The stylists garden:

We rave about this climbing rose a lot and here it appears on the blog yet again. Pierre de Ronsard is one of the most beautiful cupped shaped roses with a mix of cream and pink petals. We took a sneak peak into the courtyard of stylist Monica Wills. A vintage gate panel has been re purposed into a wall art/ trellis and the climbing rose graces it perfectly.

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

Out of the Square

 What a quirky idea for a garden gate. It is sometimes these hand-made off beat elements that can make a garden and give it a sense of personality. An"out of the square" detail can break up common garden elements such as lawn, retainer walls and hedging and give your garden life!

Image via Dying of Cute.

Boot Scootin

Look what I did with Dad's old boots...

How to: Drill a few holes in the bottom of the boots for drainage.
Filled them up with Succulent Potting mix.
Plant a selection of upright and cascading succulents for effect.

Garden Sculpture Balls...

Have you seen our garden sculpture balls made from teak wood chips?

Teak is a marvelous hardwood suitable for outdoors. If left untreated teak can take on a silver grey appearance and look great in any environment. I love them as a cluster of three but they can look equally as good scattered throughout a garden. Native grasses such as lomandras and dianellas can look great casually planted around them. Mimic the shape with your plantings, try  native rosemary clipped into low balls for a designer look.

For price and enquiry's contact Krystal:      admin@serenitygarden.com.au

Bring on Spring Gardening!

Grow an assortment of  vegies and herbs in a rustic wheel barrow.

From Garden to Kitchen, it;s easy to grow your own.

Here are some ideas as to what to grow this Spring:

Capsicum

Tomatoes

Corn

Crystal Apple Cucumbers

Tuscan Kale

Leek

Cos lettuce

Eggplant

Cabbage

Climbing beans

Beetroot

Basil (herb)

Corriander (herb)

 

Digging in the Dark!

The TUMBLEWEED Worm Cafe

Tonight Tim and I set up our worm farm.

 While some couples may be watching dating in the dark we are digging in the dark!

The main reason we decided to get a worm farm was to recycle our kitchen scrap waste. It is just horrible to see kitchen scraps go into land fill and pollute the earth. The worm farm we have is the Tumbleweed Worm Cafe from Serenity Nursery. It will turn our scraps into useful garden fertiliser full of beneficial microbes. Worm casting and worm tea will be produced and used as organic soil improver's.

Look what we did:

 There are 4 trays with the kit, but you only need one working tray to start. Keep the others put aside.

Insert the first tray and lay a sheet of news paper into the tray. Soak the soil block in water ( it's provided with the worm cafe). Then lay the soil mixture onto the newspaper.

Top up with some soil from the garden that is  free from inorganic fertilisers.

Use a bucket to catch the worm juice. This can be be diluted with water to the colour of weak tea and watered onto the garden.

You will need about 1000 worms for this worm farm and they will cost around $50 (for approx 1000). May I add that I love worms I think it brings back childhood memories of digging in the dirt.

Carefully place the worms on top of soil and water in.

Place the second tray on top. the tray has tiny holes in the bottom of it so the worms

 can crawl up into it.

Our ceramic compost bin is overflowing with kitchen scraps...

Sprinkle some more dirt over the tiny holes and then spread a layer of kitchen scraps.The scraps will attract the worms up into the second tray and the worm casting will be left in the bottom tray.

Continue the process a few times. It is important to add a sprinkling of dirt over the kitchen scraps every time as worms don't have teeth and need the dirt to help grind the food down.

Every week sprinkle a little dolomite lime or TUMBLEWEED worm farm and compost conditioner ( shown here) ontop of the food scraps. This will help lower the acidity of the kitchen scraps especially acid foods like citrus fruit.

I hope you enjoyed our demonstration.

If you want to find out more visit me in the nursery.I'll be more than happy to talk worms with you.

Krystal x

 First Image via Tumbleweed. Other Images Serenity Nursery

Let's get creative...

 What a cute little idea. When the kids grow out of their gumboots turn them into garden art.

 What an innovative way to recycle plastic bottles. I have also seen old gutters mounted to walls and used as herb gardens.

Have some fun outdoors with this clever idea.

First two images here. Last Image here.

Peace

Happy

 New

Year.

 Wishing you  Peace, Good health, happiness, and all you wish for in 2012.

...and hopefully some time spent in the garden.

Thanks for stopping by at Serenity Nursery's Blog this year.

Stayed tuned in 2012!!

Make this!

A recycled wooden spool had been transformed into a nifty book shelf- slash-  coffee table. Heart it!

image via countryliving

Hometown & Abroad

Krystal with her chili art installation.

Have you popped over to our other blog ' Hometown & Abroad'. It show cases Krystal James photography, art, life and travel pics.

Dine Divine

..A few ideas to dressing your outdoor table settings this Spring.

DIY Garden projects

I really like these little home-made tin can planters the way they are all crumpled and then painted.

Light globes are re-used as quirky hanging vases.

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