Author: Shahnee Stockigt

How to improve your soil

Learn how to improve your soil for planting!

Perform a ‘sausage soil test’:
Add a little water to your soil sample and mix
Roll the soil into a sausage shape and bend
Slight bend = loamy/sandy soil = ideal
Forms a ring = clay soil = NOT ideal!
If your soil is not making a slightly bent sausage, add:
– Leaf mould
– Bark mulch
– Compost
You’ll then have the ideal soil 🙂

Visit lifeisagarden.co.za for more!

Floribunda Satchmo

High buds unfold into semi-double blooms in large clusters. Dazzling bright orange-red which deepens later in autumn. Vigorous, healthy & prolific growth. Bears its flowerheads at even height & is ideal for mass beddings.

Free State Stockists:

Greenside Kwekery – Bloemfontein
Urth Garden Centre – Bloemfontein

Gauteng Stockists:

Colourful Splendour – Craighall Park
Garden Pavilion – Eckards
Garden Pavilion – Sunkist
Hecker Nursery – Boksburg
Ludwig’s Roses – Egoli
Ludwig’s Roses – Pretoria East

KwaZulu-Natal Stockists:

Blackwood’s Home of Gardening – Pietermaritzburg
Garden Pavilion Halls – Kingsburgh
Ludwig’s Star Roses – Hillcrest

Limpopo Stockists:

Mpumalanga Stockists:

Garden Pavilion – White River
Ninfa Tuinsentrum – Middelburg

North West Stockists:

Garden Pavilion – Geelhout
Sittig’s Nursery – Hartebeespoort

Western Cape Stockists:

Ludwig’s Roses Winelands – Stellenbosch
Stodels – Bellville
Stodels – Constantia
Stodels – Kenilworth
Stodels – Milnerton
Stodels – Somerset West

**Please note that not all stockists will have every plant featured**

Plant a tree this Spring!

As September starts and the blossoming flowers of spring begin to bud their gorgeous heads, we are reminded of the new life that spring brings and the joy that comes with it.

What better way to celebrate life, growth and a new season than by planting a tree? This has always been a Spring Day tradition and we decided to continue with it this year, by planting a cheerful indigenous tree. Trees bring so much life and colour to a garden and they are a gift that will keep on giving for years to come.

Planting a tree is always so much fun to do with kiddies because it allows them to get dirty and dig up a big hole in moms garden, which is just the best part about the whole thing.

What you will need:20160603-KYR_6298 copy

  • An indigenous tree - we used a pom pom tree
  • Some flour
  • A spade
  • A tubtrug
  • Hand-held trowel
  • Superphosphate / bonemeal
  • Compost
  • A filled watering can

The A, B, C’s of planting a tree:

  • Firstly, scout your garden or the area where you have permission to plant a tree and select somewhere that is spacious enough to allow the indigenous tree to grow. We chose the pom pom tree as it only grows to about 6 metres high and is perfect for a garden.
  • Spread some flour in a square over the area that you have selected to plant the tree, as a guideline of where to dig. This space should be at least twice as deep and twice as wide as the container that the tree is in, so that the tree is encouraged to spread its roots and stabilise as it grows.
  • Get the kiddies to dig out the hole and to get nice and messy while doing it.
  • Place the dug-up soil into a tubtrug (a large bucket or wheelbarrow can be used instead) and mix it together with some superphosphate or bonemeal and compost.