GardenWerx

29/11/2025

Hey gardeners,
Fertilising is an important factor in your garden’s health and appearance.

The fertiliser regime for native plants needs to be different to exotics and in the interest of easier management, it’s best if your garden design clumps natives together and exotics in separate clumps. Furthermore, ideally, each will coincide with separate station valves of the irrigation system, in line with the principle of ease in separate management. This is mandatory if your fertiliser application is by fertigation.

A critical consideration linked to fertilising is the pH of your soil. The pH reading reflects the level of free hydrogen ions in the soil. Application of fertiliser to growing media/soil which is either too acidic, or too alkaline will result in poor plant uptake, wasting money, and effort to get a poor outcome. Some plants enjoy a more acidic soil than the average 6.5 (by water) while some prefer a more alkaline soil. (Research cultural practices for individual plants).So, pH measurement is most important in the construction of a garden. Potting mix containing compost often has organic bits which have not been fully composted, such as wood shavings and sticks. Time will have these bits break down, but during that period there’s a tendency for the media to acidify and suffer from nitrogen drawdown.
Kits are available for measuring soil pH from hardware and nursery centres.
Graeme

29/10/2025

It’s spring!
Spring heralds an opportunity to propagate many plants, by seed,or, vegetatively.

Let’s consider a small dwelling, at ground level, and use seeds to create our garden. You are likely to have small strips for in-ground planting, perhaps next to paths, or even between a fence and a retaining wall. Furthermore, there’s likely to be areas next to exterior walls and in corners which can accommodate planted pots.

Having identified useable space, it’s now best to select plants which are suitable for the different areas. Compatibility will need to be considered taking account of mature plant size, availability of sunlight and shade, and particularly heat and light reflection (from fences and walls). So, annual and/or perrenial plants selected, seeds may be purchased from many sources, or, perhaps gained from a friend’s garden a year in advance (store seeds in a refrigerator).

Next step, install the required irrigation. Please don’t discard your project with this thought. Such systems are relatively cheap and avail you the opportunity to holiday away with no suggestion your home is unoccupied. We are able to help facilitate supply/installation of a micro targeting system if you wish. (contact on [email protected])

Next, obtain the pots needed. For best results, use pots of the same size for an area viewed “as one”. So, a corner alcove may have all 32cm pots, while a path may be bordered by 28cm pots. It’s best to avoid small pots because they have minimal heat and nutrient buffering capacity. Used pots are often given away by many high traffic retailers.
Tip- hose out used pots, then soak submerged overnight in the laundry sink with a disinfectant solution.

Pre-seeding preparation, for in ground planting is best done by excavating the area/strip to at least 23cm. Put this dirt aside, say, in a wheel barrow, or, just as a mound on a paved area.
Refill the excavated area with horse manure, compacting as you fill, then add a layer of the stored dirt to prevent fly breeding. The surface may be higher than the original area, but it will settle below after a season or two.

For pot filling, mix the remaining excavated dirt with horse manure or the cheapest bagged compost (about 3:1), adding Organic 2000/Rooster Booster in the top 10cm of each pot. These organic products provide initial nutrient needs without the application rate risk associated with chemical/salt fertilisers.

Place all pots and seed them according to supplier instructions. Similarly seed in ground areas. Use Google to learn planting depths of seeds gathered from friends.

Initial care is best with morning hand watering. All seeds need to imbibe water to germinate, so use a fine spray each morning to keep the seed depth damp. The sand component of your potting mix should ensure good drainage and a stabilising pot weight.

After germination, over dense planting may be evident. Wait until the appearance of real leaves, then thin out, perhaps planting the excess of plants into other pots. With plants now established, add irrigation emitters and program the controller. Run a program and physically check for correct operation.

There is one big difference between the in ground garden and the pot garden. Pot soil does not have the buffering capacity of in ground garden soil. Nutrients and moisture are not able to meld from surrounding soil, root heat may become problematic, especially if the sun shines directly onto a pot side, and w**ds left to mature will create serious competition.

