While most animals play an important part in our ecosystem, there’s no denying the vital role of the bee. Not only are they essential for food production, but also for pollinating flowers, plants, and trees, to help them thrive.

However, even though you might know how crucial bees can be, that doesn’t mean you know how to create a bee-friendly yard for our neighbourhood pollinators. Welcome bees with open arms by taking some of the following actions:

Plant Bee-Friendly Flowers

We rely on bees to pollinate our vegetable garden crops, but what are you doing to attract them there in the first place? Make your property impossible to resist by planting bee-friendly flowers and plants.

Bees love annual flowers like fox gloves, clover, sunflowers, marigolds, and perennials like echinacea, geraniums, and comfrey. If you typically enjoy a well-established vegetable garden year-round, consider planting the fruits and vegetables bees love, like cucumbers, blackberries, courgettes, and pumpkins.

Bees are even huge fans of herbs like coriander, rosemary, and thyme and shrubs like echium and Californian lilac. Before the next planting season gets underway, research bee-friendly plants and include a variety of options to encourage as many bees to your property as possible.

Don’t Use Pesticides

Despite pesticides being helpful for giving destructive insects their marching orders, they can also be harmful to bees. In fact, studies have shown that pesticides can harm bees twice – when they’re larvae and as adults. The impact on our much-loved pollinators can be significant.

When you’re trying to make your property bee-friendly, dispose of your pesticide products responsibly. You can still take care of pest insects with organics solutions applied at night once the bees are sound asleep.

Provide Water

Just as water is essential for our survival, it’s also necessary for the survival of bees. Encourage bees to spend time in your yard by providing a water container or bird bath for them to drink from. Ensure the water container you choose is shallow to prevent unnecessary bee deaths. Alternatively, fill your water tub or container with small stones or floating wood to reduce the risk of drowning.

If you want your yard to be a beautiful bee sanctuary, invest in fountains and moving water products. Insects like bees and butterflies prefer moving water, whereas undesirable insects like mosquitoes don’t.

Create Nesting Sites

Bring decorative flair to your yard and give local native bees somewhere comfortable to nest by purchasing or creating nesting sites. If a bee has adequate nesting opportunities on your property, they might be more inclined to keep visiting and eventually call your yard their home.

Plant Flowers In Clumps

As tempting as it can be to plant your flowers in neatly arranged lines, consider growing them in clumps instead. Clumps of flowers stand out more to bees and are more likely to attract pollinators than individual plants dotted around your yard. Aim to make these clumps of flowers at least 1m2.

Be Selective With Weed Pulling

Weeds might be unattractive and invasive, but don’t be in too much of a hurry to pull them out before finding out which ones your bee friends like. By leaving some weeds on your property, such as white clover, chickweed, and dandelions, you’re giving bees yet another reason to explore it and enjoy everything it has to offer.

However, if you plan to let weeds run rampant on your property facing the street, give your neighbours’ a ‘heads-up’ about your intentions. You might also like to install a sign on your lawn telling passers-by that you’re helping the bees rather than refusing to tend to your lawns and gardens.

Ensure Year-Round Growth

Not all plants will thrive and flower year-round, making it challenging to provide ample pollination opportunities for local bee populations. Plant a diverse variety of plants to ensure that your garden blooms from spring to autumn to support your bees for as long as possible.

While you might not be able to help them over winter, you can at least provide ample pollination and sustenance opportunities for three of the four seasons.

Choose Colourful Flowers

Most gardeners are more than happy to plant colourful flowers that will enhance the beauty of their gardens. However, if you’re not willing to plant them for your own pleasure, consider planting them for the bees.

Bees have exceptional colour vision to help them find pollen and nectar. Make their job easier by planting flowers in colours that attract them, such as blue, white, yellow, and violet.

Be Friendly to the Bees

Bees are crucial for our survival, so the least we can do is treat them like the important creatures they are. Take some of these actions above, and create a peaceful pollinator’s paradise that all your local bees will love.

Not all of us are born with a green thumb. Some people love nothing more than whiling away their spare time with their hands in the soil, while others only pay their gardens attention when the weeds start taking over.

But regardless of where you stand on the gardening front, there’s one thing you likely can’t deny: gardening relieves stress and promotes well-being. Whether you’re begrudgingly pulling out weeds or smiling as you feed your much-loved plants the nutrients they need, there’s potential for you to enjoy some of the following benefits.

Improved Mood

Even if you only spend time in your garden to keep the weeds at bay, you’ll likely finish the task feeling far happier than when you started. Gardening can’t help but make you feel more at peace, especially as your mind is on the task at hand, giving any negative thoughts and feelings a sideline seat for the time being.

Therefore, if you’re ever in a bad mood, consider venturing out to your garden. Ten minutes pulling weeds or trimming hedges might be all it takes to turn that frown upside down.

An Opportunity for Exercise

Despite gardening looking like a reasonably idle activity, it can be a form of exercise. The process of digging, weeding, raking, and performing other garden tasks is all a form of movement. If you don’t feel like going to the gym, you can pop out to your garden for an hour of work and enjoy a sense of physical satisfaction.

Studies have also shown that exercise can benefit your mental health, making it a ‘double-edged’ benefit. Getting active in the garden might be as effective for you as some anti-depressants.

Boost Your Self Esteem

We all deserve to love and appreciate ourselves as much as other people do, but not everyone has the highest opinion of themselves. Gardening might be an easy way for you to start believing in yourself.

When you tidy up a previously wild garden or watch plants grow that you planted yourself, it’s hard not to be proud of your achievements. While there are many different ways to boost self-esteem, like getting enough sleep, improving your diet, and signing up for a self-help program, getting outside and immersing yourself in a natural environment might also be an excellent option.

Enhance Your Attention Span

Having a poor attention span can be challenging. You can sometimes struggle to focus on important tasks, even though you know you must give them your full attention. Gardening might help you work on your attention span so that you can improve it in other parts of your life.

Gardening requires focusing on weeding, planting, raking, and sowing to achieve very specific goals. You’re focused on the task in front of you, and there are normally very few distractions to draw your attention away.

While there are no guarantees that gardening will improve your attention span, studies show it’s possible. One study found that children with ADHD benefit from time outdoors in nature and had their ADHD symptoms significantly reduced.

A Sense of Belonging

While you might not find your sense of belonging in your own garden that you tend to on your own, it’s possible to find it if you help out in a community garden. Community gardens are calming environments where you can interact with other people from all walks of life and where you’re all trying to achieve a common goal.

If you have very few family and friends to rely on to achieve that same sense of belonging, a community garden can undoubtedly be where you get it.

How to Start Your Own Garden

Now that you know that gardening might improve your mood, reduce your stress levels, and enhance your attention span, you might be eager to experience these benefits yourself. While starting a garden from scratch can be intimating, it can be as straightforward as following the steps below:

1. Think About What to Plant

Some people love beautiful, vibrant flowers they can admire from their kitchen window, while others want practical, functional gardens to harvest from to prepare the family meal and save money. Write a list of all the plants you’d like to see in your garden.

2. Pick the Best Spot for Your Garden

Whether you’re planting flowers or vegetables, where you create your garden can make a difference in your level of success. Both vegetables and flowering plants require at least six to eight hours of sun each day. If you only have a shady yard, you’ll need to pick shade-tolerant plants, such as beans, peas, carrots, mint, and parsley.

3. Clear the Area

Now that you’ve found your perfect spot, you can remove weeds and sod and get your garden underway. Don’t forget to test the soil and make any necessary amendments before planting.

4. Prepare the Planting Beds

You can’t just scatter seeds over hard ground and expert them to throw. Even after amending the soil, it’s a good idea to dig the soil with a rototiller or by hand to provide a suitable foundation for plants to thrive. You’re now ready to plant!

Garden for Your Health

Whether you love gardening or not, the potential health benefits might have you exploring your options. Now might be the right time to get stuck into the garden and see if you can notice any of these benefits above.

It’s easy to assume that trees are self-sufficient and don’t require our assistance to thrive and survive. However, quite the opposite can be true. Trees can be much more aesthetically pleasing, healthier, and safer when we put time and effort into their care. Are you unsure how to keep your trees in good health? We’ve included some helpful information below.

Put Thought Into Location

Many people decide to plant trees on their properties to enjoy various benefits like shade, privacy, shelter, and aesthetics. However, there’s more to the planning process than simply choosing a variety you like, digging a hole, and planting it.

You also have to think carefully about where on your property is most suitable for planting. Otherwise, transplanting a mature tree can be an expensive and invasive process. It’s also not always successful.

There are many things to consider regarding your tree’s planting location to ensure its good health in the years to come. Think about where it will receive the most sun and whether it has enough space to grow upwards and outwards.

It’s also crucial to consider whether the tree could become a hazard in the future. Plant it away from underground utilities, property boundaries, structures, and powerlines. Research the mature size of your new tree sapling, and you might find it much easier to plant it in the most appropriate location.

Perform Regular Pruning and Trimming

Like children, trees need our help growing up big and strong. Make regular pruning and trimming part of your standard backyard maintenance routine. These tasks can provide a wide range of benefits, such as:

• Improving the aesthetic appeal

• Positively benefiting the growth rate

• Enhancing plant quality

• Increasing your trees’ longevity

• Improving the health of your trees

Pruning and trimming small trees like fruit trees is something you might be able to manage on your own, especially if trees are at a manageable height and size. However, outsourcing this task to trained arborists can be vital if you lack the skills, knowledge, and equipment for large, mature trees.

Prioritise Soil Testing

Just as you might perform soil testing when planting a new vegetable or flower garden, you should do the same when planting new trees and trying to maintain their health over their years of growth. Soil testing allows you to find out what your soil is lacking and the type of fertiliser you might need to give your trees a healthy foundation to start from.

