What to do this week: knock-out those weeds

It’s timely to attend to our lawns at this time as winter weeds can weaken growth and should be controlled before they set seed. Here are Graham’s tips for a great lawn, all about control of lawn weeds.

What's in the Love My Orchids Pack?

This week we have an extra special gift to say thank you for joining us at the club – a beautiful Sarcochilus orchid – and a box full of orchid fertilisers to help you grow beautiful flowers. Strikeback Fertiliser from Neutrog, Orchid Indoor food drippers from Yates and Seasol. All this plus a Platinum membership, best get in quick

Star of the Season: Hellebores

If there’s one flower that’s both shamelessly promiscuous and awkwardly shy, it’s the winter rose, or hellebore.

She loves cold temperatures, the crisp frost and chilling air that comes with winter. We find it incredible that her delicate beauty can withstand such bone-crunching cold. But she also loves the winter sun beneath deciduous trees that then provide her with essential summer shade when these trees come back into leaf.

What to do this week: Prune climbing roses

Every suburban paling fence should be swaddled with a rose! Our fence at The Garden Clinic HQ is adorned with Crepescule, a glorious old rambling rose from 1904. It can be trained against a trellis or as we have done, along wires attached to the fence. Some people are intimidated by climbing roses, uncertain of how to prune them. It’s not difficult; all you need is a sharp pair of secateurs and long leather gloves to protect your arms.

In the Vegie Patch: Sow tomato, eggplant and capsicum seeds indoors

Last week we sowed five seeds of an oxheart tomato (Cuore Di Bue Rugantino) in small pots in a mini greenhouse sitting on a heat pad in our laundry.