If you are attentive and nurturing of the seeded garden, you will enjoy watching “from little things big things grow”.

11/07/2016

Following on from the June 24 post for water saving measures, this seventh edition aims to join week 1 with the June 24 post. If you've been a follower of these SAVE WATER posts, you'll also sense an alliance with the June 15 posting where the long term source of mulch in cities is challenged.

The wish here is to attain a sustainable mulch. Those akin to both environmental preservation and conservation are well tuned to the notion of sustainability. It so fits our responsibilities to take care of the planet.

How do we do it ??? With living mulch.

First, set the scene with a 300 - 400mm deep purchased mulch, then plant ground covers to take over the long term job. Depending on the local environment, the sustainable mulch may be a ground hugging Grevillea, Myoporum, Scavola, or, even Babies Tears.

The result is a reduced loss of moisture based on the 'crop factor' of the ground cover, measured as the fraction of transpiration over evaporation from the same area of bare ground.

Remember, this WATER SAVING is day in, day out, year in, year out.

24/06/2016

Another source to save water is by better matching horticultural aspects with garden space.

Take the landscaping of new developments. How often do you see rows of different plant types in a garden bed, planted to coordinate plant height differences and often to create colour and texture patterns. Each row usually has a an irrigation line with drippers or other emitters. If water saving were truly a paramount consideration, plant selection would be focused on selecting plants to either minimise the number of plants, use more water wise plants such as natives, or, both. Such an approach may require customer education, including nurturing customer patience for the time it takes for plants to mature and produce the result of the design. Currently, customers are paying for an excessive number of plants at 'start up', an excessive irrigation layout and eventually, the rationalisation of the garden plant population. Water has been used to establish more plants than was required and if they all thrive, many of them are later removed. If that rationalisation does not occur, the irrigation system continues to deliver water where it is clearly not needed. These designs inherently WASTE WATER, during garden establishment and ongoing.

To give an example, when I visited a government facility recently, I saw a lawned area surrounded by a garden bed about 4 metres wide. The garden bed had central gum trees planted at about 5 metres apart and 3 rows of plants between the central gum trees and the borders of the garden on either side. Seven polythene pipes with drippers snaked through the bed, each servicing a row of plants. Because the garden bed consisted of unimproved sand covered by the remnants of an organic mulch, the rows of plants reflected the inadequacy of drippers on sand. On reflection, the original landscape design could be branded inefficient and ineffective. Sadly, that has resulted in WATER WASTE. As a side note, the gum trees, while becoming established, appeared doomed to removal, assuming sufficient sunlight for a healthy lawned area was to be maintained.

To further demonstrate my point, imagine if the garden bed were planted using say, Grevillea 'Lemon Supreme' at say, 3 meter spacings, and perhaps ground cover plants, planted half way between each. That would require only one polythene irrigation pipe, ideally supplying understory emitters with a wetted area for each root zone. With patience, the results will be vastly superior, with the Grevilleas filling in the space between each other and the two garden borders, and the ground covers creating a living mulch. Not only will the cost of plants and the irrigation system be less, there will be no need to remove excess plants as part of a future rationalisation of the area.

The appropriate plant selection for a minimal number of plants, smart targeting of water and coverage of the area by foliage will result in efficient and effective use of water.

15/06/2016

Starting from May 14, I have posted a number of ways we can save water here in WA. The savings identified are real and for large quantities of water. This week, rather than focus on water saving in cities and towns, I would like to float an opportunity for the rural community to save water, fight increasing soil acidity, increase farming efficiency through greater retention of water and nutrients within crop root zones and encourage favourable soil fauna.

The carbon cycle operating in agriculture continues, as for the past couple of centuries, to deplete rural areas. Organic products, whether of animal or plant origins, flow from rural areas to towns and cities. In order for this process to persist, the rural landscape is cloaked in salts called fertilisers.

We continue to widen the gap between sustainability and current status by moving mulched organic material from -
* clearing for new road making,
* roadside pruning,
* shire road side collection,
* commercial forestry activity -
to sellers of landscape material in our cities and towns. Other situations find organic material being dumped in a designated tip area.

