Gardening Australia episode 33 2021: Costa Georgiadis looks at flowering natives; Tino Carnevale meet an expert tomato grower for all their tips; Jerry-Coleby Williams visits a family-friendly garden; Sophie Thomson plants a container garden for native bees.
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 33 2021
The Joy of Natives
Costa looks at some of the best spring flowering Australian plants for any garden. Through using such a variety of flowering plants, the gardeners here have managed to create a welcoming habitat for reptiles, birds, echidnas, frogs, bees, which make the whole experience extra stimulating and meaningful.
The bees and nectar feeding birds are really loving the Native Frangipani (Hymenosporum flavum) right now. It’s not actually related the common frangipani we all know and love, it’s got a much more typical tree habit, but the flowers are just as beautifully sweet smelling, which is where the common name comes from. It’s worth growing just for the spring scent alone! Whilst a great food and habitat tree, it’s also a great specimen for shade or privacy without compromising on flowers. Native to north-eastern forests it can grow up to 25m tall but also thrives in the southern states, out of frost and coastal winds, only getting to ~10m max which is much more suitable for smaller gardens!
Designed Into Life
Jerry visits a cleverly designed garden with space for the whole family. Jerry visits a florists garden, and learns how it was designed to accommodate a growing family and their needs.
Starting with a vacant lot in 2012, Emily Amadio was daunted by the task of creating a garden on her 150sqm site that backs onto a public park, and engaged the services of garden designer Clare James. “Emily had a good idea of what she wanted. We needed things in the garden to make it kid friendly. We wanted spaces to investigate for kids and for little kids to run around. We wanted a soft and natural feel as possible.”
Emily said she was “very specific about what I wanted and what I didn’t want. I gave Clare of what I definitely didn’t want-from seeing too much of them! …Our must haves were grevilleas and wattles, Australian natives is what we love.”
Buzz Pots – Gardening Australia episode 33 2021
Sophie Thomson plants some containers with species that attract native bees. Bees are one of the most important pollinating insects, and in Australia everyone knows the introduced European honeybee (Apis mellifera) but it’s the 1600+ known Australian native bee species that have important pollination relationships with our native plants, having evolved alongside our native flora. While you will find some native bees foraging on introduced species, many native bee species will not use introduced species at all.
The good news is that all native bees use native plants! Overall native bees are having a hard time due to habitat loss. We need to do what we can to make sure our native bees thrive. Gardeners have a role to play by providing nectar and pollen plants. No matter what size your garden is, there are plants that you can provide that suit native bees.
Top Tomato Tips
Tino catches up with a Tasmanian tomato hero to get all the tips for growing a bumper crop. From the top end to Tassie, Australians have an ongoing love affair with that most stunning Solanaceae – the tomato, a staple crop in most home gardens over the warmer months. But for every tomato seedling sown, there are just as many questions from gardeners about how to best grow these beauties. Luckily, Tino knows the perfect person to help gardeners get the most out of their tomatoes.
Margot White has been a horticulturalist at the RTBG for over forty years and has grown hundreds of varieties of heirloom tomatoes for the annual RTBG seedling sale. She is a guru when it comes to all-things tomatoes!
Try, Try Again – Gardening Australia episode 33 2021
After nearly a decade in his garden, Josh looks at some of the elements that haven’t worked and why, and what he has replanted.
Much of the solar passive house and garden work well, BUT the truth is with a garden, there is no such thing as perfection. So Josh is going to highlight some of the things that haven’t worked and what he has done about them. “Over the years I had replaced plants that were messy or high maintenance, changed areas of the garden as our needs changed, or just pulled things out that in the end, I didn’t like the look of!”