The monkey thorn (acacia galpinii) has been appointed as one of the trees of the year for 2009, by the Department of Water and Environmental Affairs.

This fast growing tree – with its lush, light green foliage – can grow up to 36 meters in height and has a wide, spreading crown.  It is a deciduous tree, which means that it loses its leaves during winter.  During spring, this lovely tree carries light yellow flowers and maroon-coloured seed pods during late summer and autumn.  The monkey thorn is ideal for large gardens and can be planted in your lawn – or along the edges of your lawn – as it provides mottled shade, which will allow enough sunlight through to the grass blades.

This indigenous tree is quite hardy and can survive in hot and dry weather conditions, as well as, frost to some degree.  Saplings should be properly protected from frost, however.  It also attracts insects, such as bees and wasps, and will also provide shelter for birds in your garden.

The landscaping experts at Kingfisher Landscaping design and implement exceptional and beautiful gardens in a professional manner and can provide the home owner with any exterior decorative feature.  We pride ourselves in providing our clients with excellent, efficient and comprehensive service.  We offer all the products and services associated with creating a peaceful, and aesthetically pleasing outdoor living space which will complement the style of your home and in which you can relax.

Rock Roses (echeveria elegans), also known as Mexican Roses are perfect feature plants to decorate our unique Cubedec pots, manufactured by our in-house décor company, Badec Bros Deco. 

These plump, grey succulents are usually planted as ground covers, but contrast beautifully with the mild steel pots.  They are perennial and flourish both outdoors and indoors.  The leaves are grey to green in colour and overlap one another.  Mexican Roses have pink, yellow and red flowers during spring and autumn.

Pot – or container – gardening is a very low-maintenance way of creating a garden and is also ideal for small areas.  Another advantage to pot gardening is that you can bring the outdoors indoors.

The landscaping experts at Kingfisher Landscaping design and implement exceptional and beautiful gardens in a professional manner.  We pride ourselves in providing our clients with excellent, efficient and comprehensive service.  We offer all the products and services associated with creating a peaceful, and aesthetically pleasing outdoor living space which will complement the style of your home and in which you can relax.

Fine gardening is to gardening as fine cuisine is to cooking. The old cottage type English garden with its colourful beds of flowers, green lawns and fruit trees can hardly be called fine gardening. To me the phrase means more than just a garden. It encompasses all that’s good and refined in gardening and combines them to make one garden that is the embodiment of all your dreams. It may mean many things to many people, but to me it means more than just a garden, it means a work of art. It brings to mind an image of a small water feature with the background tinkling of a waterfall trickling down a small rocky slope, a couple of water lilies, a sparkle of gold from a few small goldfish and some ferns and leafy plants in the background.

Fine gardening brings to mind the reds and golds and yellows and browns and all the other vibrant colours that come with autumn. The scent of the fallen leaves and the unforgettable aroma of newly cut grass, or that wonderful bouquet that comes after the first rains. Fine gardening is a form of art – it’s the careful placing of a wooden bench under the spreading boughs of a large tree. It’s the amazing combination of a person’s thoughts and nature. It’s the result of careful planning and meticulous thought put together on an earthy canvas to produce something that is both pleasing to the eye and tranquil to the mind.

The landscaping experts at Kingfisher Landscaping design and implement exceptional and beautiful gardens in a professional manner.  We pride ourselves in providing our clients with excellent, efficient and comprehensive service.  We offer all the products and services associated with creating a peaceful, and aesthetically pleasing outdoor living space which will complement the style of your home and in which you can relax.

Autumn – March to early June – is the ideal time to plant bulb plants in your garden.  Flowering times of bulbs vary from winter through to spring, depending on the type of bulbs you plant.  Therefore, with careful planning you can have colour in your garden during winter up to spring.

Bulbs include daffodils, irises, tulips, tulbaghias, ixias, hyacinths and freesias.  You can buy your bulbs from a nursery and plant them yourself, taking care to read the instructions carefully.

There are a few points to remember when planting bulbs.  Firstly, you need to lay out your proposed beds or pots in an area out of direct sunlight.  Then you need to prepare the soil by loosening it and working in old compost.  New compost will burn the bulbs, so take care not to use it.  After you have prepared the soil, you can plant your bulbs.  Make sure that the layer of soil covering the bulbs is as thick as the bulb is high.  You can compress the soil slightly, but do not compact it too much.  The soil around the bulbs needs to allow enough air and water through.  It is also a good idea to feed your bulbs with bulb food every three weeks, to ensure optimal flowering.

After planting your bulbs, you can mulch the beds and make sure to water your bulbs regularly.  Your bulbs should have a life span of up to four years. 

Should the bulbs start crowding one another, you will have to extract the bulbs gently, divide them and then replant them a little further away from one another.  At this time, you can also get rid of any unhealthy bulbs and replace them with new ones.  It is important to go through this process only after your bulbs have finished flowering and have gone into hibernation, as they are at their strongest at this time.

The landscaping experts at Kingfisher Landscaping design and implement exceptional and beautiful gardens in a professional manner.  We pride ourselves in providing our clients with excellent, efficient and comprehensive service.  We offer all the products and services associated with creating a peaceful, and aesthetically pleasing outdoor living space which will complement the style of your home and in which you can relax.

Dead leaves do not have to be an irritation during autumn and winter.  You can utilize dead leaves and other decaying plant materials in your garden by creating a compost heap.  By doing this, you will be creating your very own circle of life in your garden.  You can feed the plants in your garden and in your home with your own home-produced compost.  You will also save money.  You can even add kitchen waste, such as potato and carrot peels, rotten veggies and the like to your compost heap.  This will also reduce the amount of refuse ending up in landfills, which costs money and ultimately encourages global warming.

Producing your own compost is a cheap, therapeutic and natural manner of feeding your garden.  By working compost into your garden, you will enhance the nutrient contents in your soil; create an insulating layer in your soil, which will prevent moisture loss and protect the roots of your plants from extreme heat or cold; and you will encourage a healthy ecosystem in your garden.

The landscaping experts at Kingfisher Landscaping design and implement exceptional and beautiful gardens in a professional manner.  We pride ourselves in providing our clients with excellent, efficient and comprehensive service.  We offer all the products and services associated with creating a peaceful, and aesthetically pleasing outdoor living space which will complement the style of your home and in which you can relax.

Kingfisher Landscaping often uses groundcover plants in garden design.  Most often we use dymondia margaretae (Silver Carpet), ophiopogon grasses, such as ophiopogon japonicus (mondo grass), ophiopogon japonicus kyoto (dwarf mondo grass), ophiopogon japonicus jaburan (jaburan grass), mazus reptans “white”, phyla nodiflora (daisy lawn), carex grasses and acorus grasses.  

Most of these plants are frost resistant and can be planted in full sun or semi-shade.  They are low growing plants and spread out quickly to form a dense cover over the soil.  They prevent soil erosion and act as mulch – controlling temperatures and curbing the growing and spreading of weeds.  These plants are also low maintenance.

We normally plant these groundcovers as fillers in between stepping stones or to softly border pathways or perimeters in the garden, where there is very little pedestrian traffic.  We also plant them in areas where their lovely qualities can enhance the overall aesthetic element of the garden.

Dymondia margaretae (silver carpet) have lovely yellow flowers in summer; Mazus reptans “white” have pretty white flowers in spring and summer; and Phyla nodiflora (daisy lawn) have appealing lilac flowers from spring to autumn.