Imagine if our north/south aligned rail system were used to gather mulched organic material (from the deep south to Geraldton and including all Perth shires) and deliver it to a rail-side large scale compost farm. Wagerup would appear to be a sensible site.
After composting was complete, it could be sent using the same rail system, to agricultural fertiliser manufacturers for its inclusion with prilled fertiliser. Delivery to farmers could use the same rail infrastructure, including east/west lines, and perhaps with a trucking component in rural areas. Other waste organic products could be included and even soil ameliorates (e.g. lime) could be introduced for product differentiation.

I hear the cry of city folk complaining they would struggle to obtain mulch from their landscape supplier. I'm sure landscapers would offer alternative products, most of which would be longer lasting. e.g. pebble, mulched suitable synthetic waste or manufactured new product. Furthermore, there may be encouragement for householders to mulch and use their own pruning matter.

The subsequent change in the rural carbon cycle would be a huge step towards more sustainable agriculture and SAVE WATER which would currently be lost by permeating past root zones, leaching nutrients with it. It appears the longer this continued and the more compost which is incorporated in our farming soils, the more water would be saved.

In 1994 I did a study on the preparedness of farmers to accept such a concept. Results suggested they were on the cusp of being prepared to pay a little extra for 'organified'
prilled fertiliser. I suspect the notion would be more acceptable now and I would expect Governments, local, state and national, would be more receptive to support such a project, especially when the 'spin off' is aligned to carbon storage.

10/06/2016

Another week, another water saving issue.

This week can be related to my posting on May 27 (this site). How many times do you see garden areas of a domestic or office surround irrigation system with pop-up sprinklers mounted on 15mm extension risers, sometimes a meter high.

This has come about by those sprinklers being installed originally at ground level, with garden plantings being small in height and the sprinklers positioned as if they were to water a lawn. As the plants grow it becomes necessary to raise the height of sprinklers to avoid interruption of the sprinkler throw by growing plants. Not only does this look unsightly, but it means the water emitted on the area is required to cover the whole area - to a depth to accommodate the deepest rooted plant/s. This highlights the incompetence of the original irrigation system designer. They were probably simply designing according to what they had learnt from a previous supervisor who was also untrained in irrigation design (and so, inappropriate WATER WASTING designs are perpetuated).

The installed system encourages w**d growth and ALL WATER NOT WITHIN REACH OF PLANT ROOT ZONES IS WASTED.

As if to add insult to injury, the system installed was more expensive than it needed to be, will be more expensive to maintain, will be more susceptible to vandals and looks awful.
This excessive watering is ubiquitous across our cities and towns, so water waste is substantial.

I invite you to ask a question on either, how to avoid this with a new design, or, retro fitting to overcome the problem. We could also attend to it if you wished.

#100.1FMCurtinCommunityRadio

03/06/2016

Continuing from the previous two posts here on water saving matters................
with regard to your house garden irrigation obligations during summer, it appears you should only fear prosecution if you are watering on the wrong day. Policing on matters regarding excessive watering time would be a mine field for the authorities. This is because each irrigation system design has its own application rate, dependent on sprinkler type, nozzle size, spacing, operating pressure and the relative positioning of sprinklers. An officer keen to write out a 'ticket' for someone who has a watering time per station greater than, say, the nominal 10 minutes the Water Corp recommends, would be unable to do the job fairly. For example, a person using low output/high pressure sprinklers, would get less depth of watering for their 10 minutes than a neighbour using other sprinklers. I'm not the only one aware of this, so imagine those people adhering to the watering day and taking advantage of the authorities inability to police the amount used on those days. The result .......... excessive water use. At this point I suggest you review the second post in this series, which refers to facilitating policing by having the irrigation design at hand.

