Welcome to high summer and all its attendant pests and disease that can really spoil your gardening fun. I don’t often make product suggestions but Su Trathen has found Neem oil in her Balgowlah garden, to be an effective drench or foliar spray against sap sucking insects and maybe even those pesky Stink Bugs, that can commandeer your best citrus in a few hot weeks. Also effective against similar scaly attacks on orchids and especially patio pots like lush philodendron & spathiphyllum, susceptible to attack on dry foliage within overhanging eves or shade sails.
Clean citrus foliage within 9 days of application !
Its often the price we pay for a short summer holiday away, returning home to horrid plants looking a sticky mess. Try Neem as a quick and easy way to restore them to good health !!
3 Central Coast gardens within 2o mins of each other, 1 day 10am till 4pm, $5 tiny dollars entry each garden, (children free, no dogs) PLUS fabulous plant sales at every garden. How can you resist !!!
We’ve shifted the date from early March to the cooler prospect of latest April, well after Easter, to make the ‘plantiest’ day possible for you .. all 3 gardens will be at their late summer peak.
Lush abundance at ‘Sea-Changer’
‘Sea-Changer’ – 21 Lavinia Street, Forresters Beach – for Paradisus by Designer Peter Nixon
Rich textural contrasts of ‘Paradox’
‘Paradox’ – 25 Curringa Close, Glenning Valley by specialist sun bromeliad grower Ray Henderson
Bush chic at ‘Living Edge’
‘Living Edge’ Garden & Nursery – 1483 Peats Ridge Rd, Peats Ridge supplied by Plantsman David Fripp designer by Blake Jolley
I (Peter Nixon) will be giving a half hour garden ‘walk & talk’ 2pm at ‘Sea-Changer’. Lunch at nearby cafe’s, see the Facebook Event ‘Planty Fierce’ for details. A pleasant hour’s drive from the Wahroonga on ramp, leave home by 8.30am for the most ‘Planty’ fun on the Central Coast you’ll have outside a Plant Fair.. !!
I recently made it out to Kim & An’s delightful Canley Vale Nurserywith Judy Taylor my partner in retail crime and essential plant sleuthing…
Around hour’s drive from Sydney CBD and far from disappointment, Kim’s in an old fashioned high street garden centre past an exception array of excellent Vietnamese & Korean cafe’s & restaurants, where you’ll find a cornucopia of “planty” treasures for your warm temperate garden.
Intriguing gesneriad from the African Violet genus, maybe a nematanthus monanthos, perfect for a hanging basket
No matter when I go, there’s always something I’ve been lusting after for years by virtue of Tran’s horticultural eye for the exceptional, interesting and or quirky. Not to mention every type of pot, hanger, stake, fertiliser your heart could desire.
This time I also saw old fashioned tall dahlias, the staking kind that I know will have huge crowns of ruby, gold and flaming orange later this month. Also heliconia the Crabs Claw Gingers both tall like H. ‘Hot Rio Night’ and the dwarf H. stricta from Jamaica. Gorgeous Poysean Hybrid Euphorbia, species hippeastrums, Fireball Lily (Scadoxus multiflorus var. katarinae), medinilla and a new lutea form Golden Umbrella Tree (Schefflera actinophylla ‘Soleil’) I even snaffled a double flowering Rangoon Creeper (Quisqualis indica flora plan) scarce as rocking horse poo peeps !
Booty headed for ‘Sea-Changer’, all now safely in ground
Garden Lovers early summer .. and the rush up to Christmas time, always adds a special excitement to the garden. Aside from the usual suspects, lovely as they are; gardenias, agapanthus, Ceratopetalum – NSW Xmas Bush, Hydrangea and Shasta Daisies … there are some new plants to try for this time. Like the lush Mexican Reed Lily (Sobralia xantholeuca) that I can’t recommend highly enough to you for the bright shade garden. Beneath tall Gum Trees, on the south or eastern side. Mine grows as a Christmas companion to ‘Sea-Changer’s’ garden gate, beneath a Weeping Bottlebrush (Callistemon viminalis). Softer in appearance than cymbidium orchids, Sobralia makes a meter or so patch, with stiff bamboo-like stems and leaves with glossy parallel venation.
Looking forward to seeing many of you again here at ‘Sea-Changer’ for ‘Planty Fierce’ come Sat. 6th May ’17 when the garden will open together with ‘Living Edge’ at Peats Ridge and Ray Henderson’s ‘Paradox’ at nearby Glenning Valley. But for now, enjoy your Christmas and wishing you a fab New Year, especially in the the garden !!!
