Life is a Garden | South Africa |

As the year draws to a close, and the period of festivities approaches, November is the perfect time to take a look at your garden and assess its ‘wow’ potential. If it’s looking tired and overgrown, or perhaps slightly out of date, don’t despair. There are many ways you can give your garden an instant and colourful update. Holiday life is a garden filled with colour, cheer and happiness – follow these tips to make your garden dreams come true.

Pot it up
The fastest way is to plant up a variety of containers with colourful and fast growing annuals and perennials. Place these around your patio and outdoor entertainment areas where their beauty will be appreciated. Containers can also be used to provide positive focal points in a newly planted or lacklustre border. For containers in sunny areas, plant up with alyssum, pelargoniums, felicia, nasturtium, drosanthemum, salvia, gazania and daisy bushes. Try planting pink joy (Crassula ovata) in a large container – it is fast growing and attracts butterflies. For shade, try begonias, lobelia, fuchsias or Plectranthus neochilus. Group containers together for more impact, and, if your containers are looking a little scruffy or outdated, give them a fashionable revamp. You can achieve a stone-like finish, a rusted iron effect or a verdigris weathered copper effect with the various paint products now available.

Add accents
Another quick-fix solution is to introduce focal points to liven up dull areas. Think of an attractive birdbath, a statue at the end of a vista or an urn spilling over with water in amongst a perennial and shrub border. These are sure to attract attention, but don’t go overboard – it is better not to be able to see too many at the same time. Consider also a garden bench. There is an array of styles available today, from rustic wooden ones made from invasive wood, to elegant wrought iron ones for the classical garden.

Get a room
Can you see your whole garden at one glance? If the answer is yes, then you need to think of ways to make it more interesting. If you have an informal garden, introduce gentle curves to your borders, which means the visitor has to walk around these curves in order to see what lies ahead.

Another idea is to separate your garden into different ‘rooms’.  Sections can be created by using decorative fences, archways or hedges. Dividing the garden into different areas creates the feeling of anticipation and mystery.

Border control
When selecting colorful plants to brighten up your borders, remember to group. One day lily planted on its own will look quite insignificant, but a cluster of seven or more plants will create a lovely display. Try also to group plants according to colours and tints, for example, in a pink bed, plant combination's of petunias, diascia, begonias, Gaura lindheimeri `Siskiyou Pink' and vinca.

Quick revamp ideas

• Prune back any old and tatty trees and shrubs. If you are not sure whether they will survive pruning, then cut back a few branches. If these branches re-sprout, then it is more than likely the plant can be pruned. Prune 'leggy' shrubs into a more rounded shape and try pruning your shrubs to different heights to create depth and interest.

• Clean up paths by getting rid of weeds or grass growing in between the paving. Scrub moss away with a hard brush or sprinkle with chlorine and brush. Fix loose, flaky cement between joints to give an instant facelift. For a more drastic facelift, replace old cement or crazy paving paths with more modern materials, such as stone, tiling or wooden decking.

• Replace grass that is struggling to grow in shady areas with shade-loving plants instead. Try clivia, agapanthus, vinca or mondo grass. Alternatively, pave the area or lay down pebbles, add a bench and some colourful containers.

• Add bold-leafed succulents to beds containing lots of fine-leafed foliage for instant contrast and drama. Delicate-leafed varieties will help tone down a very dramatic, bold planting.