GardeningLandscaping

Gardening is a wonderful past time, it expands the mind, is healthy, and you can see the rewards grow before your eyes.

I have been an avid gardener ever since I was a young lad growing up in the UK. My Grandparents kept an allotment where they grew vegetables. It was a common thing, to help save the cost of buying them, and also they always tasted much better than the bought ones.

After watching my grandparents and then my parents develop beautiful flower gardens and lawns that were immaculate, I soon became appreciative of a luscious healthy garden where I could kick the soccer ball around, or play cricket, and try to avoid hitting the rose bushes, or the glass house.

I remember watching my parents face as I hit a cover drive through the head of roses in the middle of the lawn and saw the petals explode across the grass. This always brought the game of cricket to an abrupt end.

So now I have my own house and garden in Australia, which I attempt to nurture and grow my vegetables, only to find my daughter has pulled out all of the canes and plucked my carrots out thinking they were weeds and that she was doing a great job for her Daddy.

Living in Australia has its own set of challenges when gardening, the heat and soils are extreme, with long hot summers and sandy soil with little nutrition. This requires much more input and hand watering, as well as maintaining irrigation and sprinkler systems.

Choosing plants for your environment is imperative, and choosing a fertilizer that can provide the right amount and types of nutrients can make or break your garden.

Make sure you do your research so you don’t have to learn by your mistakes, which is what I did.