Author: Christine

Dominated by large trees on a medium sized property, my garden is very shaded. With no “full sun” areas I have to plant shade and partial shade loving plants. I love shrubs and flowers including camellias and azaleas but Roses and Irises are my favourite and getting these to thrive is a challenge …

My favourite gardening magazine

Post author By Christine
Post date January 23, 2011
1 Comment on My favourite gardening magazine

My favourite gardening magazine is The Gardener (South African Magazine). The February issue has just arrived in the shops so I got it today and as always it is packed full of interesting articles and information. Its perfect for a novice gardener like myself because there is so much to learn. Their blurb goes “We know South Africans love their gardens! This magazine inspires the home enthusiast with practical ideas for maintaining and enhancing their gardens, patios and backyards. New plants and products are mentioned first in The Gardener and there is also a special focus on indigenous gardening in South Africa“.

This month they have a feature on Frangipanis. A gorgeous 4 page spread that makes me want to rush out and buy one of these beautiful trees. I have one in my garden – it has yellow flowers and fills the front garden with the most wonderful scent in spring, but oh … I so badly want one of these pink ones like they have on the cover. Isn’t it beautiful?

There is a very useful article on growing veggies – with a section on which veggies to grow in shady areas. That was very useful for me because the spot my veggie planter is going to be positioned in does not get full sun all day long. So good to know what I can expect to produce.

As always it has a full article on what we should be doing in our gardens next month (February) – also useful to have for Mrs Black Fingers here!! All in all this is a fantastic magazine – of all the gardening mags I’ve bought this is my favourite.

You can see their website at: http://www.thegardener.co.za/

Tags magazine, the gardener

Bugs & Pests Christine's garden Gardening

Ants

Post author By Christine
Post date January 22, 2011
4 Comments on Ants

Ants, Ants Ants … they are everywhere in my garden at the moment …

I thought I had got the main “nest” about 10 days ago and today I discovered another one on the other side of the house. So I spent my precious “gardening time” today once again with the sprayer, spraying ants! They seem to be particularly prevalent this year. I’ve never had such an ant invasion since we’ve lived in this house. What a pain!

So no time to repot all my pond plants which I was wanting to do today. That will have to wait for another day. The weather was also miserable here so I couldn’t take any nice photos. I wanted to show you how the pond plants look before and after re-potting. So it will have to wait for another day …

Tags ants, Bugs & Pests

Christine's garden Gardening Home page features

Plectranthus ‘Mona Lavender’ flowering

Post author By Christine
Post date January 21, 2011
2 Comments on Plectranthus ‘Mona Lavender’ flowering

“Bread feeds the body, indeed, but flowers feed also the soul.” – From The Koran

I work in my garden because I love to watch my plants grow. There are two things which really make me forget about the problems of the world – If ever I am having a stressful day or been upset by something, taking a few minutes out to cuddle or play with one of my “four-legged” family members always seems to relieve some of the stress and put things into perspective. Even better? A walk around my garden with both of them in tow as we admire new growth, sniff a flower or pluck out a weed … and the world is right once again.

My lovely Pandorea Jasminoides have sprouted lots of new leaves and stems since last weeks “cutting back” exercise and two of the tree have new flowers! They are so pretty. And then today we are admiring our Plectranthus – ‘Mona Lavender’ which are just starting to flower now. The Mona Lavender is an attractive form of Plectranthus that does not spread like other members of the family. It is a wonderful solution for shady areas in the garden and apparently also makes an ideal container or basket plant (though I haven’t tried that). Numerous spikes of lavender coloured flowers begin to appear from late summer and flower through autumn. They form a neat low shrub with an upright, erect habit and when not flowering, it’s ornamental foliage of deep green leaves with dark purple coloured undersides are very attractive too.

Here they are just starting to flower now – and will apparently be a mass of purple flowers soon …

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Tags mona lavender, perennials, plectranthus

Annuals Christine's garden Gardening Home page features

Alyssum in little pots

Just before Christmas, Stefani (my daughter for those who don’t know) talked me into buying this crate with the little pots in it for the garden. It’s been sitting around for a month now “waiting” for me to plant something in the pots. I was going to plant herbs in it, but then decided it would look pretty straight away with something that’s flowering, so yesterday I planted some of the Alyssum seedlings that were meant for a border into the pots. And I think it looks cute!

What I love about gardening is that things are always changing and can be changed. If a plant is not thriving somewhere it can be moved to a better position. If a patch is not enchanting, one can add to it, subtract from it, move things around, heck, maybe even add a garden gnome for effect! (I don’t have any yet but I do have a metal frog!). And whilst there is so much for me to learn about plants and taking good care of then to get them to thrive, gardening allows me to be a bit creative with colour and form.

