October 5th, 2021
GARDEN AS THERAPY
Therapeutic Horticulture
- What makes a garden therapeutic? What is therapeutic gardening?
- Are these two things connected or are they separate?
You would think that yes gardening is therapy, so doing a bit of gardening would amount to therapeutic horticulture but you would be wrong.
- To understand therapeutic horticulture, you have to be across two areas:-health and well-being and horticulture. You can start from the health sector and then gain some qualifications in horticulture or vice versa..
- Therapeutic horticulture then means using gardening as an activity to improve people's health and well being through the use of plants .
- There are lots of courses that can assist you with training to be a therapeutic horticulturist.
- The next step is to gain some hours through volunteering with an organisation, eg aged care, through NDIS, and disability sector.
- It's also a good idea to join THA or Therapeutic Horticulture Australia https://tha.org.au.
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| photo M Cannon |
Let’s find out more
I'm talking with Cath Manuel, therapeutic horticulture specialist
Cath Manuel is the founder of Soil to Supper website and a specialist in therapeutic horticulture and kitchen gardens.
https://soiltosupper.com
September 27th, 2021
Part 3: The final Countdown
In the last 5 years Glenice and husband Phil, have made so many improvements to the soil .
A very difficult spot that experiences 40 degrees C temperatures in summer and winter temparatures below 0 and even minus 5 degrees C at times.
A hard clay soil that had been compacted by heavy vehicles driving over part of it for many years.
The planting also included these very tough and hardy plants.
- Teucrium fruiticans- also known as Germander, is a very hardy small evergreen bush in the mint family with grey stems and undersides of the leaves. 1.2m
- Phillyrea angustifolia . Drought, heat, frost and salt tolerant. Phillyrea are olive related which explains their toughness-dark green glossy leaf with serrated edge, making a contrast to the other silvers in the bed. Height to 2.5m, slow growing. Alternative to English box. can be kept to under 1m in height
- Aloes
- Other succulents
- Beschoneria yuccoides-Mexican lily, is a perennial succulent with a rosette of slender strap-like leaves that can grow to 1m in length.
- Rhagodia spinescens Salt bush-Small, native shrub with silvery, grey triangular foliage growing to approximately 1.5m. Tolerates all soil types and coastal conditions
- Atriplex nummularia, commonly called Old Man Saltbush, a large grey shrub to 2 m tall and to 4-5 m wide, with brittle woody branches
Glenice said in her post that
She said of the garden that;
We used a rotary hoe to break up the soil before planting.
Spread/dug through gypsum and watered in liquid gypsum
Dug through premium garden soil and compost.
Mulched the area with fine grade pine bark, sugar cane mulch, straw and tea tree mulch.
Continued fertilising any new plants with composted animal manure pellets and liquid fertilisers every 2 to 3 months.Continued to give any plants in the area a deep slow water by hand to ensure they receive a good amount of water closest their roots.
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| Garden at the Berkshires-photo Glenice Buck |
- Selected plants that will cope with the tough conditions that area hot and dry conditions.
- Over planted the slope- I planted out all the plants with closer spacing than recommended as they will help protect and buffer each other in this tough location. They will grow, settle in and get established more quickly together.
- When you're dealing with tough locations like this you also need to have patience and give the garden soil time to take in all these improvements. Soil preparation is very important and you should try to hold off planting before the soil is ready - haha! try telling a gardener to do that when there is open soil / spare space in the garden. I didn't wait!
I'm talking with Glenice Buck Landscape designer and Arboriculture consultant.
September 27th, 2021
Part2 Tough Garden Bed
In the last 5 years Glenice and husband Phil, have made so many improvements to the soil .
- We used a rotary hoe to break up the soil before planting.
- Spread/dug through gypsum and watered in liquid gypsum
- Dug through premium garden soil and compost.
- Mulched the area with fine grade pine bark, sugar cane mulch, straw and tea tree mulch.
- Continued fertilising any new plants with composted animal manure pellets and liquid fertilisers every 2 to 3 months.
She said of the garden that they did this process listed above ,every year for 5 years but it wasn't until the 3 year mark that there was a turn around in plants being able to survive.
Without those years of soil preparation, the plants would not have been able to thrive.
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| Miscanthus transmorrisonensis |
Planting Palette Glenice used for this area - lots of silvers!
- Miscanthus transmorrisonensis-Evergreen Feather grass, evergreen leaves to 80cm tall by 100cm wide fountain-like mounds
- Panicum virgatum ‘Heavy Metal’ or Blue Switch grass is special for its dramatic, metallic blue foliage and for its strong upright habit to around 140cm.
- Senecio viravira- a beautiful rounded evergreen shrub with silver-white dissected leaves topped by soft lemon flowers. One of the best silvers. Sun loving and drought tolerant. 80cm x 100cm.
