The Garden Clinic

How to: sow seed indoors

18 March, 2021 | Linda Ross

If you’d like to be enjoying fresh tomatoes from your garden before Christmas, start in winter, sowing and growing indoors so that you have advanced seedlings ready to plant out once the cold weather, and chance of frosts, has passed.

10 things you didn’t know about fruit flies

18 March, 2021 | Robin Powell

Robin Powell reports from behind enemy lines on the fascinating, infuriating fruit fly.

A lesson in clipped hedges

18 March, 2021 | Graham Ross

A hedge is many things. It can define areas of the garden; shield you from the curiosity of passersby; block ugly intrusions into your view; protect your privacy; offer favourite plants a green backdrop against which to dazzle; or simply give your garden a nestling sense of enclosure and cosy comfort. Here Graham Ross answers the most-asked questions on hedge cultivation and care.

August Jobs

18 March, 2021 | Robin Powell

Daffodil displays are the prize in August. It's time to get out there and enjoy them.

Black Spot on Roses

18 March, 2021 |

Out, damn’d spot! The dark side to growing roses is fungal disease. Knowing your enemy is the first step in ridding yourself of this problem for good.

Bugwatch: Bronze Orange Bugs

18 March, 2021 | Linda Ross & Dan Wheatley

Just when your poor citrus tree thought it would be safe to put on some new growth, this dreaded pest arrives with its stinky, squirty spray, sucking all the vigour from the new spring shoots. Yes, its stink bug time again. But this year we we mean business!

Bulb Time

18 March, 2021 | Linda Ross

Plant these time bombs in autumn for an explosion of colour in late winter and spring. Linda says they are bulbalicious!

Climbing Roses

18 March, 2021 | Sandra Ross

Climbing roses give height, floral interest and elegance to a garden. They can tumble over fences, cascade from pergolas or screen water tanks and dunnies. Here are some of my favourite ways with climbing roses.

Edibles everywhere

18 March, 2021 | Robin Powell Delicious ideas seen on our travels this year Read More

Flower Farm: Summer jobs

18 March, 2021 | Linda Ross

We've dedicated a part of the patch to growing flowers just for picking. And the bonus? Armfuls of flowers for vases and arrangements.

Flower farm: Winter jobs

18 March, 2021 | Linda Ross

Here Linda gives advice and plans for winter; planting sunflowers, ranunculus, and spring bulbs; admiring the pansies, and picking winter flowers.

Home grown: Lemons

18 March, 2021 | Linda Ross

The plant that gives Garden Clinic gardeners more grief than any other is the lemon. Here’s how to grow gorgeous lemons.

How to plant a bare-rooted rose

18 March, 2021 | Mez Woodward

It's easy to be seduced by the colour, forms and perfumes of roses, but not as easy to successfully grow them. Here Mez Woodward shows us how to plant your bare-rooted rose.

How to prune roses

18 March, 2021 | Linda Ross

Jaws were on the floor at one of our rose pruning demonstrations last year, when

members watched Finbar O’Leary from Swanes Nursery pruning a rose the right way!

How to: 4 bulbs that make a longer lasting spring display

18 March, 2021 | Sandra Ross

Who doesn’t love the vibrant dazzle of tulips? But blink and you'll miss them. For a longer-lasting, less expensive bulb display that builds, becoming better and better each year, try these:

How to: arrange flowers

18 March, 2021 | Annabelle Hickson

In this edited extract from A Tree in the House, self-taught florist Annabelle Hickson shares her key tip for arranging flowers beautifully.

How to: attract bees into your garden

18 March, 2021 | Linda Ross

Bees are at the heart of the grow-your-own game. No bees, no pollination, no fruit. To ensure that summer sees us picking buckets of passionfruit and barrow-loads of pumpkins we integrate bee-attracting flowers into and around the orchard and vegetable garden.

How to: Attract Beneficial Insects

18 March, 2021 | Robin Powell

Help tip the scales in the garden war between the good bugs and the bad guys by planting flowers that attract beneficial insects such as lacewings, hoverflies, parasitic wasps and ladybirds.

How to: brew compost tea

18 March, 2021 | Arno King

When I was a child all our neighbours and friends had a large tub - generally an old enamel washing machine tub - buried close to the vegetable garden. This was the ‘brew’ tub. Ingredients for the brew - compost, manures and seaweed - were widely discussed and benefits widely acclaimed. And it turns out these gardeners were onto something!

How to: build a salad bar

18 March, 2021 | Linda Ross

Our salad bar makes the most of winter’s great salad greens.

How to: care for azaleas

18 March, 2021 | Shane Neill

Azaleas bring in spring with a blaze of glory. We love them in hot pinks and bold magentas, in pale pastels and in pure clean white. But in warm subtropical areas these are not set-and-forget plants. To get the most from them gardeners need to pay attention and provide some nurture. Here’s how.

