Additional services for those in self isolation

We would like to make our customers aware of a few changes to the way we are operating as the coronavirus situation continues to evolve.

Opening hours

We currently have no plans to change our opening hours, which are 9am to 5pm, 7 days a week. 

Kerbside pickup

To cater for people who are practicing social distancing, we are offering a kerbside pick up service. Simply give us a call, we'll take the payment over the phone, prepare your order and bring it out to your car. You can call us on 9822 3305, or 0414 753 883 between 9am and 5pm.

Delivery

Yes, we can deliver your items. To assist our local community, we are reducing our delivery fee to a flat rate of $10. We can also deliver outside the local area, just call us and we will do a quote.

Growing edibles?

We have seen a surge in demand for edibles recently as people think about growing their own food. We are continuing to get regular stock of edibles from our suppliers.

If you would like to know what to plant in autumn, see our fact sheet.

Take care of yourselves

Research has proven that gardening is so good for our mental and physical health, and given the likelihood that we are all going to spend the next few months in our own homes, the ability to garden will be an important part of your wellbeing toolkit.

Supporting our community

We are here for you. Our nursery is a beautiful open air space, you are welcome to come and wander around the plants and get away from it all for a while in a peaceful and tranquil setting.

Please stay safe and well everyone and let's get through this together with a sense of community spirit.

Helping your garden survive summer

You may have noticed the government running ads promoting the Target 155L water saving campaign. While we are not officially in water restriction stages, it's an indication that may be where things are heading, and if it does the first thing to suffer is our gardens. 

Some gardens fare better than others in the heat, and this all comes down to plant choice, along with some  key gardening practices. 

Choose plants that have lower water requirements

• In general, Australian natives are a good choice as they are used to much less rainfall than exotic plants. Lilly pilly, kangaroo paws, crowea, correa, coastal rosemary, native grasses, eremophila and native daisies not only fit in beautifully with other species, they provide a valuable food sources for native birds and beneficial insects.

• Plants with grey tones.  It is safe to say that if a plant is grey and furry it's fairly certain it has evolved to live in dry conditions. Plants like lavenders, euphorbias, convolvulus, helichrysum and lambs ears have grey leaves that reflect light away from them, helping them withstand the hot summer sun a lot better than others.

• Plants with leathery leaves are another indication of toughness! Magnolia Little Gem, Bay Laurel, Rhapiolepis indica are just a few examples. Just take a drive along the coast and you’ll see them growing happily.

• Plants that thrive in Mediterranean climates also grow well here in Melbourne, so if you have just been to Greece and feel inspired then you are in luck! Think of the herbs used in Mediterranean cooking - rosemary, sage, oregano, thyme.  Not to mention olives!  All of these thrive in hot weather and don't need much water. 

• Succulents seem to be finding their niche as our climate changes. They thrive in coastal gardens and are happy with very low watering so these plants will continue to grow in popularity as more of us discover their true value in the garden.

Supporting your plants through summer

There are a number of things you can do to give your plants a better chance of making it through summer.

• If you only do one thing, then let it be mulch!  A good layer of mulch helps insulate the plant roots from the worst extremes of the weather, and also helps the soil retain water so it doesn't dry out as fast.

• Watering in the morning or evening directly on the soil rather than the foliage is a more efficient use of water as it's going straight to where the plant needs it. There's also less risk of evaporation. If you have a drip irrigation system, do periodic checks to make sure the nozzles are not blocked.

• There is evidence that using Seasol on your plants can increase their resilience to summer heat, and helps keep your plants healthier, so a regular application can be a big boost for your garden.

• If you have plants with burnt foliage, don't be tempted to cut it back right now.  This will only encourage the plant to put on tender new leaves which will be exposed to the hottest summer sun and will likely burn them as well.  Wait until the milder days of autumn before cleaning up any damaged leaves.

• Dust storms can make the garden look a real mess! While the dust can actually benefit the plants with the addition of micronutrients and minerals such as iron, it can impact on the plant’s ability to photosynthesise. Washing excess dust off the leaves will help.

Life is too busy for us to spend too much time nurturing plants that aren’t really suited to Melbourne’s weather. Replacing stressed out and struggling plants with hardier ones will make your life easier in the long run, and will be so much more rewarding!

Her'e’s a pick of a few of our favourite drought tolerant plants.

