Waterwise

As winter wanes and our thoughts turn to spring and puddles of warming golden sunshine, a coastal garden pulls on its itsy bitsy teeny weenie orange-pink-yellow polka dot bikini! Against a lapis lazuli sky, the colours are clear and oh so cheerful!

Hot and sunny wall gardens are notoriously difficult to plant up successfully. So, what plants will survive these conditions?

The client’s brief to landscaper Jenny Dean was simple: change a tiny corner of their tiny Hillcrest estate garden to resemble a snapshot of their Namibian break  – red-tinged boulders to resemble a rock wall, gravel to echo stony ground, and a smattering of succulents and grasses in between.

Do you have a slope or bank ready to be dressed more creatively than the default retaining wall blocks or mown lawn? An eye-catching cocktail dress rather than a comfortable pair of jeans; a brightly coloured pashmina to replace a worn monotone windbreaker? Aside from adding a beautiful feature, this style detail/ element increases the sustainability of the garden too, for it saves on lawnmower fuel, provides level planting pockets for better water penetration, and provides h

Thriving verge designs translate well into resilient home gardens. Easy-care, low-maintenance and water-wise characterise the loose-limbed Plumbago auriculata; add sky-blue flowers for much of the year, and there is little to beat this well-loved shrub.

Thriving verge designs translate well into resilient home gardens. Successfully planted verges, for example, offer up a list of resilient species for our gardens as roadside plants battle challenging conditions to survive

How can we respond to changing weather patterns in the way we manage our gardens? We can respond by creating resilient landscapes and gardens that can adapt to changing weather patterns and bounce back after extreme events.

Many perennials and bulbs ‘cover’ the ground effectively and are often included in this plant category, but, for this article, we focus...

Spring is the optimal time to establish plants in the summer rainfall regions; we’re a month in, so let’s get cracking.   We’ll begin...

‘A game lodge feel’ was the spec given to Durban landscaper Miles Steenhuisen; a space in which suburbia disappears. No view of road nor...

“People will stare. Make it worth their while”, proclaimed award-winning marketing expert, Sally Hogshead, to advertise a famous...

By Anno Torr It is now Aloe Season, and visitors to this garden are hard pressed to choose between gazing ahead at the stunning gorge...

An impressive collection of aloes infuses this winter garden with colours of the sun By Anno Torr Along a quiet residential road in the...

By Anno Torr There are times when looking through books or wandering around the garden, you hit upon a combination that excites you...

By Jenny Dean A large part of my work is creating gardens within secure gated estates.  Residents are only allowed to plant indigenous...

So, what's new regarding mulch? It helps us save on water, fertilisers, and harmful poisons!  I’ve got mulch on my mind! Daytime...

Water wise species - and most gardeners interpret this label to mean plants that survive on little water - are currently the go-to plants...

Mention the word succulent, and many people envision a desert -like design.  Not so! The garden pictured here is alight with color year roun

Water-wise Gardening - Where are we? As a landscaper, I feel we pay lip-service to water conservation in the landscape industry. Despite...

“There is no clearer illustration of the extent of human dominance of the Earth than the fact that maintaining the diversity of ‘wild’...