

The Almond is suitable for most suburban gardens. Almonds do need some pruning and also need to be sprayed to control fungus.

Nuts such as pecans, pistachios, and macedamias could also be grown but are not generally recommeded for small gardens.

Another nut we eat is the Walnut; these are generally too large to grow in small gardens; they are more suitable for larger blocks.

With all varieties, it is better to graft or bud plants on to rootstock as seedlings are generally not suitable.

Posted by Bill Richardson

Australian native orchids are well known for their colour and perfumes and they are in demand at present.

In the past ten years, selective breeding has been carried out by orchid growers and hybridisers creating wonderful new forms which are more suitable to our gardens and climates.

These are becoming available through specialist companies such as Garden World in Melbourne. Their "Collectors Corner" is definitley worth browising through, if you get the opportunity.

Unique to Australia, there are over 100 different genera with 800 species available. Many of these have been used for hybridising to create new beauties for our gardens.

One of the terrestrial orchids is the dainty Greenhood Orchid but these are difficult to grow at home. The Sydney Rock Orchid, D. speciosum is one that grows in frost free areas..

You can see Australian Native orchids in bloom in August to October. If you get the chance to see a display , you are in for a wonderful surprise!

Posted by Bill Richardson

Every year during the spring season, thousands of tourists flock to Western Australia to view the most unique wildflower display you will ever see.

The variety of plants, colours, blossoms and just the abundance of plants is astounding. The appeal is overwhelming, especially to someone from another region or country.

Large numbers of brightly coloured flowers and foliage can be seen, such as:

Banksia

Bottlebrush

Melaleucas

Myrtle

Mimosa

Protea.

These are but a few of the beautiful plants you will find, as well as the birds and insects that are attracted to them and are pollinated by them.

Many of these amazing plants will be featured on Australian and New New Zealand Gardens. Let me know if you have a favourite you would like to read about?

Posted by Bill Richardson

New Zealand Flax is an interesting plant that is widely used as a garden ornamental. They create great colour and can be used as a feature in many designed gardens.

Two varieties such as Phormium tenax, (swamp flax) and Phormium cookianum (mountain flax) are well known in New Zealand and Australia.

Phormium means "basket or wickerwork" -referring to the use made of the leaf;

tenax means "holding fast" referring to the strong fibres ;

cookianum was named after Captain Cook. This species was first called P. colensoi.

The common name used is New Zealand flax or hemp. The Flax leaves are long and sword shaped, dark green often having coloured edges. The leaves can be up to 3 metres long, as per the variety of flax.

Flax has many tube-like flowers, in shades from yellow through to bright red, held on long spears, up to 5 m long, above the foliage. P. tenax flowers are 2.5 to 5 cm long while P. cookianum flowers are smaller (1.5 to 4 cm long). The flowers produce copious quantities of nectar that is much loved by all nectar feeding birds and insects. Flax flowers in November in Auckland.

In future blogs and articles we will discuss more interesting endemic New Zealand species

Posted by Bill Richardson

An interesting topic and no, we are not talking about nicotene or tobacco, nor Natives who smoke.

This "smoke" process has been a popular one for a few decades now and keen horticulturalists have been devising methods to make smoke water easily available to the general public.

I first came across this method in a South African Journal and at the time many growers were using bee smokers - the idea was to enclose your pots by some kind of cover and then pump the smoke in, over the pots.

Here is an excerpt from one of my latest discussions: "As for smoke water, many Australian plant seeds can lay dorment for years on the ground in the bush, and it takes a fire (and the smoke from the fire) to break the dormancy of the seeds.

A "smoke" method was developed years ago, firstly in South Africa, as many of their species react the same way to fire. The idea is to pot up the seeds and enclose them and light a fire and smoke the pots of seeds. This breaks the seed dormancy and encourages germination.

Kirstenbosch in South Africa then developed a small cardboard disc, infused with smoke which you include in the pot with your seeds As you watered, the smoke was taken into the soil mix to help the seeds break dormancy. I used these for a few years in some of my pots.

Eventually, Kings Park in Western Australia developed a smoked bottled water which does the same thing. You just water your seeds with this formula to help germination. I used it for a while but it was a very expensive product. Some of the reports I've read from South African Journals have shown good results using this method but I've not seen any Australian reports on it yet."

I've had some sucess with this method although I do not currently use this method for germination purposes. I'd be interested in hearing from other growers who have tried it?

Posted by Bill Richardson

Since I posted my first few articles in this new topic for me, I have placed a poll on my Welcome Page Welcome Page and I invite you to have a look at the categories listed and have your say.

