The Gardener - May 2022

In this issue

If you have ever wondered by some leaves are variegated or what an Afro Zen garden looks like, or how to modernise your plant borders this issue of for you. There is also indigenous white flowering shrubs and fynbos, a beautiful garden to explore and plenty of practical info to do in the garden this month.

A Sunsational Garden

When life gives you lemons, make lemonade!

3 mins

Afro Zen

Fusing the mediative Zen school with the vibrant pulse of Africa.

1 min

6 Flowering Low Hedges

Low hedges, where a number of the same plants are used repeatedly in a row to form a pattern or barrier are strong design elements, but do they have to be the traditional and formally clipped green box or golden duranta hedges? The answer is no!

5 mins

A New Style of Border

Over the years, the very ornamental herbaceous border drifted away from the functional cottage-garden-style borders, where edibles like fruit, herbs and vegetables were mixed with garden flowers in no particular order. It became instead a symbol of prestige in English country gardens, and was designed and planted up by master gardeners flaunting their ultimate gardening skill in creating masterpieces of shapes, colours and textures on a large scale.

7 mins

Variegation Explained

Any plant lovers who have spent time on the internet recently will have come across swathes of variegated plants on their social media feeds. Whether it’s the incredibly popular variegated Monstera, the collectable cultivars of the Epipremnum aureum species, or even outdoor ornamental foliage plants, variegation is taking centre stage this year.

2 mins

Growing fynbos at Madibri

Many gardeners are apprehensive about growing fynbos outside of its natural habitat, believing it to be difficult and too much effort. Nico Thuynsma has proven otherwise, spending the last 25 years illustrating just how easy it is to grow these wonderful plants both in South Africa and around the world.

3 mins

Cups of Gold Stoic and Tenacious!

If you can get your hands on some seed packets of the California poppy and show the picture of the golden, cup-shaped flowers on them to a kid, chances are great that the answer would be a positive ‘yes!’, and in two ticks you will have happy and excited company in the garden to help you to sow the seed.

3 mins

Pure and Simple Apple Cider

An apple tree in a garden is one of the delights of growing your own food. There may come a time, though, when there are too many apples for one family and the neighbours to eat, and they need to be preserved to use through winter. By the end of May, all the apples on a tree should be harvested before the colder weather comes along.

3 mins

‘Setsugekka' is smart!

Amongst the many Camellia sasanqua hybrids, the extremely gracious ‘Setsugekka’ is just itching to flower spectacularly for you...

1 min

Get More Kalanchoes

Many (or most) succulents can be swiftly propagated via stem cuttings, including all the prettiest kalanchoes, so in just a few steps you can have a lot of new plants for free. Regularly taking cuttings is also a form of pruning that curbs the natural etiolated growth they tend to produce after a few growth seasons.

2 mins

Wire techniques

Styling bonsai using wire is a fairly modern technique that was developed in Japan at some point during the 1800s. As with most bonsai techniques, the basic principle is fairly simple but the execution can at times be quite challenging.

3 mins

5 Reasons Why We Need to Harvest Rainwater

People often choose to harvest rainwater for economic and environmental reasons, but there are other reasons too. Here are some of the benefits of rainwater harvesting:

3 mins

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The Gardener Magazine Description:

Inspirational, practical, informative South African magazine on all areas of gardening including plants, gardens, garden tasks and creative DIY projects we also promote people new ideas about gardening through publsihing in our magazine, we also publish in other language.