Introducing a new range of ceramics

Transforming clay into something beautiful is something local ceramic artist Shireen from State of Permanence knows how to do. Making her range of pottery items from her studio in Bentleigh, Shireen is meticulous with her finishes and every piece she makes is unique.

This stunning range is now available for purchase here in the nursery, and would make the perfect Christmas gift for someone who appreciates the handmade nature and craftsmanship that Shireen's work evokes. Perfectly complementing homes with a coastal theme, and natural textures of stone, wood and linen, these pieces tell a story of sophisticated simplicity.

What to do in the garden in spring

Spring is the moment we gardeners have been looking forward to all winter.  Most of us are desperate to whip out our tools and get outside.  There’s plenty to do!

Now is a great time to focus on soil health. If you do nothing else in spring, do this! You can read our article on soil makeovers here.

For lush green lawns, apply a slow release lawn fertiliser.

It's also a good time to top up your mulch and check your irrigation systems are working.

If you are planning on growing tomatoes, get the beds ready for planting around the end of September. Planting before that is risky due to night time temperatures. Get seeds started now, either on a sunny windowsill inside or outside with some protective covering.

Insects are making a return to the garden, so check for early signs of attack.  Planting flowers to attract beneficial insects is one way to keep insect populations under control and may reduce the need to use chemicals. 

White butterfly decoys can trick cabbage moths into going somewhere else and insect hotels can encourage more beneficial insects to make your garden their home. An effective organic treatment for cabbage moths is the product Dipel, which kills the caterpillars but does not affect beneficial insects.

Aphids are another insect that many people find in their garden. These can be dealt with using an oil such as Eco Oil, Pyrethrum spray, or just hosing them off with a strong jet of water.

Spring planting

Veggies: beans, beetroot, carrots, eggplants, peas, leeks, lettuces, onions, spring onions, spinach, tomatoes.

Fruit: blueberries, mulberries, raspberries, passionfruit and strawberries.

Flowers: alyssum, cornflowers, cosmos, echinacea, eridgeron, geraniums, jasmine, lavender, lobelia, petunias, marigolds, nasturtiums, roses, sunflowers (and more!)

Herbs: basil (later in spring), chives, dill, marjoram, mint, oregano, parsley, rosemary, sage, thyme.

This is not an exhaustive list by any means, in spring the planting options are endless! 

If you would like to set up a vegetable garden, we’ve created a guide on where to start.

Edible Gardening Guide

It's spring and the bees are back!

It’s finally spring and we can just feel the buzz in the air - metaphorically as well as literally!

If you take a quiet walk through the nursery and stop to listen, you can hear the buzz of the bees. They’re back. While we have had the odd forager during the winter months, most of the bees have been staying inside, feeding on their honey reserves until the warm weather returns. These last few weeks, they’ve discovered the flowers of the hellebores, and more recently, they’ve returned to the lavender.

Bees are wonderful creatures - non aggressive little guys with an amazing work ethic. We co-exist with them quite peacefully here where they forage amongst the flowers while we deadhead, prune and fertilise. It’s quite unusual to be stung, and Noel even likes to pat them (although we do not recommend doing this yourself)!

Many people are scared of bees, but we love them and our gardens are so much healthier and more abundant with a thriving bee population. If you are growing veggies in your backyard, bees will most likely be your primary pollinators, so they are essential for a good harvest. On a global scale, it is recognised that bees pollinate around 80% of our food, so these little guys are literally making food to feed the whole world! That’s a pretty important job they have.

Bees are vulnerable and need to be protected

Bees are facing a number of threats to their existence. Pesticide use, honey bee colony collapse, increased use of pesticides, and diseases spread by other insects such as varroa mite, means it’s important we all do our bit in our backyards to try and protect bees.

How can you help?

Limit the amount of pesticides you use. Chemicals can’t differentiate between a good bug and a bad bug. Many beneficial insects also die when we spray to control common pests like aphids, caterpillars, thrips etc.

If possible, try to manage insect outbreaks naturally, or choose the pesticides with lower toxicity levels. Some chemicals are so toxic to bees that they can wipe out a whole hive if an exposed bee takes it back to the colony.

Put a bee bath in your garden. We have bird baths in the nursery filled with ornamental fish. The bees love it! They land on the fish and take a drink. You could try this at home. It doesn’t have to be a bird bath, it could be a bowl of water with some pebbles in the bottom, or a rock placed in the middle. They just need something they can land on.

