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
Scanning the excellent Garden Drum by Catherine Stewart this week, I came across some rather good work by artist Julie Hickson show casing her impressive Pod + Pod range inspired by Sydney’s Northern Beaches where she lives. So impressed, that I just had to take advantage of the oh so easy on line point of sale available from the web site. Perfect for coastal themed house & gardens and especially in association with “warm winter” micro climate growing conditions that allow many to cheat like hell with planting that would otherwise be at the difficult end of its range once cooler June/July nights are with us.
After an admiring glance across the Botanical & Coastal examples of Julie’s fine work, you can then join her mailing list from the bottom of the News page for Studio Open Days, markets and events like the Pittwater Artists Trail.
