Waterlilies Archives - Life is a Garden

Toadly Green Waves Back to Basics: Water Gardening

Where a water garden grows, beauty and tranquillity flows! It’s easy to bring your beloved body of water back to life with stunning plants and flowers that add colour and texture to the environment. Transform your pond into a tropical oasis by planting these bold beauties available at GCA Garden Centres this October. Here’s Life is a Garden’s shortcut to a sure-win water garden.

Louisiana Irises

These easy-going, seductresses of the pond are simply a must for the backyard oasis. Louisiana irises can be grown in pots, raised beds, dug out beds, shallow water, and at the edge of ponds or streams. They produce bold, flamboyant flowers from September through October in all the glorious colours of the rainbow, ranging from pure white, yellow, orange, red, purple, violet, magenta, blue, lilac and pink. Louisiana bloom best in full sun, but will make do with part-time dappled shade. The price to pay for this beauty is a lot of feeding! Visit your nursery for their favourite food, which you can serve at least twice a year during autumn (when they should be replanted) and again about a month before they flower in spring.

Nymphaea – aka Waterlilies

Nymphaea are total water nymphs and have lured many a wary green thumb into a lifelong devoted relationship with water gardening. While individual blooms may only last 3 to 4 days, a well fertilised Nymphaea will flower profusely from September through April. Their exquisitely perfumed blooms come in shades of white, yellow, peach, salmon, pink, red and blue, which rest gracefully above their floating leaves. Waterlily leaves provide shade and cover for fish, while offering a handy perch place for bees, frogs and other friendly pond critters. They require full sun, all day, and prefer tranquil waters with a depth of 15 to 50 cm above the plant’s container.

Pond Maintenance & Tips for South Africans

Many homeowners dream of having a pond in their homes. It creates a beautiful environment where you can feel rested and relaxed as you enjoy the beautiful view. Although there is much to be enjoyed, maintaining your pond is a crucial element that can seem quite tedious.

Life is a Garden has the perfect pond tips that will make maintenance easier. You can find all your water gardening needs at your GCA Garden Centre.

Pond Pump

Choosing the right pump for your pond will set you up for a win. It will provide accurate oxygen and circulation which is essential for fish staying healthy and alive and an important aspect of your pond's ecosystem. If the water in your pond is not correctly circulating it will result in algae build-up and stagnation in your pond.

Some of the things to consider when choosing the ideal pond pump are how high you are wanting to pump to push up and the volume of your pond.

An easy tip for calculating the volume of your pond is: L x B x H = x 1000 which will equal the litres of water your pond holds.

Pond Leaf Skimmers

Adding in a product to minimize the leaf debris is your next step. For example, you could use a Pond Leaf Skimmer, this type of product is ideal for reducing your workload by removing leaves and other particles as they land in your water that may cause your pond to be waterlogged. It basically works as a net to accordingly collect all the particles before they sink to the bottom. It is easily accessible and should never be underestimated for the huge clarity it adds to your water for better viewing of your fish as they swim around.

Although leaves are more likely to fall during the autumn season, we recommend that you use a pond skimmer with a floating basket that not only cleans your pond but enriches the water with vital oxygen and improves the water quality.

October in the Garden Celebrating Gardening

With the 9^th of October being ‘Garden Day’ and October being ‘Rose month’ – what an opportune month to celebrate gardening!

Rose month

Your roses should be producing their first flush of perfect blooms and the sun is still not too scorching – allowing the blooms to last longer. Spring is also the ideal time to select and plant new rose bushes in your garden. These are some of our favourites:

Ingrid Bergman POULman unfading red
Memoire KORfuri unspoilt white, fragrant
Zulu Royal DORient mauve, fragrant
King David TANmarsal bronze
South Africa KORberbeni golden

Pop in to your nearest GCA Garden Centre for more inspiration and supplies.

What to Sow

As soon as the soil warms up in mid spring, you can start to sow all your summer veggies, including beans, sweetcorn and tomatoes. Two of your main “must haves” for your summer salads are cucumber and celery.

Cucumber seeds should be sown in composed enriched soil in a sunny site. When flowers start forming, feed with potassium-rich organic fertiliser. Support plants well so they can climb upwards, even when the cucumbers get large. This also protects the cucumbers from slugs. Harvest /cut the cucumbers off the plant when they are still quite young, avoiding the skin becoming hard. Regular harvesting encourages a more continuous production of
Celery needs rich, moisture-retentive soil which is achieved by digging in plenty of compost. Sow in shade or semi-shade. Feed weekly liquid feed in mid to late summer. Plants should be spaced 20cm apart and kept moist. You can cut stems frequently as required.