Once you have the perfect soil pH, don’t forget to perform regular testing to maintain the soil health and ensure your trees have what they need to thrive.

Use Mulch

Many gardeners see the value in mulch for their gardens. It suppresses weed growth, offers nutrients, retains moisture, and enhances the aesthetic appeal of the average planter box or border garden. But did you know you can also use mulch around your trees?

Placing mulch around newly-established and mature trees can assist with soil insulation and water retention. It might also reduce the risk of soil compaction, which typically impacts plants’ ability to get the nutrients, air, and water, they need.

However, it’s important to apply mulch around your tree with great care. Mulch outwards rather than upwards. You don’t want more than 10cm of mulch around the base. It’s also important to keep mulch away from the trunk of the tree. You want the roots to be moist but the trunk to be dry.

Inspect Regularly

You might apply mulch and test your soil, but that doesn’t mean your trees can’t succumb to pests and diseases. Inspect your trees regularly and look for signs of a pest problem or a tree disease that requires immediate attention.

Weak and thinning limbs, damaged leaves, discoloured leaves, and even holes in branches can all indicate serious problems that impact tree integrity. If you’re unsure how to manage pests and diseases yourself, contact trained tree experts who might be able to offer their assistance.

We have a number of pests and diseases affecting trees in NZ, including:

• Kauri disease

• Myrtle rust

• Dothistroma needle blight

• Terminal crook disease

• Bacterial dieback

• Diplodia dieback

• Cypress canker

• Mycosphaerella leaf-blotch

• Grey mould

• Root and collar rot

Not only do diseased trees look bad and detract from the beauty of your property, but they can also be unsafe and put your family, property, and even the general public at risk.

Call the Experts

Not everyone has the time or knowledge to dedicate to tree care – and that’s okay. Whether you need help with tree trimming or general tree health, don’t be afraid to reach out to experts for help. There are bound to be many tree care experts near you who will be more than willing to assist with this important task for the health of your trees and the safety of your family.

Many passionate gardeners and homeowners dream of having a garden that stops people in their tracks when they see it. They know their gardens bring them joy but want others to experience the same joy and happiness.

Creating a beautiful garden takes creativity, effort, and hard work, but you might be well on your way to achieving perfection when you draw inspiration from some of the most beautiful gardens in the world.

Shinjuku Gyo-en – Tokyo, Japan

The Shinjuku Gyo-en park and garden in Tokyo’s Shinjuku and Shibuya is enough to take any passionate gardener’s breath away. It’s a national park under the Ministry of theEnvironment’s jurisdiction and a source of pride for many locals. 

This park spans 58.3 hectares with 20,000 trees, 1,500 subtropical and tropical plants, and a combination of three garden styles: English Landscape, French Formal, and Japanese Traditional. You’ll definitely want to visit this garden during spring to see the 1,500 cherry trees in full bloom from late March to early April.  

Monet’s Gardens – Giverny, France

Sometimes, pictures just aren’t enough. And that’s certainly the case with Monet’s Gardens in Giverny, France. These gardens are at Claude Monet’s home and give real meaning to the saying ‘as pretty as a picture’.

The gardens are just a short train trip from Paris and are split into two parts: the Clos Normand flower garden and a Japanese-inspired water garden.

Butchart Gardens – British Columbia, Canada

After visiting the privately owned and operated Butchart Gardens in British Columbia, Canada, you won’t question why more than one million people visit them yearly. They are simply spectacular.

These 22-hectare gardens, which are a National Historic Site of Canada, are home to more than 900 plant varieties blooming from March to October. The kaleidoscope of colours is enough to take your breath away.

Gardens by the Bay - Singapore

There is plenty to see, do, and experience in Singapore, so a garden might be one of the last places you think to visit. However, the Gardens by the Bay nature park in Singapore’s central region is truly something special. 

Since 2018, it has seen more than 50 million visitors across the 101-hectare site, with avid gardeners amazed by the three waterfront gardens, supertrees, the world’s largest glass greenhouse, and a cloud forest.

Parco San Grato – Lugano, Switzerland

San Grato Park, also known as Parco San Grato, is a gorgeous park between San Salvatore and Monte Arbostora, spanning 200,000m2 and extending 690m above sea level. This park is home to the largest collection of conifers, azaleas, and rhododendrons in the region and has five themed trails for visitors to enjoy. 

Feel a sense of whimsy on the fairy-tale path or be inspired on the artistic trail. There is also a botanical, relaxation, and scenic path for visitors to meander down and equipped grilling areas, should you decide to stop for a bite to eat while exploring the park.

New York Botanical Garden – New York, USA

If you love roses and want inspiration for how they can look in your garden, visit the New York Botanical Garden in Bronx Park, New York. 

The New York Botanical Garden has over one million living plants, including over 650 rose varieties within the famous Peggy Rockefeller Rose Garden. You’ll also enjoy 20 hectares of woodlands, an azalea garden, and a lovely wetland trail.

Château de Villandry – Villandry, France

How many homeowners could say that their gardens have been around since the Renaissance period? Well, that’s the truth about the gardens of Villandry in Villandry, France. The Château has had gardens for hundreds of years, with the style changing ever so slightly as the years passed. 

They were of a Renaissance style during the 16th century and French style in the 18th century before becoming a gorgeous landscaped park during the 19th century. After being purchased by Joachim Carvallo in the 20th century, the gardens were redesigned to incorporate both traditional and modern designs.

Las Pozas - Mexico

If you’ve ever wanted to feel like you’re the king or queen of the jungle, pay a visit to Las Pozas in Mexico. Las Pozas is positioned in a subtropical rainforest in Mexico’s Sierra Gorda mountains, more than 600m above sea level.  

When you visit, you’ll enjoy more than 32 hectares of natural waterfalls, pools, and towering concrete sculptures.

Crathes Castle – Scotland

While you might visit Crathes Castle in Scotland to see the beautiful 16th-century painted ceilings, turrets, and gargoyles, you’ll definitely stay for the impressive gardens and great yew hedges. The Crathes Castle, Garden, and Estate has historic walled gardens with yew hedges planted as far back as 1702.  

You’ll also see plenty of wildlife as you explore the grounds, like roe deer, buzzards, red squirrels, and woodpeckers.

Nong Nooch Tropical Garden – Na Chom Thian, Thailand

The Nong Nooch Tropical Garden in Thailand’s Chonburi province is easily one of the most beautiful gardens in the world. The garden spans 242 hectares and was originally purchased to become a fruit plantation.

However, the plans changed, and it became a wildlife conservation project. Now, visitors get to enjoy nine different garden areas with various themes like Stonehenge, French, and Flower Valley.

As welcome as autumn can be after a scorching hot summer, falling leaves can be frustrating for home and business owners. It can sometimes seem like as soon as you rake one pile up, another takes its place the next day.

As beautiful as the leaves can be as they fall, you’re likely looking for a solution to save time, hassle, and stress. Any of these autumn leaf tips below might be the answer you’ve been looking for.

Purchase a High-Quality Rake

Raking is the most traditional leaf removal method, and it’s one that’s trusted by homeowners throughout New Zealand. After all, you don’t have to worry about motor maintenance or expensive parts. You buy a rake, rake the leaves, and that’s it.

But the average entry-level, mass-produced rake won’t always result in a frustration-free raking experience. Rather than buying the cheapest rake available, look for a high-quality plastic or metal rake with wide dimensions and expanding tines. These are likely to rake your leaves more efficiently than a traditional rake.

Use a Leaf Blower

If you have leaves spread around your property on various terrains, gathering them up with a rake can be tedious and time-consuming. Save time and effort by using a leaf blower instead. Leaf blowers can effortlessly push your leaves off pathways, lawns, and other parts of your property into an easy-to-manage pile.

Just keep in mind that leaf blowers can be loud and aren’t always appreciated by neighbours. Be aware of decibel ratings when making your purchase, and be mindful of any council noise restrictions.  

Haul Out the Mulching Mower

Many homeowners rake leaves before mowing their lawns because they don’t have a mower capable of handling leaf litter. Save time and keep your lawns healthy simultaneously by investing in a mulching mower.

Mulching mowers are designed to break down leaves into small flakes that can be distributed evenly across your lawn. Eventually, the small leaf pieces decompose into a natural fertiliser your grass will love.

Use Them As Compost

Sometimes, homeowners aren’t frustrated by the leaf removal process, but they are by not knowing what to do with the leaves once they have them in one convenient pile. If you have gardens or a compost bin, they can form part of nutrient-rich organic matter for vegetable gardens, trees, and plants.

To speed up the breaking-down process, cut your leaves into smaller pieces with a mulcher or crunch them up by hand. Mix them with wood shavings, bark, tree branches, trimmings, lawn clippings, and other natural materials.

Take Them to Your Local Waste Station

If you don’t have a compost bin or gardens to feed, rake your leaves onto a tarpaulin and take them to your local waste station. This service is free or inexpensive throughout many parts of New Zealand. Alternatively, request a regular or casual collection service through your local council.

Make Leaf Mould

Leaf mould is a sweet-smelling soil conditioner with high magnesium and calcium content. Once added to vegetable gardens, flower gardens, and potting soils, it’s a desirable form of nutrients to make your plants the picture of health.

Creating leaf mould is easy, even if you don’t consider yourself much of a gardener. You simply need to rake your leaves into a pile somewhere they won’t get in the way, keep them wet, and let them break down. Within 1-3 years, the leaves will no longer be leaves. Instead, they’ll be a soggy, dark, disintegrated pile of soil-like material that you can add to any plants that need a health boost.

Use Them As Insulation

The colder months of the year can take a toll on vegetables, even if they’re of a cold-hardy variety. Rake up your leaves and use them as insulating layers for your vegetable gardens. You can also use crisp leaves as an insulating layer between harvested vegetables in storage.

