Spring Love
Pete Goodlet shares his tips to ensure you are giving your garden some love this spring.
What a joy it is to feel the warm rays of spring sunshine on our shoulders. After what can only be described as a soggy summer we have been treated to the joys of a chilly winter. Cosying by the wood fire can have a certain charm, but the novelty has well and truly worn off!
It is time for the joy spring to come shining into our lives. Let’s throw off the last of the winter glooms and open our senses to sunshine, flowers, and sweet scents upon a warm spring breeze.
Let the blue skies of Noosa make us smile. In our gardens the sunshine warms the soil and with a clever bit of photosynthesis our gardens burst forth with abundant, subtropical splendour.
There is certainly an abundance of water in our garden beds, but all that rain will have well and truly depleted the essential nutrients and minerals needed to promote good strong growth.
A well-balanced organic fertiliser will get things on their way but remember a little, often, is the better way to fertilise. This way you avoid rapid soft growth that is prone to insect attack and having excess fertiliser wash away and contaminate our waterways.
Liquid foliage feeds are a great way to boost plants without overloading the soil. Build up your soil microbes and organic material with a good layer of compost and mulch. Strong healthy soil will lead to strong healthy plants.
Let that sunshine hit our windows and garden beds too. Spring is a great time to assess the growth of your trees and large shrubs. Get pruning, keep your privacy and structure, but allow light and views through. Dappled light tantalises us and stimulates our minds… to wander down the dappled glade to the babbling brook… or the babbling garden writer. Spring brings out the poet in us all.
Speaking of babbling brooks, get some water in your garden. Even a large bowl with a burbler and a couple of goldfish can add another dimension. Complement this with exotic water plants and you can create another universe to explore – as well as protection for your finned friends from feathered foes. Feeding your fish as they pop to the surface, greeting you with their big round smiles brings a smile to your face and smiling is so good for you. I’m smiling as I write this.
Colour! Splash it round with gay abandon. Just like popping on a bright Hawaiian shirt can put you in the mood for a tikki bar and a cocktail – well to be honest pretty much anything can – so too colour in the garden lifts your mood and heightens your spirits and I’m not talking tequila here. For foliage colour it is hard to go past the glorious pinks and burgundies of cordylines.
Sunlight through the architecturally beautiful Dracaena Marginata Tricolor is magic to behold and provides some equally striking shadows. ‘Flamboyant’ best describes the flowers of the subtropical garden. The dancing hibiscus with its twirling skirts and outrageous glimpses of inner beauties. Heliconia’s with their pendulous flowers flaunting an almost scandalous array of hot reds, oranges, and pinks.
Colour is not all that flowers can bring to the garden as scented plants can work a magic of their own. The sweet scent of a daphne will always remind me of my mum. For as much as she loved gardenias her absolute favourite was the daphne by our front door.
I’m reminded of a family ritual of an early evening walk around the block, with mother leading, several kids in tow and Gretel the duck waddling behind. Mum with her keen sense of smell adored the waft of a neighbours daphne. As the last of the days heat drew out the delightful scent and cast it our way, mum would take a deep sniff, smile, and wander on. Scents add a touch of wonder to your garden. Seek out your favourites and plant them where you can most appreciate them.
Art in the garden inspires us. It can spark both thought and conversation. Don’t play it too safe. Choose something original that appeals to you or if inspiration strikes, whip up something yourself. It’s amazing what you can achieve with some sticks, copper wire and found objects. Surely our imagination is a sense we can nurture.
Stuart and his team at Earth Creation Landscapes are bursting with imagination and create beautiful gardens to light up all your senses. They are also experts at whipping your garden into shape.
Bring on the joy of spring. Heighten your senses and raise your spirits… this time I may well mean tequila… get out there; get some sun on your face and give your garden some love.