- Artemisia Powis Castle- a hardy, bushy, low growing shrub that has very attractive, soft, silvery grey, deeply divided foliage
- Olea europaea 'Piccolo' suits really tough conditions - drought, frost, poor soil, no irrigation. Grows to 2m
- Teucrium fruiticans- also known as Germander, is a very hardy small evergreen bush in the mint family with grey stems and undersides of the leaves. 1.2m
- Philorea
- Aloes
- Other succulents
- Beschoneria yuccoides-Mexican lily, is a perennial succulent with a rosette of slender strap-like leaves that can grow to 1m in length.
- Salt bush
- Atriplex nummularia, commonly called Old Man Saltbush, a large grey shrub to 2 m tall and to 4-5 m wide, with brittle woody branches
I'm talking with Glenice Buck Landscape design and Arboriculture consultant.
September 27th, 2021
DESIGN ELEMENTS
When the going gets tough
Many gardeners have a section of their garden that might often see plant failures year after year.
They’ve tried all sorts of plants that claim to be tough as old boots, but still they fail.
Glenice Buck has dealt with one such problem garden bed where she lives and this week starts a series of 3, on how she went about solving the problem.
Glenice explains that the bed is on a slope (see photo below) so the water would just hit the soil and run down the hill.
This garden bed also gets all day sun on heavy clay soil.
Access to water is limited to hand watering. Not ideal considering the busy schedule that Glenice's parents have.
On top of the lack of shade and being baked by hot afternoon summer sun, the soil had been previously used as bit of a driveway and had been compacted by heavy machinery when the house was being build.
Glenice said in her post that
"This section of garden bed in the rear garden at #thegardenattheberkshires has been the toughest bed I have ever dealt with. Five years on with a lot of work and improvements it is finally starting to fill in and look good. It has been hard to get anything to grow in this area. The reasons for it being a difficult spot to deal with is
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| Tough garden bed at the Berkshires photo Glenice Buck |
Have a listen to the podcast
I'm talking with Glenice Buck Landscape design and Arboriculture consultant.
August 24th, 2021
EDNA WALLING & BICKLEIGH VALE
Part 1
Edna Walling was one of Australia’s most influential garden designers of the 20th century but I daresay, not too many people have heard of her.
Edna was Walling was born in 1896, in Yorkshire and grew up in the village of Bickleigh Devon, England but came to Australia at 17 years of age.
Edna was influenced by her father and studied landscape design at Burnley Horticultural College in Melbourne.
Walling was awarded her government certificate in horticulture in December 1917, and after some years jobbing as a gardener she commenced her own landscape design practice in the 1920s.
Her plans from the 1920s and 1930s show a strong architectural framework with 'low stone walls, wide pergolas and paths – always softened with a mantle of greenery'.
While doing some garden research I happened on one of her most famous creations called Bickleigh Vale in the Melbourne suburb of Mooroolbark in the foothills of the Dandenongs.
- She just happened on some land while out bushwalking and convinced a bank manager to lend her money to buy the land and build her first house 'Sonning.'
Who better to talk about them is someone who has researched Edna Walling for the last 40 years.I'll be talking with Trisha Dixon, garden author and photographer and sometime tour leader of gardens.
Trisha mentions that she found that actual village that this was modelled on, the real 'Bickleigh Vale ; in Devon, in England.
Listen to parts 1 & 2 of the podcast below.
A quote from
https://www.bickleighvalevillage.com.au/properties.html
is this quote
In the early 1920s Edna Walling acquired land at Mooroolbark where she built a house for herself - 'Sonning'. Here she lived and worked, establishing her nursery and gathering around her a group of like-minded people for whom she designed picturesque 'English' cottages and gardens. She named the area Bickleigh Vale village.
The houses and outbuildings that were designed or approved by Edna Walling in what she termed 'the English style' include her own home 'Sonning' which was rebuilt in 1936 following the destruction of 'Sonning I' in a fire,
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| Bickleigh Vale Village |
Have a listen to part 1, a bit of Edna’s history and a bit about Bickley Vale.
We’ll continue next with more about the actual village and also more about Edna’s vision in creating beautiful gardens.
If you have any feedback email realworldgardener@gmail.com or write in to 2RRR PO Box 644 Gladesville NSW 1675
August 19th, 2021
Garden Snips vs Secateurs
You would think that gardening tools would have all the same name pretty much all around the world.
What else would you call a spade ?
Perhaps a trowel may have a few different names, but what about secateurs and garden snips?
Are they the same thing?
- Secateurs are sometimes called pruning shears or hand pruners .