Clean Up Daily

Many people become frustrated by leaf litter because clearing their properties can take up hours of their precious time. As trees drop their leaves at different times, consider making raking a part of your routine.

By staying on top of leaves as they fall, you might only have to spend a mere fraction of your free time clearing leaves instead of one large block of time each week. Save even more time by using a leaf blower rather than a rake.

Hire a Lawn Care Service Provider

Lawn care companies in NZ can provide convenient lawn mowing services, but that’s not typically the extent of their service offerings. They can also take care of garden waste, lawn clippings, and leaf litter that detracts from the beauty of your yard.

The next time you request the services of a local provider, ask about autumn leaf removal and garden tidy-up services. You might not need to lift a finger.

We love a good idiom. We also love a good garden. So, you can just imagine our delight when we realised so many of the best idioms are gardening-related!

Whether you’re a language lover or a great gardener, we know you will enjoy these famous gardening and lawn care idioms just as much as we do!

To Cherry-Pick

We love fruit trees, so the idiom ‘to cherry-pick’ or ‘cherry-picking’ is high on the list as one of our favourites. To cherry-pick means to select a small amount of information from a larger amount of data to favour you in a discussion or argument.

Cherry-picking is a common practice of people who disagree with an idea widely held or shared by the majority. They might find one source or study to support their position and disregard the others that go against it.

Dig Some Dirt Up

In the gardening world, digging some dirt up would be as it sounds. You literally dig dirt up from your garden to prepare it for new plants. But digging dirt up is more commonly used to describe someone looking for negative information about another person.

For example, if someone knows someone did something wrong, they might ‘dig some dirt up’ to learn more about that person and other things they might have done.

A Green Thumb

No one actually has a green thumb, but to say someone has a green thumb or is a green thumb means they are good at gardening or are passionate about gardening. Sometimes, people say they are green-fingered, which means the same thing.

Lead You Down the Garden Path

If you were showing someone around your property, you would literally lead them down the garden path. But you might also use this phrase if you were going to lie or deceive someone. Rather than say you were lying or deceiving someone, you would say you were leading someone down the garden path in an attempt to throw them off your scent.

You’re Barking Up the Wrong Tree

You’re barking up the wrong tree is one of our favourite gardening and lawn care idioms because it includes both an idiom and a pun! You’re barking up the wrong tree. Get it?

In everyday language, someone might say this if you were wasting your time taking a specific action or approach to solve a problem or achieve a particular result. For example, if the police were looking for a murder suspect, someone might say they were barking up the wrong tree if they were targeting the wrong suspects.

Grow Like a Weed

Weeds just don’t stop growing! And that’s why many people use the expression ‘growing like a weed’ to refer to children who have experienced a growth spurt. But that’s where the similarities between weeds and children stop. For the most part, we enjoy having our children around, and we can’t typically say the same about weeds.

Hearing Something Through the Grapevine

I heard it through the grapevine. It’s such a popular saying that there’s even a song about it. This saying means that you heard information about something or someone from friends or acquaintances. In a sense, it can also be a rumour or gossip rather than a hard fact.

It’s All Rosy

We love roses, which is perhaps why we use variations of the phrase ‘it’s all rosy’ and ‘everything is rosy’. Unless used as sarcasm, it’s all rosy means everything is fine and well.

Put Down Roots

All living plants have roots, which allow them to establish themselves on a property or in a garden and thrive. We use the idiom ‘put down roots’ to essentially describe the same thing about ourselves. When we put down roots in a particular place, we make it our home. You might hear people say they are putting down roots when they finally give up a life of travel and buy a home.

To Rake In

We rake leaves, we rake dirt, we rake a lot of things around our properties. But for some reason, we also use the idiom ‘to rake in’ to describe earning a lot of money. You might hear someone saying they are working overtime ‘to rake in the money’.

A Wallflower

Wallflowers are beautiful border flowers that can also look the part in cottage gardens and garden beds. They flower in winter, spring, and summer. Not everyone is familiar with wallflowers as plants, but most of us are familiar with them used in the sense of a person being a wallflower.

In this regard, someone can be a wallflower if they’re introverted, have social anxiety, and don’t typically participate in social activities.

You Reap What You Sow

When you reap what you sow in a gardening sense, you’re cutting or gathering a crop or harvest which you would have planted earlier. However, we rarely talk about reaping what we sow in this sense. Instead, we use this expression when we experience something bad due to something we did. If you did something bad, you experience something bad as a result.

Many people consider their gardens their own little slices of paradise. They plant flowers and shrubs they adore, landscape them how they want, and enjoy them as much as they can in their spare time.

While choosing suitable plants for a garden can be easy for many people, finding the right outdoor furniture to match is not always as straightforward. If the time has come to invest in outdoor furniture to make your garden fully functional for your entire family, consider taking the following approach.

Outline Your Goals

Everyone has different goals when it comes to furnishing their outdoor space. You might want a serene and peaceful space to enjoy on your own or an expansive area suitable for entertaining your friends and family.

Once you understand what it is you’re actually wanting, designing the space and shopping for new furniture can suddenly become much more manageable.

Write a Shopping List

The average furniture store can be overwhelming. There can be so many options to choose from in various styles, and you only have limited space to work with.

After thinking about your goals, write a shopping list that includes everything you’ll need to complete the look you’re trying to achieve. Be as detailed as possible, as multiple pieces will need to work together in harmony.

For example, if you’re creating an entertainer’s paradise, your list might look a little something like this:

• Six-seater dining set

• Outdoor lighting

• A barbeque

• A bench seat

• Cushions for the bench seat

• Outdoor placemats

• An outdoor rug

Try Before You Buy

As luxurious and stylish as outdoor furniture might look, its comfort and functionality can be far more important in the long run. Don’t be afraid to try before you buy when at your local furniture store.

Sit on furniture as you would if it were on your own property, and see if it has adequate support and cushioning to suit your needs. If you find that a particular piece you adore just isn’t comfortable enough, you might be able to compromise by purchasing plush cushions in a weather-resistant fabric to provide the support you require.

Consider Your Time Constraints

Not everyone has hours of spare time each week to dedicate to outdoor area maintenance. The little spare time you do have, you’d much prefer to spend it actually enjoying the space. Therefore, make sure any outdoor furniture you buy to match your garden is easy-care. The less time you spend maintaining it, the more time you can spend enjoying it.

Perform research on the different materials that require more maintenance and time than others. For example, wrought iron requires minimal care and maintenance to keep it looking at its best, while plastic is easy to wipe down and strong to last the distance.

However, it’s important to note that at least a small amount of maintenance will be required with whichever materials you purchase. You might also see the value in storing away outdoor furniture in the winter months to keep it looking at its best for as long as possible.

Play With Colour

Whether your home is contemporary or classic, don’t be afraid to play with colour. If you have a brightly coloured house door, consider complementing that colour in your outdoor space with vibrant chair cushions or plant pots.

While neutral hues are undoubtedly the most popular options, you might be surprised by how tasteful a burst of red, blue, or yellow can look when put in the right places.

Match Styles

A classic, charming home will never look as modern as a new build. While you can add some contemporary elegance with garden edging, low-maintenance grasses, and bold plant pots, you might also decide to stick with your home’s theme – classic.

The same goes for new builds. It can sometimes be challenging for a cottage garden to work in harmony with a contemporary home and vice versa. Establish whether you have a modern or classic home and purchase furniture to suit. You might be surprised by how many options blend seamlessly with your home’s overall style.

Opt for Quality

As tempting as it can be to purchase an entry-level dining set because it’s available at a bargain price, think about how much use it will have. The more money you spend on quality furniture, the longer the set can typically last and the more enjoyment you get from it.

The same goes for accessories and other furniture you plan to purchase for your outdoor space. While it’s always a good idea to stick to a budget, it can sometimes mean that you must replace furniture long before you intended.

Enjoy Your Transformed Outdoor Space

As daunting as putting together an outdoor space can be, it can be worth it when you see the final result and can enjoy it with loved ones. Now might be the right time to take note of these tips above and turn your outdoor area into something truly magical.

If you grow your own fruit and vegetables and encourage wildlife to explore your property, you might think you’re doing Mother Nature a favour. In reality, most modern agriculture practices are not good for the planet, and some vegetable gardens aren’t even sustainable.

We over-fertilise, we water inefficiently, we use pesticides, and we till the Earth. We might still produce food to eat, but growing one resource is often at the expense of another.

But that doesn’t mean there isn’t room for us to improve, and that’s where regenerative gardening comes in. What is it, and how is it used? You can learn this information and more below.

What Is Regenerative Gardening?

Regenerative gardening describes a gardening and planting type that minimises emissions and waste. We nourish the soil rather than take from it and preserve fungi, decomposers, and invertebrates that contribute to soil and plant health.

While it can be tempting to reach for synthetic pesticides, herbicides, and other plant products to support healthy plants, regenerative gardening provides gardeners with a much healthier alternative.

Benefits of Regenerative Gardening

Gardening can be time-consuming enough, even when you hire gardening experts to help. So, why would you change how your garden if there’s potential for it to be even more time-consuming?

While you might need to dedicate time to research before getting started, regenerative gardening can actually save you time. It might even allow you and your garden to enjoy some of the following benefits.

Restore and Maintain Soil Health

Nutrient-rich soil is necessary for optimal plant health, but our soil additions and growing practices aren’t making positive contributions. However, regenerative gardening can be a game-changer due to increased carbon sequestration.

Carbon sequestration describes carbon molecules in the soil. Soil that has been altered in any way, especially physically or chemically, typically has less carbon than healthy soil. Human activities affect our soil, and some industries, like mining, agriculture, and construction, are contributing to CO2-related climate change.

