Gardening Australia episode 23 2020: Sophie Thomson asks an expert rose pruner to share his techniques, Costa Georgiadis creates a worm hotel from a bathtub, Josh Byrne builds an edible water feature, and Jerry Coleby-Williams learns the A-Z of passionfruit.
Gardening Australia has always provided practical, trustworthy and credible gardening advice to inspire and entertain. Inspiring, entertaining and full of practical advice, join Costa Georgiadis and the team as they unearth gardening ideas, meet avid gardeners and look at some of the most inspiring gardens from across the country.
Gardening Australia episode 23 2020
Worms on the Verge
Costa re-purposes an old bath tub to make a palace fit for soil royalty: worms! A few years ago, Costa transformed the verge outside his house into a community garden. To do that, he wants to feed the plants up with the best possible fertiliser. Who better to help make fertiliser than worms?!
One of the council regulations for having a worm farm to use on the verge is that it has to be mobile, so Costa has selected an acrylic bath for his worm farm which will make it more portable. You can make a worm farm from many different containers, but the advantage of using a bath tub is that the base has a slope towards the drain so all the worm juice can run into a bucket below.
FAQs – Dead tree | Sterilising secatuers | Native hibiscus | Stopping slime in compost buckets
Gardening Australia presenters answer commonly asked gardening questions.
Water Plants
Josh shows how to build a containerised water garden that’s not only productive but is a habitat for frogs, fish and insects as well. Josh has had an outer frame made from a tube of rolled chequer plate steel to create an above-ground pool, around 90cm high and a metre across. After setting it in place, he fills the bottom with compacted sand, which will be the base for a solid pond liner.
First, though, he lines the interior with flexible poly-liner to help create a boggy area of soil in-between the pond and the outer frame. Once that’s in place, he installs the rigid liner in the centre of the frame, then fills the outer bog zone with soil.
He’s planting Canna edulis and Green Taro (Colocasia esculenta) into the bog area – both have edible roots and will also provide height and shade for the other plants. Next he adds a Samphire, which has edible shoots. Around the rest of the sides he plants several types of mint, including Chocolate Mint (Menthe x piperade), Basil Mint (Menthe x piperade) and Vietnamese Mint (Pericardia odorant syn. Polygonal odoratum).
Summer Colour
Jane plans ahead for summer cut flowers by helping to plant out a bed of perennials and annuals at Heronswood. The vegetable parterre, large established trees, long flower borders and nursery filled with seeds and seedlings are what this garden is renowned for. It the headquarters of the Diggers Club.
Horticulturist and plant manager Ryan O’Connor says that this is the perfect time to plant and plan for cut flowers. He suggests grouping colours together for maximum effect in the garden, and to avoid mixing pastels with hot colours. A cut flower needs to hold well in a vase, not easily wilting or drying out, and is especially useful if it’s scented and holds its pollen. To create your own cut flower bed, Ryan suggests spending some time getting the soil right; he has added compost and lime.
One-Bed Veg
Tino Carnevale is making the most of a small space at The Patch, in the Royal Tasmanian Botanical Gardens, demonstrating his 3D planting method that allows you to pack loads of summer produce into a single garden bed.
Principles of Pruning
Sophie gets some essential pruning advice from a young rose pruner.
Passionfruit Professional
Jerry visits a passionfruit expert to discover the ideal growing conditions for this ever-popular plant, starting from the ground up.
Egg-cellent Compost
Millie has a compost tip fresh out of the chicken coop.
Feed Your Food
Tino shows how to keep plants healthy and thriving by applying the right fertilisers at the right time.
Plant Profile – Algerian Iris
We profile the beautiful Algerian Iris.
My Garden Path – Hugh Main
We meet a landscape designer who’s created a shady, verdant retreat in the middle of bustling Bondi.