Category: Materials and Tools

To help you choose materials and tools that best suit your gardening and landscaping, in this section there are stories about hand tools like secateurs, pruning saws, garden forks and spades; power tools like hedge shears, diggers and mowers; irrigation equipment; compost bins; and water tanks. There are a few other bits of equipment you’ll find useful too, like cameras. We’ve also got stories on garden products you can buy, like fertilisers, soil conditioners and herbicides and fungicides. Materials include all the things you can use to build your garden, like stone, concrete, metals, glass and ceramics, as well as pots and containers, mulch, netting and labels.

Sassy black boots and a scarf will liven up any dull outfit Portrait of a gardener

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I’ve begun to notice that a variety of garden catalogs are carrying clothing designed just for gardening. This is an intriguing concept. On a typical day in my garden, I am happily clad in whatever holey, stained clothes were closest at hand and pay little to no attention to my appearance. Devoid of makeup and hair care products, my short locks stick out at odd angles and my blonde lashes are rendered invisible. Continue reading →

Reed Pugh suburban garage with beautiful new vegetable roof garden Suburban vegetables reach new heights

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A friend recently introduced me to someone who has true passion for vegetable gardening in limited space. This new friend of mine has built a vegetable garden on the roof of her new garage! They recently rebuilt the garage with the intention of putting a deck on its roof to grow vegetables and keep bees. It is a tasteful and beautiful use of the space on display for the whole neighborhood. Continue reading →

Camellia minus all flowers and buds Who will rid me of the troublesome beasts?

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Help!! The deer are somehow getting into our garden again. Can our international GardenDrum support network come to the rescue with some advice? I thought I had solved the problem 18 months ago when we got the front gates working again and put up deer fencing along a low section of the boundary wall of our garden in Argyll in the west of Scotland. Continue reading →

Design Sandra Heggen Sustainability in garden design

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This is a subject that is very dear to my heart. I get quite passionate about the subject so do apologise if I offend any readers. I have been a sustainable garden advocate now for at least 20 years – well before most people even considered what sustainable gardens really meant. So I have put a lot of mental energy into working out why I think the way that I do about how we design gardens and how we manage them into the future. I was also the only owner/designer of a garden that was accredited with Ecotourism Australia for its sustainability credentials. Continue reading →

My own boots Thank you mum for my green fingers

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With mothers being celebrated this month, I wonder how many gardeners can credit their mothers for igniting that magnificent obsession called gardening. The answer, I would bet, is many. Mine gave me a small corner of the garden to tend as well as providing a rambling, endless (to my child’s eyes) farm garden in which to dream and scheme. Continue reading →

I grow all of my veggies and ornamentals without using peat moss. Peat-free potting soil options

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Most every commercial potting mix contains sphagnum peat moss because it’s a good, lightweight, organic amendment that improves drainage, as well as water retention and air circulation. The downside to peat moss is that it isn’t a sustainable resource. Peat moss is the decomposing remains of living sphagnum moss, and it is harvested at unsustainable rates from bogs in a manner than involves scraping off the top layer of the living moss to get to the saleable product below. Continue reading →

Smashing Making muck

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I recently finished an excellent book entitled, Resurrection in a Bucket: the Rich and Fertile Story of Compost, by Margaret Simons. It’s a light-hearted journey through the biological processes and social history of compost. I highly recommend it! Its arrival on my study desk was timely because I’ve been busy building large compost piles in preparation for reclaiming large areas of driveway for growing plants. By winter’s end I should have half a dozen large piles of compost ready for building up my existing soil. Continue reading →

My Ryobi leaf blower Product review – Ryobi leaf blower

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When the Poinciana tree in my courtyard is viewed from the upstairs window one can imagine that it is early summer, as the canopy is a lush green and is festooned with gorgeous red blooms. But, down below it is a different story as thousands (if not millions) of the tiny yellow leaves rain down on almost every inch of the courtyard. The flush of autumn flowers means that there are also lots of red petals in the mix. Continue reading →