Moisture Retention

Many gardeners spend countless hours watering their gardens to encourage their plants can grow. During the warmer months of the year, this can be an arduous task. Regenerative garden practices contribute to moisture retention, allowing the soil to hold onto water for longer, reducing the need for as much manual irrigation. The more organic material in your soil, the more water it can retain.

Increased Biodiversity

Animals, fungi, and bacteria are not as heavily present in gardens and on agricultural land as they used to be, and it’s believed that manual tilling and pesticides are to blame. When we overplant and deplete the ground of its many nutrients, we harm the animals, fungi, and bacteria that contribute to its healthy biodiversity. Regenerative gardening attempts to solve this problem by retaining as many natural materials as possible.

How Can You Start Regenerative Gardening?

Learning a new gardening style can take time, but you might be surprised by how straightforward and easy it can be to integrate regenerative gardening practices into your daily routine. Here are some of the best ways to start.

Begin Composting

Composting is perhaps the easiest way to create a regenerative garden. It involves composting kitchen scraps, yard waste, and other organic materials to make nutrient-rich humus for your soil.

Making humus is straightforward and only requires you to:

1.      Add natural materials

2.      Turn it regularly

3.      Keep it damp

4.      Wait until it’s a dark, spongy, jelly-like material

Let the Weeds Grow

As unsightly as some weeds can be, they can be important for soil regeneration. They reduce soil erosion, increase water retention, and provide necessary food and shelter for pollinators and other bugs that add balance to the ecosystem.

While you can still cut back weeds that threaten to overwhelm your prized plants, don’t be in a hurry to pull out or spray those that grow at random in your garden beds and around pathways. If they start to impact your ability to garden comfortably, trim them back as you see fit.

Don’t Till Your Soil

Digging up soil can break down its structure and release carbon. While you might need to prepare your soil for planting, tilling isn’t the only option at your disposal. You can also use mulch and landscaping cloths to keep weeds at bay and use a broad fork to loosen the soil. You can even try sheet composting, which involves using straw, cardboard, and biodegradable layers to revitalise the soil for planting.

Try Intensive Planting

It’s always important to refer to the instructions on seed packets before planting, especially when they tell you when to plant and how far apart to plant. However, if you plant your crops closer than recommended, you might enjoy a number of benefits. The soil enjoys more shade to retain moisture, you reduce weed growth, and you can make more efficient use of your space.

Try Regenerative Gardening

The gardening practices many of us rely on might be efficient and effective, but that doesn’t mean better ones don’t exist. Try regenerative gardening today and give Mother Nature a helping hand to protect the soil for future generations.

Creating the right balance of colours in your plants and flowers can sometimes be one of the last things you think about as you browse the offerings at your local garden centre. Instead, you might be looking for plants that suit your environment, are pet and bee-friendly, and, of course, are within your budget.  

However, thinking about colours might be the difference between an aesthetically pleasing garden and one that is overwhelming and hard to look at. If you’re in the research phase of creating a new garden and want to get it right the first time, take note of the following information.  

Understand Basic Colour Principles 

The first step to nailing your new garden design is understanding colour theory and the basic colour principles. The more you know about colour, the easier it can often be to make the right flower and plant purchasing decisions. 

As most of us already know, we have primary, secondary, and tertiary colours. The primary colours, red, blue, and yellow, can’t be created using any other colours. However, secondary colours, such as green, orange, and purple, can be created by mixing primary colours. Blue and yellow make green; red and yellow make orange, and blue and red make purple. 

You then get into tertiary colour territory, which is when you mix a secondary colour and a primary colour to get combinations like red-orange, blue-green, and yellow-orange.  

Why Bother With Colour Harmony and Balance?  

There are no rules or laws against choosing plants and flowers of any colour and planting them willy-nilly. However, there’s a risk of missing out on colour harmony and balance, which can be crucial. 

Colour harmony creates a sense of order, balance, and even excitement, without having to worry about overstimulating your sight and seeing nothing more than chaos in your garden.  

Colour harmony and balance are also closely linked to colour relationships: complementary and analogous. Complementary colours are those that sit opposite to each other on a colour wheel and bring out each other’s intensity, such as purple and yellow and red and green. In contrast, analogous colours sit next to each other on the colour wheel and are essentially a gradient of each other.  

What Do Colours Achieve?  

As you load up your shopping trolley with new plant and flower varieties to add to your new garden, take a moment to consider what their colours will achieve in your space. Typically, warm colours like red, yellow, and orange are about excitement and energy, whereas cool colours like pink, blue, and purple are calming and peaceful while also making small yards look much larger. 

If you purchase monochromatic plants, which are plants with one main colour, you can add visual interest with contrasting leaf and flower textures.

You Don’t Always Need Colourful Plants 

Not everyone has the time or patience to tend to a large, colourful flower garden. While you could always hire a gardener, there are other ways to achieve colour in your yard. Plant monochromatic plants or easy-care varieties like tussocks and flax and achieve that burst of colour you desire through hardscapes. 

For example, you might plant shrubs in brightly-coloured garden pots or purchase cushions and rugs in various beautiful colours for your outdoor furniture. 

Balance Colours with Plain 

As tempting as it can be to plant out your entire garden bed with beautiful flowers like begonia, petunias, and dahlia, the vibrant colours might not help you achieve the balance you desire. Instead, plant those flowers alongside plainer plant varieties like acacia limelight for beautiful green freshness or even Corokia for its silvery-grey foliage.  

The combination of calming colours with vibrant ones might ensure a sense of balance, order, and harmony you didn’t think was possible. 

Grow Pleached Trees 

Some gardeners struggle to create structure in their gardens while ensuring balance between soft-scaped and hard-scaped parts of their property. And that’s where pleached trees come in. They don’t take up much space in a small yard, yet they can add much-needed greenery, contemporary elegance, and definition where you need it the most. 

Pleached trees are framework-trained trees that you can attach to a fence or grow free-standing. As the branches grow, they weave and twist on their framework to create a tall and flat screen. They look like trees and are trees but grow as if they’re a fence.  

Achieve Colour Balance In Your Garden 

If you’re gearing up to plant a new garden, don’t be afraid to plan it first. Sketch your available space, set a budget, and think about the best plants for balance, colour, and your environment. Once you have a firm understanding of how colours interact with each other, you might end up with a beautiful, harmonious, and well-proportioned garden that has all the neighbours peering over your fence for all the right reasons.  

Most people leave their shrubs, hedges, and trees to take on any form and shape they want. You might trim branches that have gone astray or become a hazard, but you might not think about playing with shapes like rectangles, circles, and spirals to improve their aesthetic appeal.

There’s nothing wrong with using a hedge for privacy and not much else, but have you ever thought about making them more of a decoration on your property? Below, you can learn more about the best shrubs to shape and how to get started.

Best Hedge Plants for Shaping in NZ

Hedge plants consist of shrubs and trees planted together and trained to form a barrier. Most people who grow hedge plants do so for a bit of greenery on their property, sound protection, and privacy.

However, that’s not everyone’s story. If you want to plant hedge plants so they can become decorative trees on your property, you might like to grow some of the following varieties.

Buxus

Buxus hedge plants are compact and evergreen with small leaves. They are most commonly used to edge gardens and line paths, but people also use them to create beautiful topiaries or ‘box balls’. Box balls are essentially round-shaped hedge plants in a pot and can be a striking addition to any home’s entrance.

Lilly Pilly

There is certainly no shortage of lilly pilly hedges in New Zealand. It can seem like there’s a lilly pilly hedge providing a property with shelter and privacy everywhere you look. Lilly pilly is a popular hedge plant for its vibrancy and fast growth. It also thrives in free-draining soil and is reasonably easy-care compared to many other hedge species.

Like Buxus, you can shape lilly pilly into a topiary and balls, so there’s no reason you can’t have a show-stopping decorative tree on your property just in time for summer.

Wrinkle Blue

If a simple green hedge is not enough to add excitement and vibrancy to your property, consider the Wrinkle Blue hedge plant. This hedge plant is ideal for both hedges and shrub borders and produces gorgeous blue-green glossy foliage that stands out from the crowd in full sun.

When Blue Wrinkle is fully established, it can grow to about 1.5m tall. However, you can also trim it into a range of shapes.

What You Need to Shape Your Shrubs

After seeing the beautiful hedge shapes that people produce on their properties, you might assume you need a range of expensive tools and some kind of educational degree. However, that’s not the case. As far as tools go, you only need a handful of products.

Depending on the shape you’d like to achieve, most gardeners already have what they need tucked away in their garden shed: a hedge trimmer, wooden stakes, and string. However, if you hope to achieve spiral shapes, circles, and any other irregular shapes, you might also need wire meshing, a saw, and hand shears.

How to Create a Formal Hedge

Sometimes, the easiest way to make your hedge stand out for all the right reasons is by turning it into a formal hedge. This requires you to ensure it has straight edges to create defined property boundaries.

Creating a formal hedge with a straight top, back, and sides can be as easy as dusting off the hedge trimmer. However, if your hedge is large, it’s not always easy to ensure it’s straight on all sides. Before you get to work, hammer two stakes into the ground at each end of the hedge and tie a string at your desired height. When you pull it tight, it can function as a cutting guide to ensure a straight trim on all sides.

How to Cut a Round Hedge

Everyone has square and rectangular hedges. Don’t you want to stand out? You might be able to do that by cutting a round hedge. On a small hedge plant that you grow from a cutting, such as a Buxus, you’ll only need a few tools before achieving a perfectly round hedge.

Start with an ornamental pot, your box cuttings of choice, a loam-based compost, and hand shears. Put your cuttings into the pots and trim them with scissors to ensure they start growing bushy from the base. Place the pots outside and keep them fed and watered to ensure healthy growth.

