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July is all about colourful comforts in the garden and enjoying the hearty harvest winter has to offer. Keep your beds looking lush with a sensational selection of flowers available from your GCA Garden Centre. . Don’t forget your July maintenance to help your garden stay in top shape and ready for the last cold stretch. Enjoy the journey with your landscape and take some time to appreciate the remarkable changes of Mother Nature.
A flying reminder: Help the birds out and ensure your birdbath and bird feeder is well-stocked. Food is scarce for the flyers during the winter months.
Top tip: Use bird netting or frost cover sheets to deter birds while also allowing light and air into the veggie garden.
A little off the top: Fruit trees, roses, deciduous shrubs, golden shower, barleria, ribbon bush, wild dagga, westringia, and hydrangeas. Also cut back bougainvillaeas that have finished flowering.
Cut away: All dead wood, diseased branches and leaves, large trees casting unwanted shade. Remember to add all this organic matter to the compost heap.
Check your tools: Sharpen your garden blades, lawnmower blades, and replace any old pruning shears. Remember to get your lawnmower and edge cutters serviced too, spring is going to be busy!
Rose care: Start pruning roses at the end of the month and spray with Kumulus afterwards. Feed them with a rose fertiliser and apply a new layer of mulch around the bushes. Also transplant roses that need to be moved now.
Top tip: Visit your GCA Garden Centre for advice on products to help seal pruning wounds as well as which sprays and fertilisers to use after fruit tree and rose pruning.
There’s much on the maintenance to-do list this month, for which you will be well rewarded! Make sure your beds are ready to brave the cold and bring in some colour with balmy blooms. A little pruning maintenance and mulch goes a long way in helping your bushes and trees through harsh winter climate changes. Head over to your GCA Garden Centre and see what other inspirations await you.
Nurture your darling garden this month of love by sowing delicious edibles and magnificent flowers. Remember to give your roses some TLC and maintain your existing crops for an abundant harvest. Life is a Garden – here’s what to do with yours this February.
FLOWER POWER
Many summer-flowering annuals start coming to the end of their flowering season and need to be removed. As such, collect ripe seeds from flowers you wish to grow for next season and begin preparing seed and flower beds for autumn planting.
Adorn the indoors with your very own Love Palm (Chamaedorea elegans). They are small, slow-growing palm trees, reaching a full height of approximately 1 meter. Celebrated for their attractive foliage, compact shape and decorative cluster form, Love Palms are ideal indoor beauties that thrive in low to moderate light.
Look out for red spider mites which are problematic in periods of drought and very hot weather. Use the correct insecticides to control these pests on plants such as fruit trees, roses, and shrubs. Red spider mites can also destroy annuals like tomatoes if too heavily infested. Visit your GCA Garden Centre for the best defence against these pesky critters.
There’s always something to do in the garden and always a plant child in need of a little TLC. Caring for your crop offers delicious rewards while tending to blooms provides an ongoing stream of colourful delights. Enjoy your February missions, dear gardeners!
This gorgeous edible garden makes you think twice about traditional row sowing. Why not create a stylish veggie garden that serves not only as a functional food source but also as a relaxing chill space where you can share and enjoy your edibles with friends. The best part is that you too can easily get the look, here’s how.
Tip: Repetition is a strong design principle that is often overlooked. Notice how the tin and terracotta pots are repeated amongst the wooden planters. This repetition throughout the design helps to enhance the overall look.
Get the look with some of the edible plants in this landscape that you may or may not have tried:
https://www.lifeisagarden.co.za/rosemary-kebab-for-braai-day/
Fresh rosemary leaves or stem tips with young leaves, can be used in many dishes – here are just a few:
Tip: There are also pink and white flowering upright growing rosemary plants, a creeping rosemary, and the old favourite ‘McConnel’s Blue’.
Tip: Bronze fennel has an exquisite purply colour, which is a fabulous colour to use in the garden and in your food.
Edible faves: An edible garden wouldn’t be complete without basil in the summer and violas in the winter. There are so many delicious new basil varieties that can be sown or purchased in October. Make sure you keep some open spaces and pots ready for this versatile herb.
The striking little flowers of Viola hederacea are beautiful as an edible garnish. Lastly, the amazing Meyer lemon is a dwarf variety that is ideal for small gardens or large pots.
Take inspiration from “Get the Look” and add your own creativity to the design – Life is a Garden, so live it to the full.
Pictures courtesy of Garden World – Show Garden by Strylitzia Landscapes.
October is the month of flowering profusion with the queen of flowers, the rose, putting on a glorious first flush of blooms in the Highveld. Roses have also become synonymous with Garden Day, happening on Sunday 11 October this year. Since Life is a Garden, let’s spend some quality time celebrating our green sanctuaries on Garden Day, regardless of their size – potted window sills and patio planters deserve a little celebration too.