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| My Toolkit: Felco No8 secateurs |
- Secateurs can be bypass style, where the cutting blade passes a curved non-cutting 'anvil.'
- Secateurs can also be anvil style where the cutting blade cuts into a 'anvil.'
- Good quality secateurs will cut easily, feel comfortable to hold and spare parts are able to be purchased.
- Secateurs are used for the 'green' wood on plants cutting easily up to the diameter of a person's fingers.
Garden snips ( bottom of picture) are closer in appearance to scissors, with two cutting blades. Unlike scissors, they have a spring to make repeated cutting of plant material easier.
- Garden snips are best used for trimming off spent flowers on plants such as calibroachoa, petunias, and other annuals and perennials. Light trimming of soft 'green' plant material is OK as long as the stems or branches are not too thick. Garden snips don't have the cutting power of secateurs.
Let’s find out more
I'm talking with Tony Mattson, general manager of
www.cutabovetools.com.au
PLAY: snips vs secateurs_18th August 2021
Like me, a lot of gardeners would have both types of secateurs-anvil and bypass as well as a pair of snips.
After all, not everything can be pruned with the one tool.
July 24th, 2021
DESIGN ELEMENTS
Warm Bulbs What Are They?
Spring flowering bulbs like daffodils, tulips, freesias, bluebells, to name a few are all bulbs from the northern hemisphere. They do best in cool climates and once the main spring show is over, there's nothing left to excite.
- It's time to changeup or simply extend the flowering season to what garden designer Peter Nixon terms 'warm bulbs.'
- These come from warmer climates such as South Africa and South America, therefore are more suited to a large part of eastern Australia-the 'cool sub trops.' (Cool sub-tropical).
- The other benefits of these spectacular bulbs are that they flower much later and longer; late spring into summer and even autumn.
Warm Bulbs part 4-Dry Shade and Moist shade
What kind of shade? NOT GLOOM!
- We are talking Cliveas, and not just Clivea miniata.
Try the following Cliveas
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| Clivea nobilis |
Clivea nobilis -umbel with many florets, starting in late winter; variable colours from pale orange to deep orange red with green tips.
Clivea gardenii-tubular and pendulous flowers; orange to red, however yellow and pink clones are also sometimes available to the plant collector.
Clivea caulescens-flowers pendulous and tubular; orange-red with green tips
Clivea robusta-pendulous flowers with green tips
Bright shade will keep them happy. Full sun will fade the dark green to a pale washed out green and at worst, will burn the leaves
- Keep one thing in mind. Where the leaf union comes together, it has to be well above the soil otherwise the clivea will rot.
- As the roots push the upwards, DON'T be tempted to cover up the root system with more soil.
- Leaf litter or a leaf mulch is fine, but these grow in high rainfall areas and require their root system to be not sitting in water.
Moist Shade:
Eucaris amazonica, flowers in high summer, usually around February, with pure white flowers with a green cup centre, almost daffodil-like.
I'm talking with Peter Nixon, garden designer from Paradisus garden design. www.dgnblog.peternixon.com.au; www.paradisusgl.peternixon.com.au
Instagram paradisus_sea_changer FB Paradisus Garden Design
July 24th, 2021
DESIGN ELEMENTS
Warm Bulbs What Are They?
Spring flowering bulbs like daffodils, tulips, freesias, bluebells, to name a few are all bulbs from the northern hemisphere. They do best in cool climates and once the main spring show is over, there's nothing left to excite.
- It's time to changeup or simply extend the flowering season to what garden designer Peter Nixon terms 'warm bulbs.'
- These come from warmer climates such as South Africa and South America, therefore are more suited to a large part of eastern Australia-the 'cool sub trops.' (Cool sub-tropical).
- The other benefits of these spectacular bulbs are that they flower much later and longer; late spring into summer and even autumn.
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| Thunia marshalliana photo P Nixon |
Warm Bulbs part 3-Northern Aspect with Shelter
So what do you plant in your shady area perhaps under trees where there’s usually dry shade?
As long as it’s not gloomy, such as really dense shade.
These bulbs are not for the harsh western aspect of exposed to harsh winds.
Thunia marshalliana from northern Thailand.
Expect to see a cycle where it dies down before fresh new leaves come through in spring, with flowers appearing in summer.
The leaves remind me somewhat of a crucifix orchid in the shape and configuration.
The flowers are a standout white with a slight fragrance and grow atop long arching canes.
You could grow these in a large hanging basket so you could see the flowers from below.
- When in growth, apply plenty of orchid fertiliser.
- Propagation is super easy; just like for the keikis (baby plantlets) at the ends of canes, and cut of and pot up.
Worsleya procera commonly known as the Red fox orchid or lavender hippeastrum.