While on the subject of precipitation rates, it seems sensible to mention one of the most overt blatant promotions of water waste the authorities continue to ignore. Professional irrigation designers are aware of the term matched precipitation nozzles. It refers to sprinkler nozzles designed for less than full circle operation emitting water at a reduced rate, proportional to a full circle nozzle. These professional series sprinklers and nozzles are more expensive than the 'el-cheapo' types available at 'price point' retailers. So, those ignorant of the difference between 'cheap stuff' without matched precipitation nozzles and the professional series sprinklers, flock to the cheapest options - for new and replacement purposes. If a part circle sprinkler is emitting the same amount of water as a full circle sprinkler, water waste is inevitable as its higher precipitation rate soaks past the root zone while waiting for the lower precipitation rate areas to receive sufficient. In a country striving to get maximum effects from its water use, sprinklers fitted with generic nozzles not designed for matched precipitation rates should be banned.

ps Apparently a 'brain storming/snowballing' session was had by water authorities yesterday. Anyone know what it took to get an invitation?

#100.1FMCurtinCommunityRadio

29/05/2016

Posts here on May 14 and 27 have highlighted ways to save water in Perth. Both are linked to waste of water every time an irrigation system starts. That's the key to just how much water is being wasted. BUT THERE'S MORE. A new post next week will continue the waste story, and expose truths the authorities apparently don't want you to know. Stay tuned.

#100.1FMCurtinCommunityRadio

27/05/2016

Another way we can save water here in WA !!!
There are numerous installers of domestic irrigation systems. Specialist irrigation companies, landscapers, landscaper's employees doing weekend jobs, friends who 'did' their own and volunteer to help another, those trying to overcome unemployment and the DIY's.
To design an effective and efficient irrigation system, one must be trained. Poorly designed systems result in dry spots, inefficiency and WASTE OF WATER. We have regulations for lots of things considered essential............is our water not considered essential??? Currently, every time a controller linked to a poorly designed irrigation system starts, there is water waste - and as time goes by, we are perpetuating water waste on an exponential scale.

Every system should be designed by trained designers with a laminated copy of the design either held in an archive or locked within, say, an electricity meter box at the relevant house, or both. This copy would form the foundations for policing water use and accountability for the system design installed at the premises.

19/05/2016

If you bought native plants last weekend at Kings Park, you may be interested in advice on pruning natives. Check out:
http://www.abc.net.au/gardening/stories/s4426320.htm

Jane shows us how to prune a range of native plants

16/05/2016

Quite a different approach to irrigation!

14/05/2016

There are many ways we can save large quantities of water here in Perth - and in our regional towns. Let me start the ball rolling by flagging one, with the hope others add their posts. Water use is so important, so even if your suggestion needs government regulation, please post it !!!

Preamble :
Imagine you ordered an automatic hatch back motor vehicle and a manual van was delivered. Would you accept the vehicle supplied?
If you go to a landscape materials supplier or hardware and order 2 cubic metres of mulch and get a mixture of mulch and compost, would you accept it? It would seem obvious that both questions should attract a negative answer. Nevertheless, most provide a positive to the second question by paying and carting the compromise product away.

Compost is totally decayed organic matter with the original substrate unidentifiable. Each particle is small and light, easily blown away by wind. Assets of compost require it to be integrated with the soil to facilitate nutrient and water retention in the plant/s root zone, enhance soil structure and eventually, provide nutrients.
IT GOES UNDERGROUND.
Why do we promote water waste by having compost on the surface as a mulch component? This is what happens..............
1. your irrigation system comes on early morning (for 10 minutes we're told),
2. above soil compost, in keeping with its hydroscopic characteristic, consumes and holds the water, preventing it getting to the root zone.
3. The sun comes up, and guess what, it heats the surface compost with water, transferring the water to the atmosphere, ready for the next cycle.

I suggest consumer protection authorities 'get on their bikes' and start checking that advertised products are accurate.
Mulch is coarse, allowing water to easily reach the soil. Its function is to minimise water loss from the root zone, buffer extremes of soil temperature and suppress w**d growth. It can be organic, pebbles/rock, or other, providing it performs per above.

Let's have your comments.