Australia and New Zealand are so diverse - and so different - it would be lovely to feature articles that are of genuine interest to the reader, so please have a vote.

If, of course, you have something different in mind, then by all means drop me an email re your interests. I'd love to hear from you, or post a discussion.

Posted by Bill Richardson

Designing a Grassy Garden can be so easy if you do your preparation in advance and seek out different species to add colour, height and provide low maintenance.

Grasses will maintain their great looks all the time and they can create low maintenance areas - and you can mix with other species to create a spectacular display.

Edge your paths with some of these lovely grasses to create a soft foliage bed.

Plant an edge border of some of the dwarf grasses which vary in color.

Choose one species to use such as Mondo Grass to create a uniform effect, or plant varieties of grasses in pots and containers and use them as features, spotted through the garden, or near doors and pathways.

Grasses will thrive without any additional feeding but you can use a small amount of slow-release fertiliser to get a denser growth.

Some of them can be cut back quite hard, without any ill effect. This can be done in late winter. This removes the old stalks and gives way to new growth for the spring and summer months.

Have a read of Australian Grasses in the Garden

Posted by Bill Richardson

Native grasses are an excellent choice, because they are so natural and blend in well in many other species.

One of my favourites is the Dianella species and there are many new hybrids available now to chosse from.

Some of these are:

Dianella "Silver Streak" with pale green leaves edged with white and these provide a great foliage display.

Dianella "Little Ray" neat, compact and with upright leaves.

Dianella "Tasred" with a broader leaf and will be tinged with red when the weather gets cooler.

Dianella "Little Jess" compact, with bright green foliage.

Dianella "Cassa Blue" a dwarf form with blue foliage.

Such a great variety is available. Do the rounds of your local nurseries, especially the Native Nurseries and you will find lots of color and diversity for your garden.

Posted by Bill Richardson

While droughts and water shortages are becoming commonplace features in our ever-changing world, many gardeners are wondering which plants will make good choices for their gardens?

There are many plants (including nearly all the native flora) that seem to survive occasional droughts. We can use these in conjunction with many other species to develop quite a nice maintenance free garden, which will survive these dry spells.

Quite a lot of our Australian natives have leaf adaptations and very clever ways to minimise water loss during the dry season.

Before planting it is a good idea to improve the soil's water-holding capacity by adding organic matter such as, leaf mould, compost and organic matter.

Lots of plants tolerate dry shade but they will not necessarily thrive unless you give them a little bit of a head start by providing some better growing conditions where you want to grow them. They will probably flower less and fruit more sparingly.

Eucalypts are one of the best trees to plant in dry areas where there is not a lot of rain or where you have to limit watering. Leaves of a Eucalypt or Gum tree have solved the problem by changing their size.

Transpiration, or loss of water through the pores of the leaves is reduced because the leaves hang vertically and avoid the sun in the hottest part of the day. Even the light, silvery colour reflects sunlight and helps keep the leaves cool. These species do survive in areas with poor soil and minimal water supplies and they are well adapted to their conditions; they still manage to gather and transpire about 240 litres of water every day.

Plants that perform well under dry conditions include many localised natives which are endemic to that particular area and have evolved over centuries and adapted to local conditions. When you first plant them out in your garden, they will need a little watering for the first couple of dry seasons, to get them established, after this you can pretty well leave them to it.

What you might need to do for a water restricted garden is to place some tough trees around to assure a measure of shade, like some of our Eucalypts.

Read my latest article Grevilleas for our Gardens

Posted by Bill Richardson

When looking for new plants for our Australian gardens, it is hard to go past Grevilleas. All nurseries stock them, as well as plenty of other local native species such as Eucalypts, Hakeas, Acacias (Wattles), Boronias etc.

Read my first article: Grevillea in the Garden

It is best to look around local gardens in your area to see what other gardeners are growing. This will give you an idea of how large and wide some of these species grow and if your are lucky, you will see flowers.

Plant for the seasons and you can have flowers and lovely foliage all year round. Often they fit in well with many of the exotics that we also grow, as long as you choose plants that are good companion plants and require similar conditions.

In the coming weeks, we will be looking at different plants and gardening ideas that may be useful to you.

Please take the opportunity to fill in the poll and this will ensure that the upcoming articles are topical. Please go to my welcome page to fill in the poll: Welcome Page Poll

Come join me in a great journey, looking at plants and gardens of Australia and New Zealand. I'll look forward to presenting useful tips, info on growing conditions and we will maybe experience some garden adventures.