Within two months, your plants will have rooted, and you can move them to a larger pot with your loam-based compost. Space the plants close together so that they knit together as they grow. Promote dense growth by pinching out the shoot tips.

It’s essentially a waiting game at this point. Water and feed your plants regularly and trim them with scissors or shears as they grow. Get into the habit of removing the tips once 2-3cm of growth has occurred. You should have a well-established, circle-shaped hedge plant in a container within three years. At this point, twice-yearly trims should be all they need to stay in shape.

How to Cut a Spiral Hedge

Cutting a spiral hedge can take time and patience, but it can be all worth it when you see the final result. Trim your hedge into a cone shape, ensuring its base is the widest point. If you notice thin areas, give them time to grow before continuing with your spiral shape.

Use a piece of string to map out where the spiral will go, and use it as a guide as you work around the plant with your shears. Always work from the plant’s base and cut at an angle below the string.

Shape Your Shrubs for Summer

Don’t put up with a boring hedge. Turn it into something spectacular. With a pair of garden shears, a piece of string, and some imagination, you can achieve some beautiful things.

When open signs are put out on weekends at gardening stores across the country, Kiwis flock through the doors in their droves. They then leave laden with bags of potting soil, seedlings, and other goodies needed to create top-producing gardens.

If you’ve never planted anything before, you might be jealous of their know-how to grow their own carrots, peas, potatoes, and other delicious produce. The truth is that anyone can grow fruits and vegetables themselves with a small amount of research. Here are some top tips for starting your own gardening journey.

Know When to Plant

You might assume you can plant any fruit or vegetable at any time of the year, but that’s not the case. Some plants grow better in some seasons than others, and some might immediately fail if they’re not suited to the elements.

Before you purchase seeds, gardening gloves, soil, and other gardening equipment, take the time to know what to plant at which time of the year. Many websites offer helpful planting calendars so you can get to grips with your climate and the fruits and vegetables to thrive within it.

For example, if you live in Auckland, springtime is the best time of year to plant cabbage, carrots, beans, spinach, tomatoes, potatoes, and lettuce. You might also choose spring as the best time to harvest some of these vegetables from previous growing cycles as well.

Your climate and whether or not you have a greenhouse can often determine what you plant and when. If you’re not sure, consult your local gardening expert.

Prepare Your Soil

It’s easy to believe that you can grow anything you like as long as you have soil. However, plants typically thrive in nutrient-rich soil. Take the time to purchase or create the soil you need, and you might be surprised by how many healthy vegetables and fruits you can grow.

Add compost, specially formulated garden mixes, and even sheep pellets to give your plants the best start to life. Adding a layer of mulch can also be helpful for ensuring your vegetables get as much moisture as they need.

Plant Seedlings

If you’re a novice gardener who wants to experience success with minimal effort, consider planting seedlings. Seedlings have already been given an excellent start to life at a garden centre, whereas seeds in packets rely on you to provide that healthy foundation from day one.

While seeds are undoubtedly the more economical option, you can learn how to be the best plant parent when you’re continuing someone else’s efforts with seedlings. Once you have some experience, you can try planting seeds the following year.

Planting seedlings is also straightforward. You can start by soaking your seedlings in plant tonic to prevent transplant shock and add a vegetable mix to your soil to ensure it has all the most appropriate nutrients. Dig a hole down to twice the depth and width of your plant’s root ball and gently loosen the roots before placing the plant in the pre-dug hole. Fill the hole with vegetable mix and press the soil gently around the plant’s base. Water your newly planted seedlings and water them regularly as they grow.

Start With Easy Plants

Not all fruit and vegetables are easy to grow. Fruit trees, for example, are much harder to grow than potatoes. If you’re new to the gardening scene, start with plants that thrive with minimal effort.

Potatoes, cabbage, spinach, lettuce, cabbage, and spring onion, are all excellent beginner crops that tend to grow well even if you don’t have much gardening experience. You might try those before moving to more complex crops like aubergine, sweet potato, onions, and artichoke.

Know When to Harvest

You might assume that you can harvest your vegetables as soon as they appear large enough. While you can get away with harvesting some varieties when they look like those you’d see at the supermarket, others require more knowledge. Sometimes, your harvesting timeline can be the difference between a sweet vegetable and a bitter one.

You can typically harvest your potatoes when the foliage starts to die back between 120 to 150 days after planting them. Carrots are often best to harvest around 8-19 weeks after sowing, but you can leave them in the ground and harvest as you need them.

Beans typically need between 50 to 70 days to grow. Keep an eye on the calendar, as they can go from tender to tough in the blink of an eye. Harvest them while they’re still tender to avoid stringiness.

Grow Your Own Vegetables With Confidence

Anyone can become an experienced gardener. You just have to start. Talk to your local gardening experts about the best fruit and vegetables to plant, and you can be well on your way to a successful planting exercise in no time.

If you live in a part of Aotearoa New Zealand, with a subtropical climate, such as Auckland, you’re spoilt for choice regarding plant growing opportunities. With warmer conditions than other parts of the country, such as Southland, you can grow a broader range of plants with much more success.

Therefore, if you’ve been considering growing an exotic garden to create your own little slice of paradise, you’re in luck. A number of beautiful, showy, and exotic plants can provide that authentic oasis feel. If you’re currently in the planning phase of your exotic garden, here are a few of the many options you might like to consider.

Banana Misi Luki

If you’re looking for plants that are both exotic and productive, banana Misi Luki, a banana-producing palm, will tick all those boxes. This subtropical banana plant has large, glossy green leaves and produces deliciously fruity and creamy bananas for you to enjoy in spring. Not only is this plant disease-resistant for peace of mind, but it also grows in poor soils and is tolerant to drought conditions, as well.

When fully grown, they’re about four metres tall and can provide both shelter and privacy. However, they are not suitable for forming hedges.

Nikau Palms

While exotic gardens typically feature an abundance of plants from other countries, you can still achieve a tropical garden with New Zealand plants, such as the Nikau palm. This palm tree is endemic to Aotearoa and is the only palm tree native to mainland New Zealand.

They can grow up to 15 metres tall and have circular trunks, three-metre-long fronds, and rings around the trunks with scars from fallen leaves. Nikau palms are typically found in lowland forests and coastal areas within warmer regions.

Alongside the beauty and uniqueness of Nikau palms, there are other reasons why you might decide to plant them. They can be an important source of food for native birds like the kererū and kākā and hold importance in Māori cultures and traditions.

Clumping Bamboo

Nothing says tropical slice of paradise quite like clumping bamboo. And the good news is that this fast-growing plant can serve many purposes. It’s an excellent plant to use as screening for privacy and can even be the backdrop for other plant varieties.

Clumping bamboo thrives in tropical and sub-tropical environments. It grows well in most non-clay soil types and enjoys full sun and shade. If you want your bamboo to grow quickly and healthily, turn your soil over down to around 20cm, mix it with compost or manure, add a slow-release or controlled-release fertiliser, and mulch well after planting.

Bird of Paradise

Every garden needs a show-stopper plant, and Bird of Paradise would have to be at the top of the list. Also known as a crane flower and bird’s tongue flower, this clumping perennial truly looks like a bird of paradise.

It boasts a vibrant array of colors from orange to blue and violet, and it has unique shaping similar to a bird’s head. Bird of Paradise grows up to around 1.2 metres tall and up to three metres wide and has foliage akin to that of a banana leaf.

It thrives in free-draining and light soil and will stand the best chance of success in warm, temperate environments. Whether you’re trying to achieve an exotic-looking garden or need a hardy plant for your gardens, Bird of Paradise can’t help but impress.

Frangipani

With its quaint white flowers, large green foliage, and tropical appearance, frangipani well and truly stands out from the crowd. This deciduous plant grows well in the tropics and sub-tropics within free-draining and sandy soil and enjoys protection from the wind in full sun.

They can grow up to around 30 centimetres long and 10cm wide and tend to flower from December to April. It’s worth noting that frangipani can be quite time-intensive plants for new gardeners. They typically require organic matter like manure or compost to thrive and can be easily damaged at the roots. Large frangipani plants also often require staking as they can be rather top-heavy.

Bougainvillea

Add some vibrancy and happiness to your slice of paradise with Bougainvillea, a thorny ornamental vine that tends to be evergreen in warm climates but deciduous in the cold. Bougainvillea can grow upwards of 12 metres, but you have the freedom to trim them to a desirable size or even buy dwarf varieties.

They prefer deep, well-drained soil in full sun and require regular watering. These beautiful plants will then treat you for your efforts with gorgeous and vibrant flowers in the summer months.

And while you can purchase full bougainvillea plants from your local nursery, you can also grow them yourself from cuttings. You simply need to take 15-centimetre-long cuttings from new shoots with some old growth, remove leaves from the bottom portion, place them into a pot of propagating sand, and keep the cuttings damp until they establish.

Create the Exotic Garden of Your Dreams

Everyone deserves to have a garden they can be proud of, and you might love the idea of unique and exotic plants. Some of the plants listed above are excellent options to get started, but you might also like to consult your local expert gardener for advice.

Spring has sprung, and nothing beats looking out your window at a garden full of freshly bloomed flowers after a long and bleak winter. But if you’re still looking at bare soil even with the onset of the warmer weather, you might have forgotten to plant those all-important spring bulbs.

If you’re just getting to grips with the gardening scene and want to be fully prepared for the seasons ahead, here are some of the best spring flowers to plant for your enjoyment once winter is given its marching orders.

Daffodils

Spring and daffodils go hand in hand. When you see daffodils popping up in the unlikeliest of places, you know winter has finally ended.

You can plant daffodils any time from March until the end of May. However, when you plant them can often dictate when they start to flower. You also need to plant daffodils in well-drained soil in an area that experiences full sun.

