Homes

Year after year I wonder what I’ll put in our front flower bed, and year after year, after tossing up between stocks and delphiniums, or California poppies, or a froth of nemesia or dianthus, I plant the same again — petunias. They’re not always the same petunia. These days I go for the ‘spreading petunias’, […]

Spring is magic. Blossoms, scents, vases crowded with roses, grass green, skies blue … the real challenge of spring is how to most enjoy it. So here are the six top spring essentials. 1. A new gardening hat This isn’t a ‘go to the races hat’ or a celebrity fashion statement, but a good garden […]

Proper vegie gardens are long neat beds, with rows of cabbages or lettuce and obediently staked tomatoes. They can look both ludicrous and productive. There’s a long tradition, in fact, of “potager” gardens, vegies planted with an eye to beauty as well as usefulness, spirals set in stone or pebbles, circles like small vegie fountains […]

Fences keep out next door’s dog and give us privacy, but they can be beautiful too. Gardening expert Jackie French tells you how to make your fence a feature of your backyard. The flower-covered fence: My dream fence is covered in mandevilla, with is shiny green leaves and white flowers with what is possibly the […]

Flowerbeds generally fall into two categories: weed-filled or wonderful. Weeds are always waiting to pounce on flowerbeds. They grow faster than flowers and cope with heat, cold and drought better. So how do you keep your flowerbeds stunning but weed-free? Follow these steps and you’ll have a spectacular garden in no time. 1. Don’t be […]

In summer, red-hot pokers are, well, just too red, and sometimes yellow too — great lumbering things with blooms often more than a metre high, that look gaudy in all the summer glare. Yes, they’re hardy — so indestructible they really need a semi-trailer to back over them to daunt them. But despite their magnificence, […]

Autumn’s leaves have fallen, the garden is looking bare, and those pots of bright blooms in the supermarket look terribly tempting. Should you … or shouldn’t you? The case for buying potted bloomers Potted flowers will usually stay bright and blooming for longer than a bunch of flowers. With luck your potted bloomers will give […]

For years I thought poppies were one of the glories of spring and summer — stunning sprawls of California poppies in vivid orange, yellows, reds and even cream and white, flagrantly elegant oriental poppies. They’re the sort of flower you stop and stare at because you can’t believe that one thin-stemmed bloom could look quite […]

March is the perfect time to get trim and terrific – not you (though gardening is a great tummy trimmer and stress buster), but your trees and shrubs.

Most vegetables come from a family where they share similar characteristics. One family you may not have heard of before is the lily family, which includes onions, garlic, leeks, turnips — and asparagus. Like the other members of its family, asparagus is grown mostly below the ground. You are probably familiar with the green variety […]