Sow edibles
The “grow to eat” concept of shortening the food chain time from soil to plate is growing in popularity. Edible gardening is easy and fun, regardless of the size of your space. Life is a Garden, so if gardening means a few potted plants, so be it!
It’s always exciting to try out new varieties. Here are a few amazing new squashes to tempt you:
Tip: Don’t forget to include a South African favourite, the gem squash or squash Rolet or Little Gem. Continue spraying for fruit flies and codling moth. If you have not started or are unsure of what to use, consult your local GCA Garden Centre.
Sow edibles
The seed racks at your local GCA Garden Centre will be filled with a full summer range of flower, herb and veggie seeds to be sown now.
Tip: Remember to sow your watermelon seeds in early to mid-October if you want them ready to eat at Christmas. They are usually ready to harvest 70 to 85 days after sowing.
What to Plant
Plant amaryllis bulbs now if you want them to be in flower for December. They flower 8 to 10 weeks after planting.
What to Spray
Powdery mildew, thrips and mites are active at this time of year. Contact your local GCA Garden Centre for assistance on how to combat them if you see signs of them in your garden.
What to Feed
If you want to get the most out of your Hydrangea’s flower colour, feed them with either pink or blue hydrangea food accordingly. Blue Hydrangeas require an acidic soil with a pH of 5.5 or lower. Pink Hydrangeas require more neutral to alkaline soils with a pH of 6.5 and higher.
Bedding plants
Look out for:
Tip: Sunpatiens like other impatiens require regular watering.
Rose Care
October is pink month or Breast Cancer Awareness month. In honour of pink, here are some stunning pink Celebrity roses that you may want to have in your garden:
Inland Gardening
It’s always a good time to assess where you can add to the atmosphere of your garden with the soothing sound of running water. There are loads of different water features that are both decorative and natural in style. Most attract birds and frogs to the garden with the bubbling pot features doubling up as a bird bath. To create movement and add life to your garden, visit your local GCA Garden Centre and see the inspiring range of aquatic peace-makers they have on offer.
Coastal Gardening
Get your garden December ready. Whether you are staying at home or having visitors, now is the time to plant up some extra colour or to add that long-awaited extension to the herb and veggie garden.
Tip: Don’t let your fresh plants be eaten by snails and slugs. Place snail and slug bait in the planted areas. Visit your local GCA Garden Centre for more advice.
October is a busy gardening month with highveld gardens full of spring colour and the Cape coastal areas bidding farewell to the rainy season and getting stuck into summer planting. Life is a garden no matter where you live!
September is the month to shed the cold frosts of winter and welcome spring. Did you know September is sometimes referred to as tomato month! This is because tomatoes are mostly harvested around this time.
There is something very satisfying about being able to go into your garden and pick something homegrown to use as ingredients in your cooking. The tomato is an almost indispensable part of meal preparation in many South African homes, and it even has its own week…YUP, the 24th to the 30th of September is tomato week.
Low in calories and rich in vitamins A and C, potassium and iron, it deserves to be celebrated.
Don’t worry if you have limited space, as many types of tomato will grow happily in window boxes and containers. Soil preparation is the key – include generous amounts of compost and, because tomatoes flourish in conditions with low nitrogen, high phosphorous and moderate potassium, incorporate a complete fertiliser. It takes about six to eight weeks for a fertilised flower to develop into mature fruit. Depending on the type, the ripe tomato could be yellow, orange or any one of many shades of red. The flavour and nutrient content of tomatoes are best if they are allowed to ripen on the plant.
Now is the perfect time to get out your recipe book and try out those summer-inspired tomato recipes. Nothing welcomes spring like a basil tomato salad, and we have the perfect recipe for you! Bone petit!
Cut your freshly picked tomatoes into small cube dices. Try to ensure that all tomato pieces are relatively the same size, this makes it easy to get all the salad content in one bite. Then cut the cocktail tomatoes in halves. Place all the cut ingredients into your salad bowl and give it a good shake.
Chop the basil leaves and onions into small pieces and places in the bowl. Then mix all the ingredients by giving them a satisfying shake!
Scatter mozzarella cheese on top of the salad. Add the olive oil and balsamic vinegar to the salad and salt and finish off with black pepper to taste. Voila - simple and delicious.
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Life is a Garden is the marketing division of The South African Nursery Association (SANA). SANA is a member-driven, non-profit organisation, which strives to promote gardening as a hobby in South Africa for ALL South Africans. To ensure the highest standards, SANA’s garden centre members form part of the Garden Centre Association which strives to continuously improve the quality of products, knowledge and customer service within garden centres. These GCA garden centres can be identified by yellow and green GCA flags, present at garden centres and home stores, nationwide.
Please feel free to contact us about anything related to gardening or our website. You can contact us on:
Shahnee Stockigt – shahnee@lifeisagarden.co.za
Gerdie Olivier – gerdie@sana.co.za
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