Plant bee attracting flowers. Bees love lavender, catmint, echinacea, hellebores, the flowers of herbs such as oregano, thyme, chives and mint. In the nursery, our bees are very fond of foraging in the salvias and foxgloves. Echium candicans, sunflowers and Sedum Autumn Joy make bees go crazy!

Scientists say that the easiest colours for bees to see are purple, violet and blue, followed by yellow and orange. Try to plan your garden so you have something in these colours flowering for the bees each season.

Planting a bee friendly garden isn’t just good for the bees either. With a variety of flowers blooming and bees happily foraging, your garden will feel alive all year round. And surely that is good for the human inhabitants too!

Let’s talk about dirt!

Give your soil some TLC

It’s spring!  We all get so excited when the sun comes out and buds seem to appear overnight on our favourite plants.   Sometimes it actually feels like you could sit and watch the grass grow!  All this energy that the plants put into growing has to come from somewhere. 

It comes from the soil.  A plant could be in the best position in perfect light, with ready access to water.  But all the TLC in the world won’t help if you don’t look after its lifeline.  So now is the time to give it a transfusion.

 Improving your soil

Spring is a great time to focus on improving the soil conditions in the garden.  Plants will put on the majority of their growth in spring, so feeding in September will help get the most out of this active season.

We could talk about soil all day (yes, really!) but we won’t bore you with all the dirty details (unless you ask us)!  What we can do though is give you some basic tips that you can use to get your garden soil ready for an amazing spring.

Understand what type of soil you have

Knowing your soil type will help you figure out how to improve it.  If your soil is sandy, you will have great drainage but the soil is likely to be very low in nutrients.  At the other end of the spectrum is clay.  If you have clay soil, you are lucky in one way as clay is very high in nutrient. But it drains very slowly and can be hard for plants to access the nutrients (you may have sodic soil).

One way to quickly check the soil type is to grab a handful of wet soil and squeeze it together. Can you mould it into a ball and it stays in shape?  Then you are looking at clay.  Does it run through your fingers as you try and squeeze it, not sticking together at all?  Then you have sand.  If you have something that partially sticks together then you likely have a loam soil.

Sandy soils

Sand dries out very quickly, and you may need to re-wet the soil with a wetting agent. Check what happens when you add water.  Push the top layer away and check if it is still dry underneath.  If it is, it’s likely your soil in hydrophobic.  A product like Saturaid or Rapid Soak will help the soil particles absorb water. Add a decent layer of mulch to retain the moisture in the soil and this also helps moderate soil temperatures.

The other challenge with sand is that it’s very low nutrient content. Adding composts and manures puts additional organic matter into the soil and enlivens a sandy soil.  You need to add for good amount for the best effect, ideally dig it through the top 30cm of soil.  If it’s not possible to dig it right through without upsetting your plant roots, it will still be beneficial to apply it to the top layer of your soil.

Additional fertilisers are needed to supplement any nutrients the plant has used up in the previous season.  Fertilisers like a pelletised poultry manure, cow manure, blood and bone, or slow release fertilisers will also help boost the nutrient level.  Regular applications of liquid fertilisers like Powerfeed and Seasol can also be helpful.

Clay soil

Full of nutrient, clay is great, but like sand it comes with difficulties.  Clay can become sodic, and may have a pH that is more alkaline, making it hard for plants to access the nutrients.

Clay soil can be improved with the application of gypsum, which helps to break down the amount of sodium chloride in sodic soils.  Don’t worry about gypsum effecting your soil pH, it is pH neutral.

Because clay soil particles are so fine, they can cause problems with drainage and become waterlogged.  Clay can be improved by adding organic matter such as compost or manure, which can encourage worms into the area.  The worms help to aerate the soil.  This should be done every year in spring, and over time your clay soil will break down and become easier to work with.

Loam soil

Lucky you!  You are the envy of all gardeners – this is the ideal soil mix.  Loam is generally rich in organic matter, but can still be improved with the addition of compost and manures, and will still benefit from the application of mulch.

Plant to your soil conditions

At the end of the day, you need to work with the soil you have.  It’s no good trying to grow plants with a high nutrient requirement in sandy, dry soil; or Australian natives in waterlogged clay (although there are always some exceptions to these rules).

Work with nature, not against it and choose plants that will thrive in your soil.  This way you will be setting yourself up for garden success, rather than disappointment.