Tulips

Out of all spring bulbs, tulips would have to be one of the most beautiful. They stand out from the crowd, and many gardeners describe them as show stoppers, no matter which variety you choose.

Surprisingly, tulips are reasonably easy to grow, as long as you plant them in a sunny spot within well-draining soil. Tulip bulbs also benefit from being placed in a paper bag in the fridge for 1.5-2 months before planting in May. Always plant at 8-10cm deep and 10-15cm apart. Keep the soil cool by applying a layer of mulch once planted.

Poppies

When you want to ensure your gardens look vibrant through winter and spring, consider planting poppies. Poppies are straightforward to grow from seed, and you stand the best chance of success if you plant them from late August to early September.

Poppies require rich soil and full sun to thrive. You might also see the value in providing them with a nutrient-rich flower mix. Whether you plant them in pots, containers, or in a traditional garden, you’ll be pleased you took the time to add poppies to your landscape.

Hyacinths

Add hyacinths to your shopping cart when nothing short of full vibrancy in your garden will do. Hyacinths are fragrant spring flowering bulbs that you can grow in your garden, containers, or pots.

Dig the soil over, add compost, and plant your bulbs 10cm below the soil level with the tips facing upwards. Space the bulbs about 10cm apart, but reduce that spacing by half if you’re planting in mass. While there can be a bit of work involved in growing them, you’ll know it was all worth it when they start to flower in spring.

Ranunculus

Are you trying to achieve a sophisticated spring garden look? Don’t look past ranunculus. These popular bulb flowers are available in a wide range of colours, like white, purple, orange, and yellow, and can be planted on their own or in borders.

They grow up to 60cm in cold to temperate areas and prefer well-drained loam soil with organic matter added. Ranunculus also flower better in full sun.

Choose an open area in your garden that receives plenty of direct sunlight daily, and plant your bulbs between mid-January to mid-May. Before introducing them to the soil, keep your bulbs in the fridge and soak them in water for at least two hours before planting. Place them up to 5cm deep in soil with the claw facing down, and place one bulb every 15-20cm.

Hebes

Gardening can sometimes be an overwhelming activity, especially when you have to keep track of the best times of the year to plant your favourite flowers. That’s less of a problem with hebe, which can be planted at any time of the year.

This beautiful flowering plant thrives in compost-enriched soil and full sun. It should also be planted at the same depth as when positioned in the pot you purchased it in.

Snapdragons

Snapdragons are unique and beautiful flowers that can’t help but put a smile on your face when you see them bloom for the first time. And fortunately for new gardeners, they are easier than you think to grow.

You can plant snapdragons in free-draining fertile soil positioned in full sun. Sprinkle your snapdragon seeds on the soil’s surface, then gently press them in. Snapdragon seeds need light to germinate, so don’t cover them up once you’ve planted them. Make sure you keep the soil evenly moist but refrain from overwatering them.

Spring Has Sprung, Get Planting!

If you want next spring to arrive with a hiss and a roar, it’s time to get planting! The more spring bulbs you plant, the more vibrant and beautiful your garden can look when spring rolls around once more.

If you need a helping hand, there are bound to be plenty of gardening experts in your area to assist in creating a garden you can be proud of.

Very few people ever start with their ideal garden. You might move into a home with a well-established yard, or you’ve built your dream home on bare land and have to create something from scratch.

In both of these situations, you don’t quite yet have what you prefer, but that’s not to say you never will. If you need a helping hand designing a garden to suit your unique personality, some of the ideas below might be helpful.

The Busy Professional

Many busy professionals spend more time at the office than they do in their own homes, which can take its toll on their backyards. With very little time left in the day for maintenance, gardens can soon look unkempt and unloved.

While you can hire a gardener or lawn mowing expert to take care of everything, you might also decide to design a garden that reflects your busy lifestyle. Minimal lawn and garden, raised garden beds, and easy-care plants might all feature at the top of your must-have list.

Fortunately, it is possible to have an aesthetically pleasing and low-maintenance property simultaneously.

The Entertainer

After a busy week at work, you might love nothing more than returning to your slice of paradise and inviting friends and family over to enjoy your free time with you. In that case, an entertainer’s garden design might suit your needs perfectly.

There are many different ways you can create a garden for entertaining, regardless of your property size and budget. If you have a small patio area, you can add outdoor furniture, lighting, and even a few potted plants for a touch of nature.

However, if you have a more spacious yard to enjoy, you might decide to go ‘all out’ with a barbecue, spa pool, fire pit, or even an outdoor kitchen. The sky’s the limit when you decide to create an outdoor entertainment area for you and your loved ones to enjoy.

The Provider

When you see the price of fruit and vegetables in supermarkets throughout Aotearoa, it’s only natural to be curious about growing the staples yourself. The green-thumbed members of your family might prefer a garden that prioritises functionality over aesthetics so that you can literally enjoy the fruits of your labour.

Such a garden might include tunnel houses and greenhouses, raised vegetable garden beds, and even fruit trees if you live in a warmer part of the country. Generally, such gardens feature a range of helpful features like pathways to access fruit and vegetables, watering systems for the drier months of the year, and potting areas for when new growing seasons begin.

The Potterer

When you have plenty of time to stop and smell the roses – literally – it makes sense to build a garden you can turn into your hobby. Such a garden might include a vibrant array of perennials and annuals, trees, shrubs, and pathways winding through them all for easy access.

Your beautiful, well-established yard might also have lighting, seating areas for people to sit and enjoy their surroundings, and a dedicated potting space.

The Modern Homeowner

Clean lines and simplicity is a preference for many homeowners, especially those who prefer easy-clean outdoor spaces that look sharp, modern, and welcoming. The simpler the design, the easier it is to maintain and the more attractive it might be to prospective purchasers should you decide to sell your home in the future.

A modern homeowner’s yard typically has an abundance of hardscapes, such as decking materials, retaining walls, concrete patios, stone walkways, fountains, and more. It usually has a larger ratio of hard materials to softer ones, allowing for easier maintenance and a more contemporary look.

The Space Saver

Not everyone has the quarter-acre section that used to be the Kiwi dream. Now, New Zealanders are making do with smaller, easier-to-maintain sections that require less of their free time.

However, the downside of such a section is that homeowners have limited space to work with, which means they have to get creative with any element they introduce. Fortunately, there are many different ways you can still have the backyard features you want, regardless of your section size.

For example, rather than having vegetable gardens taking up a lot of your space, you can build vertical gardens that allow you to grow the same amount of vegetables in a much smaller area. You might also opt for hanging planters rather than potted plants that take up valuable entertainment space.

Create Your Personal Paradise

No matter your personality, you’re bound to find a garden style to suit. The hardest part is bringing your vision to life. If you need a helping hand turning your garden dreams into reality, contact the friendly team at Crewcut to assist. We can help with all manner of outdoor-related tasks, such as gardening, garden tidy-ups, lawn mowing, water blasting, tree trimming, and more.

A sprawling lawn can be an ideal way to navigate your yard at most times of the year. Although, once winter hits, it can quickly turn into a soggy, soppy mess. With that in mind, you might be toying with the idea of creating a garden path to protect your grass and still access the most-used areas of your property.

Garden paths can be both aesthetically-pleasing and practical, which is why you’re probably eager to jump straight into this project. However, before you do, you might see the value in finding out how to build a beautiful garden path you can be proud of. Follow these steps below, and it might be easier than you think.

Step 1: Plot Your Path

Plotting a garden path is not a five-minute process. Sometimes, it can take days of traipsing the same patch of grass to learn your regular walking patterns and know the best area to build a path.

Many people start by plotting out the primary path that connects to the street, house, or garage. You might follow this path to get from your home to the garage, or from the garage, to the house, and to the street.

From the development of this path, you might then look at less formal options that take you to a vegetable garden, the washing line, and other popular parts of your property. Be mindful of how you currently navigate your property so that you can confidently plot out where you’ll install your new path.

Step 2: Consider the Width

You might not think that the width of your path matters, but failure to consider dimensions might mean your newly created path stands out for all the right reasons. A primary path should be at least 1.2 metres to allow for two people to walk on it side by side. 

However, secondary paths, such as those that take you from your house to the washing line, might only need to accommodate one person at a time. Such a path could be much narrower at around 76-90 centimetres.

To help you make your decision, measure the exterior architectural elements of your home, such as your home’s entrance with its trim. Aligning with these elements can allow for a much more cohesive property design.

Step 3: Choose Materials

No two paths are the same. Some people prefer the contemporary elegance and cleanness of pure, square-edged concrete, while others like brick and stone pavers cleverly set into softer surfaces like turf.

You might even consider the style of your home so that you can choose materials that work in harmony with it. There can be a lot to think about before making your choice, including a few logistics-based decisions. For example, you wouldn’t place loose materials like bark near entrances, with a high risk of it being traipsed inside your home. 

Among the most common are concrete, gravel, bricks, and stones. Consider more robust materials for primary paths and softer, more aesthetically pleasing materials for those secondary paths that will be used less often.

Step 4: Prioritise the Base

A pathway can look like a picture of perfection when you first lay it down, but it won’t necessarily stay that way forever if you haven’t spent time laying the perfect foundation. Rather than simply scattering bark or gravel on a grassy surface, you might need to think about levelling, drainage, water run-off, and much more.

If you want your path to last for many years to come, you might need to lay a coarse crushed stone base down to around 10 centimetres into the ground. This can help your pathway stay level over the years of use.

If you have clay soil, drainage might be an issue, so installing drain pipes down the middle, surrounded by gravel, with drain holes facing down, might be crucial to prevent water-related problems.

