Landscape Designer Blog New Zealand

Most gardens in New Zealand have perennials hiding somewhere within the shadows or recesses of the landscape. Protecting and caring for perennials over the cold winter periods can be very successful with some simple easy to follow gardening advice below: - Bring indoors any tender culinary herbs you have within your garden that you may want to keep from frost burn, place the containers somewhere with good light, provide free drainage and water in-frequently over the winter season. - Cover any plants within your garden that are tender to frost with frost cloth, Citrus when young in particular. Some lower growing perennials such as begonia will survive a hard frost using straw as a frost cover. Cover with a layer 100 mm thick, if possible remove the straw during the sunlight hours. - A gentle hose or sprinkler cover of all plants in a heavy frost can break any ice, WATER BEFORE SUNRISE!!! This may help avoid plants from 'melting'. - Shade cloth or weed mat can substitute as a s...

In Flanders’ fields the poppies blow Between the crosses, row on row That mark our place, and in the sky The larks still bravely singing, fly Scarce heard amid the guns below. We are the dead, short days ago We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow. Loved, and were loved, and now we lie In Flanders’ fields. Take up our quarrel with the foe, To you from failing hands we throw The Torch: be yours to hold it high! If ye break faith with us who die We shall not sleep, though poppies grow In Flanders’ fields.

Landscaping in New Zealand and potentially worldwide may never be the same again! New Zealand gardens and landscapes may be greatly enhanced by promoting timely plant flowering. Palmerston North AgResearch team have been working on a project involving a plant spray that triggers plants into flowering like a switch. The plant spray starts or kick starts the plants normal flowering process but does not speed up the usual flowering periods of plants. The spray being developed will also be used to slow down or stop plants flowering at all. The benefits could be beneficial to both the cut flower market, fruit / vege industry, landscape design, landscapers and gardeners planting options. To read more on the subject please follow the link provided here .