This Week In The Garden, I am Chopping and Trimming, Planting and Fertilizing and so much more…

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Phew, what a week I have had, so far…the mornings are nice and cool and yet the afternoons are super muggy, humid and hot. We are still swimming in the pool and it’s a fun time of the year to be gardening here in Perth.

The calendar tells us that it is Autumn and if you have a close look around, there are some deciduous trees that are already turning golden hues and reddish tinges. My Cercis ‘Lavender Twist’ is all yellow and the leaves will fall anytime soon. I have planted a few Nyssa Sylvatica at various places in my neighborhood in the front gardens of friends’ homes and they have already shown us their sweet and very beautiful red leaves, just a few but enough to herald the change of season. The mornings are definitely cooler and the birds much more active in the garden, I think they are appreciating a little reprieve from the long summer.

This week we have the opportunity to “bring out our dead” which is what we call it when the council arranges to come and collect all of our green waste and also household junk sadly destined for landfill, though, I must say most of ours has gone hopefully to be repurposed by neighbors before it gets to landfill. So for me, that signals a time for a BIG post Summer prune and none of my plants is let off the hook, everyone gets a haircut!

We have a huge pile out the front of our place which is a very satisfying reflection of a big family effort. It will be gone next week, collected by a big truck that turns the green waste into compost and mulch.

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This Week In The Garden…I Am Giving My Gardenias Some Love

Nothing quite says Summer for me than Gardenias. Have you always loved their heady fragrance? Feeling the urge to stick your nose against the screen right now??? I adore that divinely, and deliciously beautiful scent from the luscious white blooms and the emerald-colored glossy green leaves that can unmistakenly only be from the Gardenia.

Photo by Andrea Whitely

I adore this fragrance and so of course despite the naysayers telling me that these can’t be grown very well in Perth, I set about to prove them wrong. These lovely plants with their glossy, tough, deep green leaves, do well in tropical settings as well as more formal gardens and of course a cottagey collectors style garden like mine.

Pots work well for me

I have always grown Gardenias well in pots or large planter boxes where I can control the soil composition and water. I use Baileys premium Potting Mix which has a neutral PH of about 7 pretty much every time you test it. It also has a good moisture-holding capacity and slow-release fertilizer. The pots are hand-watered when they need it so, I check the moisture of the soil-by sticking my finger in the pot and if it still feels moist then they are not ready for a drink-even if it is a hot day. Overwatering Gardenias, as with many other plants, will cause the roots to rot, particularly if the plant is potted. I regularly add Nutrarich Mature Compost and slow-release rose fertilizer to the potting mix so that these plants are always enjoying a mix filled with soil microbes and nutrients.

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