You might also need to apply a levelling product, like sand, if you’re installing pavers to ensure all stones are neatly nestled in place. Some homeowners may even see the value in purchasing masonry edging to hold stones, pavers, and bricks in place.

Step 5: Future-proof It

You might not have any plans to illuminate your paths now, but that doesn’t mean you won’t in the future. Consider installing an electrical conduit above the base so you can effortlessly retrofit wires for a practical and eye-catching low-voltage lighting system to guide the way.

Step 6: Consult the Experts

We can’t all be experts in everything we try, and that’s okay. Building a beautiful garden path can be hard work, and there’s no reason why even the savviest DIYer can’t call professional path builders for advice and expertise. With their assistance, you can enjoy a well-made, long-lasting path that perfectly borders your lawn and enhances your landscape.

Winter can be a dismal time of year. You might not have to mow the lawn or weed the garden as often, but you have to stare at a bare, dull-looking yard with no growth and not a flower in sight.

However, it might surprise you to learn that you can have a vibrant-looking garden in winter. All it takes is the right selection of plants, such as these options below.

Hellebores – The Roses of Winter

It won’t take you long to work out why hellebores are often called the roses of winter or winter roses. These fast-establishing perennial plants produce elegant flowers and thrive in shady areas during late winter and early spring.

Hellebores love well-drained, rich soil and will thrive in full or part shade. They don’t tend to enjoy the sunshine as much as many other plant varieties, which makes them ideal for wintry conditions.

Once you plant them in rich organic matter, it doesn’t take them long to make your garden their permanent home. They grow quickly and, as an added bonus, are easy to take care of. You’re also bound to enjoy planting the many different varieties that produce a range of flowers in shades of pink, white, and reddish-purple.

Camellias

Every homeowner deserves to have a showy flower that can be the envy of neighbours, and camellias definitely tick that box. Camellias are evergreen shrubs that bloom throughout winter and spring, providing a much-needed boost of colour in an otherwise grey and dreary winter landscape.

Camellia flowers are stunning and contrast beautifully against the green, glossy foliage of the shrub. They are also quite versatile in that you can turn them into hedges or shape them into beautiful shrubs you’re proud of.

Among the best camellias to purchase and plant are Sasanqua varieties, which flower from autumn to late winter, and Japonica, which flower from winter to late spring.

Pansies

If you’re not much of a gardener and often receive gardening help rather than tackling the task yourself, pansies are undoubtedly an ideal plant option for you. Not only are they easy to care for, but they can liven up the most depressing-looking winter garden with ease.

You simply need to purchase and plant them before the cold weather sets in, and they’ll have no problems thriving in all sorts of weather conditions like rain, hail, and even frost.

Alongside being a vibrant addition to any garden, pansies are also incredibly versatile. They are the ideal addition to any sprawling cottage garden but are also right at home in hanging baskets, garden beds, and borders.

Cornflowers

One of the hardest things to come to terms with when you plant new flowers is the fact that not all will grow in your garden year after year. Some will thrive for a short time before disappearing forever. That’s not the case with cornflowers.

These winter beauties are a common sight in the average cottage garden in New Zealand and tend to thrive in a wide variety of conditions. Once they’re there, they continue to grow each year.

While it can take some time for them to establish themselves, they tend to thrive once they settle into the soil. You can then enjoy beautiful double flowers in a vibrant shade of blue once the temperatures plummet.

Calendula

Frost can be a significant problem for the average gardener. It can easily wipe out a vegetable crop if you haven’t prepared for it, and many perennials succumb to particularly hard frosts. But out of all flowers that bloom in winter, Calendula would have to be one of the most robust varieties.

These vibrant orange flowers are frost-hardy, which means they aren’t normally phased when the mercury drops. You can also plant them in your vegetable garden to keep aphids away without needing to resort to pesticides.

Violas

Violas, or baby pansies, are a delight in any garden. Even when everything is dying in your garden around them, they stand out with their vibrant purple-blue petals and healthy green foliage.

Violas can be planted in March or April in spring or during autumn in September and October. However, winter varieties are hardy enough to be planted out in the winter months. Once you’ve planted them, you can enjoy their presence yearly.

Time to Get Planting

There’s no denying that winter is many gardeners’ least favourite time of the year, but that doesn’t mean your garden has to look as sad as you feel. By planting flowers that bloom in winter, you have something to look forward to once we welcome the colder temperatures.

Talk to your local lawn care and gardening experts about the best winter plants to include in your garden and how to create a peaceful flowery paradise of which you can be proud.

Explore the average proud gardener’s property, and you’ll likely discover at least one variety of climbing, creeping, and crawling plants. You might wonder how they managed to achieve such incredible growth or even how they managed to train their plants to grow a certain way.

It’s easy to assume that caring for your climbing, creeping, and crawling plants is labour-intensive and complicated, but it doesn’t have to be. If you’re considering purchasing such plants in NZ, you might find the following tips helpful.

Choose the Right Plant

First and foremost, it’s essential to know that climbing plants, creeping plants, and crawling plants are three different plant types that grow in different ways.

Crawling plants creep along the ground. They are also known as clambering or scrambling plants and potentially could climb but generally don’t. Then there are creeping plants or creepers, which grow close to the ground with small vines. They function as a form of ground cover for your garden beds, which can be convenient for homeowners who don’t like weeding.

Climbing plants ‘climb’ up fences, walls, and other tall objects, and most varieties have vines. However, climbing plants can scale horizontal surfaces in many different ways. For example, plants known as ‘twiners’ will coil themselves around anything in their path, including neighbouring plant stalks, wire, and even nails.

Winders can grow similarly and will form stems around trees, stakes, and other support structures you’ve put in place. Clingers might be a climbing plant worth your inspection if you don’t consider yourself a very competent gardener. These plants, such as ivy, require no support and will easily grow on rough walls without much guidance.

You might have also heard of ramblers and suckers. Suckers have sticky-padded stem tendrils that readily attach to whatever obstacle is in their path, while ramblers, such as roses, navigate support structures using their thorns.

Understand the Best Growing Conditions

Now that you’re aware that climbing, creeping, and crawling plants are all different, you’re probably not shocked to learn that they all have different ‘best’ growing conditions. It’s important not to assume that the way you grew one plant successfully is how you can successfully grow another.

Before purchasing any new plant that requires your care to climb, creep, and crawl, make sure you research the type of soil and conditions that it needs to thrive. Otherwise, you might be fighting a losing battle.

For example, the ever-popular clematis loves warm temperate and cold temperate climates. They prefer full sun, but some varieties love the shade. Regardless of where you plant them, they also require cool roots and protection from strong winds.

Plant Them in Healthy Soil

Crawling, creeping, and climbing plants have their work cut out for them when you bring them home as new plants. They have to establish themselves essentially from scratch, which requires a lot of growing. 

Give them the best start to life by planting them in healthy soil. Alongside making sure you’re providing them with soil they prefer, consider adding compost, a slow-release fertiliser, or even blood and bone to kickstart their growth period.

You might also like to add a fine bark or mulch to keep weeds away and retain much-needed moisture.

Water Often

New Zealand experiences scorching-hot temperatures in summer, and this can spell failure for many new plants yet to establish themselves properly. However, a hot summer doesn’t have to spell the end of your new climbing plants.

If you’re just getting ready to plant your new climbing plants, you might be able to give them the best start to life by regularly watering them.

Prioritize Support

While you might not need to worry about support for creeping or crawling plants, the climbing variety tends to require a significant amount of support. Fortunately, you’re not short of options.

Trellis is popular among many avid gardeners as it allows for easy training. The thicker the trellis, the more weight it can support. You can also install trellis on walls, fences, or the ground.

Alternatively, stakes might be a support option you consider. You can place wood or metal stakes in the ground when you plant climbing plant seeds or cuttings. As your plants grow, you can tie pieces of fabric or twine around the plant and attach them to the stakes to ensure they grow in the direction you want.

If you’re purchasing a climbing plant to form a specific shape, you might decide to install an arch in your garden. Arches are beautiful additions to any space and can become a picture of perfection when climbing plants hide the original structure.

Plant Your Creepers, Climbers, and Crawlers

Climbing, creeping, and crawling plants can be delightful additions to any garden. Now that you know the best practices for caring for them, you might feel confident enough to make your purchasing decision. If you need any help, advice, or general garden care, there are always gardening and landscaping experts like Crewcut to assist.

Hiring a gardener is one of the best ways to benefit from a beautiful garden without putting in all the hard work yourself. However, believe it or not, symbiosis is also another option for time-poor garden lovers who want their gardens to look after themselves.

Symbiosis, also known as mutualism, refers to anything that can live together and affect each other. An example of symbiosis would be planting a tomato plant and basil plant together. The tomato releases nutrients into the soil that the basil can use to grow, while the basil attracts pollinators to help the tomato plant grow.

However, if you’re new to symbiosis in the plant world, you may not know how to maintain this mutually beneficial relationship. We’ve included some top tips below.

Grow Mycorrhizal Fungi

If you’ve always struggled to provide your plants with the nutrients they need, such as phosphorus and nitrogen, consider growing mycorrhizal fungi. This fungi wraps itself around the roots of your plants and enhances nutrient uptake.

The plants release carbohydrates as sugar in return for the fungi’s help, which the fungi then consumes. Many different vegetable plants can benefit from this relationship, such as lettuces, carrots, cucumbers, and corn.

If you’re unsure where to get mycorrhizal fungi from, you’ll be pleased to know you can grow it yourself. Collect grassy species like oats, wheat, and maize and mix them with legumes like alfalfa, peas, beans, and lentils. If you don’t have grass species, you can use an allium like a leek or onion.

The combination will become a healthy foundation for mycorrhizal fungus, which can then multiply in your garden. Alternatively, many New Zealand plant nutrient businesses sell this fungus ready to use. 