Hope you are having a great week!

xxx

Tags alyssum, Annuals, pots

Bugs & Pests Christine's garden Gardening Home page features

Mildew on Lavender

Now that I think I’ve identified what’s going on with one of my Lavender plants, I’ve been trying to research it online. And I’m not finding much. Doing a search for “Mildew on Lavender” doesn’t bring many results that I can learn from so I think I might have the terminology wrong? But here is what I have learnt so far: Powdery Mildew is a fungal disease that can affect indoor and outdoor plants. Plants’ leaves turn white when they’re affected. A few initial white droplets take over the leaf until the entire leaf has a white haze. The disease looks like the leaves have gotten dusty or dirty, according to the Purdue University Extension. Outdoor plants can get powdery mildew at any time of year. Factors that bring on the disease include poor air circulation, temperatures below 70 degrees Fahrenheit and low light.

Out of my row of 12 Lavender plants, the affected one sits close to a retaining wall, closest to the trees, and is probably getting shade earlier than most of the others (although there are two that get as much if not more “shade-time”). Then I think I thought I was doing a really good thing by watering them late one evening on a particularly hot day. It was obviously fine for the others but this one … well, I may have caused it. So now how do I fix it?

Again, information is not that easy to find online. But this from ehow.com: Move plants to a warmer area with better air circulation and avoid getting water on the leaves to control this disease naturally (that’s what I did wrong!). For chemical treatment, Cornell University suggests spraying with neem oil or fungicide containing potassium bicarbonate.

Where do I find “neem oil” or a “fungicide containing potassium bicarbonate”? I’ll let you know if and when I find out!

This is interesting: In Germany organic gardeners use stinging nettle to get rid of Mildew. Simply collect this wild growing weed in a big plastic bag, crush the leaves and add some water. Than let it stay in the sun for about a week. Strain the solution and dilute it with water to spray on your roses. This solution is also a great fertilizer.

Now where can I get some stinging nettle?

Tags lavender, mildew, powdery mildew

Christine's garden Design Home page features Miscellaneous

Unusual Planters

I love creative gardening – you know, when people do creative things in their gardens with plants and planting vessels. Like these two old boats filled with vegetable plants and the other with Nasturtiums. A friend of mine was in the little fishing village of Paternoster on the Cape West Coast recently and they stopped off for coffee at a little place called “Oep vir Koep”. (For our non-South African readers, “oep vir koep” literally translated that means “open for buying”). Its a very quaint little place and popular because of its uniqueness. Here you can buy local delicacies such as fig preserve, snoek, bokkoms, koeksusters (a sweet pastry) and other local brands.

I would love to get something really unique and different to place somewhere in my garden … maybe an antique wheelbarrow overflowing with some pretty flowers!

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Boat with Veggies

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Boat with Nasturtiums

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Tags boats, Design, planters

Christine's garden Gardening Products

New Plant Stand

I love shopping … and I love buying new plants and gardening things! When I went to Ferndale on Saturday I also bought a plant stand – I’ve wanted one of these forever. I see so many of these in gardening magazines and they look so great when they have lots of lovely plants on them. They delivered it yesterday and within minutes, we started putting our empty pots on it and pots we’ve been collecting for the day we got our “plant stand”. And I added the few “unplanted” plants I have – and look, its already full! Well almost … of course now I want to organise everything properly, get some plants to put in the little pots and make it look pretty! (= more shopping!)

I added my new Tomato Plant to it and I’m going to plant herbs and things in some of the little pots. I have seeds – Coriander, Sweet Basil, Chives and Parsley, so this will be my first attempt at planting from seed. Should be fun!

Here are the “before” photographs:

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Tags plant stand

Barbie's garden Home page features Miscellaneous

Bragging about Roses

So I have to brag a bit here – thanks for the beautiful photograph entitled “Rose for you” that you sent me last night! Its beautiful – the rose and the photograph!

For our readers … the rose is from Barbie’s garden and she took the photograph with her new camera and new-found talent for photography. How beautiful is it? As a lover of roses it was the perfect e-gift for me! I’m such a novice gardener that I am frankly very wary of trying my hand at maintaining a rose bush in my garden so I often buy roses to put in vases in my house. Maybe one day I will feel confident enough to actually have one in my garden.

Have a wonderful gardening week!
xxx

Tags photographs, rose, roses

Christine's garden Fertiliser Gardening Products

Coffee grounds as fertiliser

Post author By Christine
Post date January 16, 2011
1 Comment on Coffee grounds as fertiliser

Last week when I was moaning about the sad state of my gardenias I did some research online about caring for them and came across a video by some garden expert in the USA and he said “and don’t forget to sprinkle your old coffee grounds around the base, the Gardenias will thrive”. I thought I wasn’t hearing correctly … coffee grounds?? I replayed it a few times to make sure I was hearing right and then started googling “Coffee Grounds fertiliser”. Seems this has become a common practise with organic gardeners. In the USA they go to Starbucks who willingly hand over their coffee grounds to anyone who wants them (see photo below of the little “coffee fertiliser” packets they give away!)