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| Worsleya procera |
One of the world's rarest bulbs originating from Rio de Janeiro.
Flowering can take up to 7 years !
Leaves are deep green that have an unusual curvature giving them a sculptural look.
Listen to the podcast, it's rather long but very interesting.
Species Hippeastrum: Not your ordinary hippies!
Don't go past species Hippeastrum that originate for the most part, in south America.
- All of course are in Amaryllidaceae family.
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| Hippeastrum papilio |
You won't find much information about these hippeastrums in general so take note.
Some of these can grow as epiphytes in their natural environment!
- In the ground, they need superb drainage but not under trees unless the canopy is quite high, say 2-3 metres above the bulb.
Start your collection with the Hippeastrum papilio
or green
Hippeastrum calyptratum
Peter outlines quite a few of the species hippeastrums so have a listen to the podcast.
I'm talking with Peter Nixon, garden designer from Paradisus garden design. www.dgnblog.peternixon.com.au; www.paradisusgl.peternixon.com.au
Instagram paradisus_sea_changer FB Paradisus Garden Design
Warm Bulbs pt. 4-
July 24th, 2021
Warm Bulbs pt. 2-Harsh Western Aspect
Every garden has an aspect that’s hard to plant out because it’s either too shady or too harsh and dry or even spot that receives hot western sun .
Today I’m focusing on bulbs that can give you a long display in the warmer months but have evolved to withstand hot and dry months.
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| Haemanthus coccineus photo M Cannon |
These bulbs originate where they are not exposed to very cold winters but have evolved to withstand hot dry conditions.
The bulbs in this group are in the Amaryllidaceae family which consists of mainly bulbs with long strappy leaves. The flowers are usually in an umbel-like cluster on a short or long scape.
Quite a few are known to have large showy flowers.
Haemanthus coccineus or 'blood lily likes an exposed location.
It will refuse to flowers if in a shady, lush location.
Don’t be like me and put the blood lily in too much shelter so the leaves grow long and the flower season trigger is missed.
- A dead give-away is if the leaves are quite long and extended, then the bulb is in too much shade.
If you live in Adelaide, say a couple of streets back from the beach such as in Brighton, then expect your 'blood lily' to take off like mad. The low humidity and winter rains are a perfect climate for this bulb.
You can also look for the interspecific hybrid of Haemanthus albifloss x H. coccineus
If you love the shape of tulip flowers, then plant a row of these bulbs which will flower summer to autumn.
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| Brunsvigia greagaria |
Brunsvigia gregaria which has agapanthus like flower on steroids in a crimson coloured bloom.
Or even the combined genus of brunsvigia and amaryllis ending up with Amarygia.
Let’s find out more by listening to the podcast with Peter Nixon
from Paradisus garden design.
July 23rd, 2021
DESIGN ELEMENTS
Warm Bulbs What Are They?
Spring flowering bulbs like daffodils, tulips, freesias, bluebells, to name a few are all bulbs from the northern hemisphere. They do best in cool climates and once the main spring show is over, there's nothing left to excite.
- It's time to changeup or simply extend the flowering season to what garden designer Peter Nixon terms 'warm bulbs.'
- These come from warmer climates such as South Africa and South America, therefore are more suited to a large part of eastern Australia-the 'cool sub trops.' (Cool sub-tropical).
 |
| Scadoxus multiflorus var. katarineae photo P. Nixon |
- The other benefits of these spectacular bulbs are that they flower much later and longer; late spring into summer and even autumn.
We're starting of this 4 part series with 'bulbs for bright semi-shade.'
- The first group are Scadoxus species, some of which evergreen.
- This group DO NOT like low light levels, and poor drainage.
- If growing under a tree, the canopy must be well above so the bulbs are not shaded.
- Even morning sun would be good.
- Bulbs are the size of an onion.
- DO NOT bury the bulbs as you would a tulip are narcissus. The neck of these bulbs MUST be half-emerged.
Peter mentions these:
Scadoxus multiflorus var. katarinaea - Fireball Lily (but also grows in Southern Highlands equating to higher altitude South Africa).
Scadoxus membranaceus -entirely staminate and surrounded with pale bracts.
I have some of these warm bulbs-namely two varieties of Haemanthus.
One flowers easily, and the other, I’ve yet to discover where it prefers to grow so it puts out the red paintbrush flower.
PLAY: Bulbs -bright semi-shade_16th June 2021
I'm talking with Peter Nixon, garden designer from Paradisus garden design.www.dgnblog.peternixon.com.au; www.paradisusgl.peternixon.com.au
Instagram paradisus_sea_changer FB Paradisus Garden Design
If you have any questions or feedback for me or Peter about these bulbs, why not write in to realworldgardener@gmail.com or info@peternixon.com.au
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