Attract Wildlife

Many homeowners love attracting wildlife to their properties just so they can admire them. After all, who doesn’t love waking up to birdsong? However, attracting wildlife can be essential for maintaining plants in symbiosis.

Birds, bees, and even butterflies might allow your garden to thrive far more than you anticipated. Birds help eliminate grasshoppers, slugs, caterpillars, aphids, and much more. They are essentially a natural form of pesticide that save you from having to use toxic products that have the potential to harm wildlife and even your pets.

They are also reasonably easy to attract with birdbaths, feeders, and birdhouses in your trees. While you’re luring the birds in, you can also be welcoming bees and butterflies to assist your plants. Plants that require pollination make up 35% of the crop production volume worldwide, and bees and butterflies are excellent pollinators. Without them, we’d likely be headed for a global food shortage.

Ask the Experts

The more your plants can help themselves, the less you have to do, which can certainly be a motivating factor to make sure your garden promotes symbiosis. However, if you’re unsure how to begin, asking gardening experts for help could be in your best interests.

They can assist with helping you know which plants to buy and which ones work together to help each other. The sooner you get the process underway, the sooner you might experience the benefits.

Best Plants for Symbiosis

We detail some of the best plants for symbiosis here, but there’s no harm in running through a few of the most popular options, especially if you need help getting started.

Lavender

Not only is lavender a beautifully aromatic plant that can’t help but put a smile on your face, but it’s also a powerful symbiotic plant. If you have particularly vulnerable plants, consider planting them near lavender to keep the insects at bay. Essentially, lavender works as an insect barrier.

Rosemary

A sprig of rosemary on your roast dinner is the perfect garnish, but there’s more to rosemary than meets the eye. Anyone battling with flies, beetles, and cabbage moths might see its value for keeping them away from your carrots, cabbage, and sage.

You might also notice that it enhances the flavours of your other vegetables while giving your broccoli the best chance of growth. However, it’s important to note that rosemary and potatoes don’t grow well together.

Tomatoes

Tomatoes are a versatile fruit/vegetable that can be the star of the show in many dishes, which is perhaps why so many people plant them each year. However, they also have profound symbiosis benefits.

Carrots, celery, parsley, asparagus, basil, and onion all love being neighbours with these red delights. You may notice a difference in how healthy these vegetables grow when you choose to plant tomatoes next to them.

As challenging as it can be to find the time to tend to your plants and enjoy a well-maintained and healthy garden, you don’t have to do all the hard work yourself. Alongside hiring gardening experts to assist, you can also create a symbiotic garden that can work hard to take care of itself.

When you already have so much on your plate, those less important tasks like yard maintenance can fall by the wayside. You may know you want to keep a neat and tidy property, but you may not realise that there’s more to tasks like hedge and tree trimming than aesthetics alone.

While dropping pruning to the bottom of your to-do list may seem like an easy decision, there can be value in taking action sooner rather than later. Prioritising pruning allows you to take care of the following things. 

Removing Dead, Broken, or Damaged Branches

As much as we like to think that our greenery will thrive on its own, that’s not always the case. Wildlife and the elements can cause a great deal of damage, as can pests and even children as they explore their natural surroundings.

When you decide to take care of pruning, either by doing it yourself or hiring the experts, you can take care of those dead, broken, or damaged branches and create an overall safer and healthier tree or hedge.

Making Your Property Safer

Most people consider their homes as places of safety and comfort, but they may not always be as safe as you think. If you haven’t given your trees the care they need, any damaged, diseased, or broken branches can pose a safety risk to your loved ones.

Regular pruning helps you to identify any signs of disease or damage so that you can remove affected branches. If left alone, those branches might fall without warning and damage your property or, worse, harm your family.

Encouraging Healthy New Growth

If your tree or hedge is covered in dead, dying, damaged, or diseased branches and foliage, the environment is not all that attractive for new growth. Those branches and greenery that will no longer thrive are sucking up all the sunshine and nutrients, leaving nothing for any new growth waiting for its chance to shine.

By pruning back any undesirable or unhealthy growth, you’re giving the healthy hedge or tree growth underneath a chance to form and bring your tree back to life.

Welcoming Controlled Growth

Whenever you plant new trees, shrubs, or hedge plants, you generally think long and hard about their placement to limit their impact on surrounding structures in the years to come. Otherwise, they might cause chaos as they grow by blocking drains, damaging property in storms, impacting plumbing, and more.

However, even when you do plant new shrubs in an area you believe won’t impact other parts of your property, pruning gives you complete control in ensuring that’s the case. Essentially, regular pruning allows you to ‘train’ trees and hedges to grow in a particular way for their health and the safety of your property.

Enhancing the Aesthetics

While aesthetics might not be the primary reason pruning is so important, it certainly plays a part in why you’d consider it. A beautifully trimmed tree or hedge is far more pleasing to the eye than one that’s gnarled, unkempt, and growing out of control.

Just as you would spend time and effort pruning a small Buxus hedge to keep it looking tidy, do the same for your trees, shrubs, and larger hedges. You might be surprised at how the occasional haircut can enhance the overall appeal of your property.

Laying a Sound Foundation for Healthy Flora

It goes without saying that a tree or hedge that has been cared for since it was planted will be much healthier and stronger than one left to its own devices. If you want your plant life to grow up big, strong, and healthy so that you can avoid future problems, prioritise pruning from the very beginning.

Fortunately, it’s easy to do when hiring lawn and garden experts to help. They can provide trimming services on a schedule so that you can reap the rewards without putting in the effort yourself.

What Does Pruning Involve?

The pruning services you require can depend on the type of plant life you have and your goals for their care. You might hire someone to reduce their density, which involves removing limbs to allow more sunshine to reach the canopy.

Some homeowners focus on maintaining the health of their plant life, which can involve simple cuts to clear any unhealthy limbs and greenery. Size management is also a crucial consideration, and this service typically incorporates the reduction of a tree’s height or width to keep a clear distance around obstacles.

Prioritise Pruning Today

Pruning might not seem important, but you may now realise that it is. If you haven’t yet considered this service alongside gardening, lawn mowing, and general backyard care, now might be the right time to add it to your to-do list. You can then enjoy peace of mind knowing that your trees, shrubs, and hedges are beautifully trimmed, healthy, and in the best possible position to thrive.

Many of us have dreamed about buying a new property with a well-established tree in the yard one day. It’s where the kids can hang their tyre swing, the birds can chirp, and the family can get some much-needed shelter and shade from the sweltering sun during a break from backyard cricket. 

But, sometimes, you end up purchasing a property without a tree. So, what do you do? You plant your own – and here’s how to do it.

Step 1: Choose a Tree

Whether you’re looking for evergreen trees, native trees, or ones that grow quickly and provide ample protection, you’re probably going to start researching different varieties to see which ones will suit your property’s layout the best.

We recommend contacting tree care or lawn care expert or talking to a local nursery team to determine the best tree types based on your yard size and climate. There are plenty of beautiful varieties from which to choose, such as maple, crab apple, Pohutukawa, and Puriri.

Some trees are better suited to larger sections than others, with the likes of the Puriri in the North Island being capable of growing up to 20 metres tall.

Step 2: Get Ready to Plant

When you’re planting a large tree to be a feature in your backyard (or front yard!), it’s essential to take your time to plan. Think about possible obstructions and obstacles and the distance from your home to where the tree is.

Some trees have complicated root structures that can impact pipes, drains, and even concrete. If you’re unsure about where the best place to plant a tree is, consult tree care experts near you. They can help you choose the right spot to ensure that even when mature, your tree works with your home, rather than against it. 

Part of the ‘get ready to plant’ process also involves looking at the elements of the area you’ve chosen to plant. For example, does the get enough sun and shade? Is the area underneath where you’ll be planting free of cables, wires, and pipes?

Step 3: Start Planting!

After choosing a tree type that best suits your property type and preferences, it’s now time to plant. Now, unlike other plants you can throw in your garden without a second thought, trees require a bit more care.

Consider purchasing a plant tonic to help reduce the risk of your tree experiencing transplant shock. You then need to dig a hole at least twice as deep and wide as the tree’s root ball.

Start filling the hole with a peat moss-type product, with added nutrients such as gypsum and blood and bone. These are available from your local nursery and are known to assist with plant growth and root growth and ensure the tree gets enough nitrogen.

When you have the hole partly filled, take your tree from the container you purchased it in and loosen the root ball (gently!). You can then put it in the hole you’ve just dug with the root ball top at ground level.

If you find that it’s too high or too low, add or remove the peat moss until it’s flush with the earth. You can then fill the rest of the hole with a garden mix and top it off with a mulch and feed product for root protection and moisture retention.

Step 4: Give the Tree Support

A kind word to your tree won’t go astray, but we’re talking about giving your tree physical support. It’s likely still too young to look after itself.

Without damaging the roots, stake the tree into place so that it has something to anchor itself against in winds. Remember, the roots haven’t yet established themselves, so there’s nothing else to prevent it from falling over. 

Simply place three stakes evenly around the tree, making sure they are outside of the root ball and tie them to the tree with webbing or ties. If you live somewhere windy, like Wellington, use windbreak to give the tree some protection for the first few years of its life.

Step 5: Look After Your Tree

Trees may look completely self-sufficient, but they do need our help from time to time. Whether you have a new or old tree, don’t forget to fertilise them each spring and autumn with fertiliser. Mulch around the base may also be appropriate twice-yearly.

Start Planting Today

If you’re hoping for a tree to be fully grown for a tyre swing by the time your kids start bringing your grandkids to visit, now’s the time to start planting.

Do your research on trees you like, talk to experts, and nourish your tree as if its life depended on it (which quite often does). Before you know it, your new tree can be thriving and providing you with a wide range of benefits in the years to come.