So here’s my point … I thought to myself that I have nothing to lose trying it out. After all, the Gardenias can’t really look much worse than they do right now and what harm could some old ground up coffee do? So I did it … all those little coffee pods from my Lavazza machine … we now have a use for them! After one week, my Gardenias look 100% better!! No more yellowing of the leaves, in fact the plants look much greener already – two of them are totally green, a nice dark green with really shiny leaves again. I’m also seeing new growth and one produced two flowers this week, no bud drop! Can it really work that quickly? We will see, I’ll keep emptying the used coffee pods and throwing the contents into the soil!

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Here is what I found on sustainableenterprises.com about why it works:

Coffee by-products can be used in the garden and farm as follows:

Sprinkle used grounds around plants before rain or watering, for a slow-release nitrogen.
Add to compost piles to increase nitrogen balance. Coffee filters and tea bags break down rapidly during composting.
Dilute with water for a gentle, fast-acting liquid fertilizer. Use about a half-pound can of wet grounds in a five-gallon bucket of water; let sit outdoors to achieve ambient temperature.
Mix into soil for houseplants or new vegetable beds.
Encircle the base of the plant with a coffee and eggshell barrier to repel pests.
If you are into vermi-posting, feed a little bit to your worms

And this I found on another site: One of the main ways to use the grounds in the garden is to utilise the nutrients they contain as a fertiliser. Acid loving plants such as evergreen, azaleas, laurels, rhododendrons, camellias and roses will flourish with grounds sprinkled around them. My own rose bushes thrived once the grounds had been added and this manifested itself in some really beautiful roses. However do be careful that when the grounds are scattered they do not touch the bush itself as this can cause burning.

Another one: Used coffee grounds are also said to be good for plants who have a more “acidic” taste such as aforementioned milflores. Other plants include roses, azaleas, avocados and lemon trees.

So, I’ll save some of my coffee pods for you – seems it might be good for the worms and veggies too!!

Tags azaleas, coffee, Fertiliser, gardenias

Christine's garden Gardening Home page features

Controlling weeds in the garden

Post author By Christine
Post date January 16, 2011
3 Comments on Controlling weeds in the garden

Our blog has been going for all of a week and we’ve had our first real gardening question. I set up a Facebook page (The Gardening Blog on Facebook) and a Twitter account (@ourgardens) for our blog and as is to be expected, we’ve had few followers so far. In fact, I recognise only our daughters and ourselves following our Facebook page. But then somehow we’ve already managed to attract a few followers on Twitter and we’ve had a real live question! So Liesel, this post is specially for you … you asked; “@ourgardens thanks for the follow. Tips on how 2 get rid of weeds in garden without gardener?”

In August I had my entire garden “replanted” by a gardening expert. It cost a lot and I was determinded not to let all that go to waste by not taking proper care of my “new” garden, so the ongoing battle with the weeds started. Every day I would do a walk around the garden and pull up any new weeds … and it took a lot of time. I’m very busy with work and other things so I found it quite annoying. I am spoilt – I have a garden service who come once every two weeks, but they are not very good at removing weeds – they get rid of all the leaves (I have so many trees and keeping the garden tidy is a huge mission, so that is what they concentrate on) and they do a general clean up. But weed-removing does not seem to be their forte, so I have the ongoing battle of removing the weeds myself. And because all the plants are new and we are waiting for them to grow, there are lots of bare patches just waiting for the weeds … so it really is an almost daily mission. Or at least, it was!

Once again, Kathryn (my garden expert!) to the resue – At the beginning of December she recommended we lay down bark mulch which makes the soil look more attractive, as well as feeding the acid loving plants and keeping the water in the soil. We did this and an added bonus is, it seems to have totally controlled the weeds! Yes there are still a few stragglers that get through the mulch, but considering that it is summer and prime growing season, the weeds are now few and far between! Another thing I did was plant annuals in some of the bare patches – lots of Impatiens in the very shaded areas and Dianthus in the areas that get more sun. This not only looks pretty, but having plants growing in those areas snuffs out the light so the weeds can’t seem to get through.

I am seriously no gardening expert and am learning as I go along. Experienced gardeners will probably cringe at my advice … but its working for me! The only area I still need to remove weeds from daily is the area outside the property – on the verge – where we did not lay mulch and I haven’t planted anything else. So thats my answer … mulch! You can get it delivered to your house and then you’ll have to throw it down yourself or get a gardener just for a day to do it for you.

On these two photographs you can see how the bark mulch looks in my garden (apologies for the poor quality of the photographs) but it shows that it does look a lot better than bare soil. Click to view the enlargements.

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Tags dianthus, impatiens, mulch, weeds