Spiral herb garden

Tim and I held a "Growing Herbs" workshop this week and we spoke about creative ways to grow herbs. The D.I.Y spiral herb garden was intriguing to most of the attendees. It's something easy that you can make with rocks, bricks or any material that can be up cycled.

 

The spiral garden is a great way to get kids involved in gardening and is something they can help build themselves. Use different coloured herbs like opal basil, purple sage and bright green chives. Improve biodiversity by mixing in a few flowering plants such as marigolds and nasturtiums.

 

Krystal

Image via Sweet Local Farm’s flickr

Recyle me pretty.

Make your own pretty pot plants with recycled tin cans.

Here's How:

1. Remove the label off the can
2. Drill some holes in the bottom for drainage.
3. Paint the outside of the tin with house paint or any acrylic paint. You may need to paint 2-3 coats.
4. Once the paint has dried fill up with a premium potting mix such as Plants Plus Terracotta and Tub Potting Mix.
5.  Fill with any in season annuals like pansies or snap dragons.

Makes a cute hand made gift.

Enjoy! Krystal

Image via Makapar

Edible Flowers

Edible Chive flowers

Today in the garden centre I spoke to a friend who often visits our nursery for our diverse range of unusual herbs and vegetables, which she uses in her catering business. Being a foodie and a keen grower of all things edible she joked about the pansy punnets she was buying. It was unlike her to buy a purely decorative plant. However we did laugh when she pointed out to me that the pansy flowers were in fact edible and she had used them to decorate sweet dishes in the past.

It got me thinking about edible flowers and how they can be used in our home cooking. When I was in Sydney recently I ordered a pizza that was topped with zucchini flowers, it was amazing visually and tasted great. Zucchini flowers can also be stuffed with a variety of fillings like creamy ricotta and then baked. I love salads and I always try to add different colours and textures with my greens. Include vibrant coloured flowers and petals to a salad for an unexpected look and taste.

Pansies in pastels or brights are in flower right now and can be frozen into ice cube trays, use the ice cubes in your favourite drink for a pretty visual treat. decorate your next cake with sugar coated pansy or viola flowers.

Try these edible flowers in your home cooking:

Flowers of chives and garlic chives.
Calandula and marigolds.
Nasturtium flowers
Tulbaghia flowers(society garlic)
Citrus blossoms
Tuberous begonias
Pansies
Flowers of pineapple sage
Rose booms
Zucchini flowers

All About Pots.

Garden club members discover the ins and outs about our pots. 

This week we were visited by the Murray Bridge Garden Club. Our team talked to them about pots for gardens and Patios. Our presentation included what pots are made from, water wise pots, plants for pots and how to create beautiful pot displays.

I spoke about "Pots to beautify your garden" and I was asked by some garden club members to post some of the images from my presentation on this blog...so here they are...

These graceful armeria team perfectly with the purple pot.

Stark white flowers look great in vivid glazed pots. Try white pansies or lobelia.

A red pot was chosen to highlight the red new growth of this abelia .

The orange flowers vibrate against this blue pot. Under planting creates a dramatic effect.

Form over flower. Choose non-flowering plants for striking foliage, texture and shape.

Place your potted plants on a pedistal to add height and highlight floral displays

My experience with transplanting

Today I removed four buxus microphylla faulkner hedges  from my planter box. I have a  box hedge planted at the front of my cottage, bordering the paths and needed some more to finish the job. The box hedge in the planter box was becoming pot bound and the four plants came out together when I pulled them up. I then used a pruning saw to separate each one.

Once the box plants were separated I pruned the roots down to a more manageable size to re-plant. I used Plants Plus Groganic  ( An organic compost) to help improve the soil structure.

Once they were all planted I watered them in well with SeaGold Liquid kelp, a health tonic which distresses transplanted plants.

The Buxus Faulkner lines the pathways. This variety is particularly hardy to cold and heat and performs better then an English box. The buxus faulkner is available now in a variety of different sized pots.

Serenity Nursery Top Tip: Use a lawn fertiliser such us Neutrogs Sudden Impact for Lawns on leafy hedges like Buxus Faulkner or English box. It is organic based and high in nitrogen to help promote lots of leafy growth. It's a great product for lawns and all non-flowering plants.

Pictured here ( along the back) is my much loved Escallonia Iveyi hedge. I love it, It's an old fashioned plant but it has really dark green glossy leaves and stark white flowers through Spring and Summer. It is really hardy and will grow in full sun and coastal conditions. They can grow up to 3 meters, but at this stage I like to keep it about a meter tall. I give mine a really good drink of SeaGold Liguid kelp through prolonged summer heat waves.

Spring Planting

While I was making Rhubarb pudding my husband attended to the veggie patch.

Tim made a tomato trellis using timber stakes and wire.

Planting lots of new veg. to our existing patch so we can continue to harvest throughout the year.

After all the seedlings were planted Tim used Seagold liquid kelp to help establish the vegetables.

What veggies to plant in Spring:

Tomatoes, Capsicums, Pumpkins, Lettuce, Eggplant, Chillies, Spring Onion, Cucumbers, Zucchini, Garden peas, Beans

Lots of vegie seedlings and Seeds in store now see you soon.

Creative ways to Recycle

Use empty coffee tins as mini planters. Drill a few holes in the bottom, fill with soil and plant succulents, impatiens, cacti or herbs in them.

 Do you have wooden boxes laying around? Make them useful. Store newspapers or firewood in them or...

 Plant herbs and veggies..

Stack them up for a rustic storage solution.

Image 1 Beautiful Simple Things,  Image 2 unknown Image 3 Crumpled envelope, Image 4 Bright bazaar



Living Sculptures

Those of you who haven't seen our planted succulent chair in the garden centre, I would like to share it with you. We made this quirky living sculpture from scratch using an old wooden chair that we salvaged from a garage sale. We removed the padded seat and replaced it with flexible plastic mesh forming a shallow bowl shape. This was the covered with shade cloth. The bowl or pocket was then filled with a specialised succulent potting mix and small succulents were planted. We selected taller growing succulents and low growing forms such as sedums. A staple gun will come in hady to staple the mesh and shade cloth on.

Garden Jewels

We have just had an exciting delivery of succulent arrive including the magnificent blue chalk sticks plant (pictured above). Succulents are ideal for hot dry spots in the garden and look fantastic in pots. If you have existing potted plants under a veranda or out in the garden you can plant succulents around the base of the plant to add colour and texture and conceal exposed soil. The succulents will spread and act like a mulch in a way keeping the soil below cool.

The "chalk sticks" look fab planted around the base of frangapanis. Just be sure to team your succulents with plants that require similar water requirements.

Get Dirty!

Top up mulch around everything in the garden. It will help keep the roots cool and keep moisture where it is needed. Don't forget to mulch your pot plants too.

Image via Our French Garden