How to: care for deciduous fruit trees

18 March, 2021 | Linda Ross

Get ahead of the game by using a variety of strategies to prevent pests and diseases attacking fruit trees, such as apples, peaches, nectarines, apricots and figs. Some work now will mean bounteous harvests later!

How to: care for lawns

18 March, 2021 | Jake Byrne

With the weather cooling we can back off the mowing but the lawn work is not done. Autumn is a good time to address any problems to ensure that the grass is even greener on the other side of winter.

How to: choose a chicken

18 March, 2021 | Claire Bickle

Choosing the best chook for your garden can be confusing. Here Claire Bickle makes it simple for you.

How to: Christmas colour

18 March, 2021 | Linda Ross

Pots of poinsettia and ixora are a colourful beginning. Masses of other options are blooming at the local nursery: petunias, fuchsia, begonias, coleus.

How to: clip balls

18 March, 2021 | Linda Ross

Plants clipped into balls add form and structure to the garden, and beautifully balance wilder, looser planting. The repetition of shapes develops rhythm which holds the garden together, while the contrast with other shrub shapes adds variety and interest.

How to: colour flowers

18 March, 2021 | Isla Barlow

The stem of a plant works a bit like a straw, sucking up water for its flowers and leaves. To see how this works, try out this fun experiment at home and watch flowers change colour.

How to: cook spinach pie

18 March, 2021 | Robin Powell

In Greece local cooks prefer to make their spanokopita (spinach pie) with the mix of wild greens known as horta. To do the same from you own garden pick a mix of spinach, silverbeet, sorrel, endive or other dark leafy greens

How to: cook with bayleaves

18 March, 2021 | Robin Powell

The winter cook’s herb supply is much depleted but the noble bay tree is still offering leaves to flavour savoury and sweet dishes. Robin Powell shares some favourites.

How to: cook with broad beans

18 March, 2021 | Robin Powell

Cast yourself back a thousand years and the humble broad bean could have made you king of France for the day!

How to: cook with cherries

18 March, 2021 | Robin Powell

Even though only gardeners in cold climates will be picking their own cherries over the summer, we’ll all find ways to celebrate Christmas with a fruit that is still stubbornly, deliciously seasonal.

How to: cook with lavender

18 March, 2021 | Robin Powell

Lavender’s flatmate from the hot dry rocky spots of the Mediterranean is rosemary. Both share a fabulous fragrance that scents the garden, especially when summer’s heat draws out the essential oils in the foliage. And both can be thugs in the kitchen: cooks must proceed with caution.

How to: cook with wattleseed

18 March, 2021 | Robin Powell

It’s said that there is a wattle in flower somewhere in Australia every day of the year. Not all of the seed of these 1000-odd species are edible, indeed some a slightly toxic, but there is evidence that aborigines ate the seeds from at least 120 of them. Wattleseed has a unique fragrance and flavour – mocha-chocolateyy, smoky and nutty all at once.

How to: cope with a deluge

18 March, 2021 | Arno King

While subsoil drainage, such as drainage grates, gravel pits and sumps, are effective in light rain, heavy downpours overwhelm pipes and the water sheets across the landscape. Arno King has some tips top help cope when the heavens open up.

How to: create a dazzling basket

18 March, 2021 | Linda Ross

No one does a hanging basket of summer flowers quite like the English, and, inspired by a recent trip, we’re determined to give it a good shake this summer. We’ve included here some favourite basket-happy plants with the right cascading habit - and some options for really hot spots. The thing is to design an arrangement like a posy, with a mix of textures and colours. Have fun, be bold, try something new, and toss it all at the end of the season.

How to: create a low-allergen garden

18 March, 2021 | Linda Ross

For many Australians spring launches a misery of sore eyes and runny nose. Linda Ross lines up the perpetrators of this annual horror and reveals the safest, low-allergy choices for the garden.

How to: create a shell garden

18 March, 2021 | Joanne Aquilina

Succulents don’t need a lot of root space as they store most of their water and nutrients in their leaves. This means gardeners can get creative about where they create succulent gardens.

How to: create a water wonderland

18 March, 2021 | Isla Barlow

You don’t need a big space to have your own water feature: a sunny spot on a balcony or in a courtyard will do. You can use any container, as long as it hasn’t had chemicals in it that would kill the fish. Isla made her water feature in a half wine barrel. Here’s how:

How to: create an orchid tree

18 March, 2021 | Graham Ross

Inspired by a trip to Singapore and the gorgeous Gardens of the Bay, Graham decided to create an orchid tree.

How to: deal with zucchini overflow

18 March, 2021 | Robin Powell

What we love about growing zucchini – it is so generous you need to harvest every day all through the summer – is what drives us crazy about growing zucchini - you have to harvest every day all through the summer! Around about now gardeners are on the lookout for some clever new ways with zucchini.

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Speak soon, Graham Ross

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