Highcroft Garden, Harrogate

Highcroft Garden is a 2 acre garden at Harrogate in South Australia. Maureen & Chris Highet’s beautiful property, which also farms Red Angus cattle, captures the wonderful views across the ranges. After retiring 12 years ago, Maureen was disappointed when she realised she had absolutely nothing to do. At the time, Maureen had no interest whatsoever in gardening other than maintaining the lawns and shrubs. “I found myself wandering out into the front garden and doing a bit of pottering around, and you know what, I enjoyed it!” enthused Maureen. “It didn’t take long before I fell completely in love with gardening.

Rothamannia globosa

We were thrilled to receive these beautiful photos from Toni Briscoe, one of our regulars at Bunnings Garden Club talks. “I’m missing my contact and friendship with the Bunnings Team Members and garden club members very much” said Toni.

“What I am enjoying though, is the opportunity to read the beautiful posts that Neutrog are putting on their Facebook page. I thought I’d send through some photos of one of my favourite plants in the garden. This plant has many names – Gardenia globosa, tree gardenia and Rothmannia globosa.

Plant Hormones

This week, Neutrog’s Microbiologist and R&D Manager, Dr. Uwe Stroeher delves into the science of plant hormones.

Just like animals, plants are dependent on a set of hormones to regulate how they grow. How does a plant know where to grow roots? Why do plants grow at the tips and where along a shoot do leaves come out? All of these processes are regulated by hormones.

Plants growth is essentially regulated by five major hormones that the plants themselves produce, but surprisingly, three are also produced by microbes. Even the way fruit ripens is controlled by a hormone known as ethylene, which is the only know gaseous hormone.

July in the Rose Garden – Cultural Notes

The coldest month is also the busiest in our gardens as the old is swept away and we prepare for the coming bounty that our roses will soon offer. With frosts as heavy as I have seen in our area, temperatures dropped to minus 2.7 and as a consequence the roses have largely defoliated.

Naked plants makes visualising the location of each pruning cut easier, it makes disposal of the prunings easier; it however adds to the burden of cleaning the beds of fallen leaves much more onerous.

Gardening in Karratha, WA

Bel and David Quinn live in Karratha, Western Australia. Karratha is situated high on the WA coast and has a semi-arid climate – not quite reaching the classification of desert. Temperatures are warm to hot year-round, with winter minimums being in the high 20’s and summer maximums reaching the high 40’s. Rainfall is also low, which means a tough climate for growing, but not tough enough to beat Bel and David.

Winter Organics

Spring and autumn have been the traditional times when gardeners feed their gardens. At Neutrog, we believe that it’s because we can see a reaction in the garden – plants are actively growing, flowering and fruiting. As they say, ‘spring is in the air’. We recognise that they need nutrition to bring out the best that our plants have to offer.
If that is an accurate assessment, then the opposite is true for winter and to a lesser extent summer, as many gardeners don’t apply fertilisers during these periods. We tend to think of these times more in the way of maintenance, but in actual fact, applying nutrition to your soil and garden is as important – if not more so – during winter and summer.

Positive results on Phytophthora and orange trees

We were recently approached by a grower who advised that they suspected they had Phytophthora in their orange & lemon orchard. As most farmers would know, Phytophthora is a fungal disease which is soil and water borne. It causes root and collar rot, which means a slow death to infected trees.

Garden project in Rutherglen

Joy & Ray Nolan made the tree change from Hoppers Crossing in Melbourne to Rutherglen 6 years ago. Joy & Ray had had many wonderful family holidays along the Murray and when it became time to consider making the move, Rutherglen was on their list. What a great decision it has been for them too. Nothing is too far away and they’re living in a vibrant country town.

Joy describes their home as being on a “battle-axe” of a 1 ¼ acre block. Built in 1994, some of the original owner’s garden plantings were evident, although the overall impression was of a neglected garden. However, they could see the potential for an impressive display. There were 12 very neglected roses in the driveway roundabout with the plan being to save them. The removal van put paid to that and squashed five of them! Today though, there are 18 roses in the roundabout.

Seymour Racing Club

Horses, racing and a day out – if you love going to the races, some of the most enjoyable days are at a country race meet. The Seymour Racing Club has long been synonymous with country racing in Victoria, however in 2016, Seymour become a premier racing destination with a $5.2 million racecourse upgrade, thanks to the Victorian Government, Racing Victoria and the club itself.

Indoor plants

Planting themes, garden design and fashionable plants come and go in cycles, just like the history of architecture, cars and most things that we as humans, connect with. To say that there has been a resurgence of indoor plants over the last couple of years is something of an understatement.
Back in the mid 1980s was the last huge indoor plant craze. Retailers could not keep enough of them on the nursery shelves, and a constant stream of fishbone ferns, maidenhair ferns, devils ivy, piggy back plants and dracaena’s – to name just a few – were flying out the door. Many of us would recall the bronze-look totem poles with arms from which we had bronze pots with plants spilling from them. No self-respecting bathroom would be seen without one. Then, fashion changed and we moved away from indoor plants.