Imagine popping out into your garden to pick a fresh sprig of rosemary, parsley or coriander, while preparing your family dinner…If you start growing a herb garden, this is possible.

By growing your own herb garden, you will ultimately save on your grocery bill and have a wide selection of your favourite fresh herbs on hand.

Firstly, you need to plan the lay-out of your herb garden.  Your herb garden should be close to your home – preferably close to your kitchen – and it should be small and manageable.  It should be laid out on fertile soil, with good drainage.  Should the soil not be fertile enough, you can always mix in compost and a little it of organic fertilizers.  You should also ensure that you remove all weeds – roots, seeds and all – and that you till the soil to loosen it up and aerate it properly.

Your herb garden should be laid out in a sheltered but sunny area and as far away from polluting factors such as road traffic, inorganic fertilizer sprays and pets.  Ideally, your herb garden should be exposed to direct sunlight for 6 hours.

When planting your herb plants, you should water them thoroughly while they are still in their nursery trays to ensure that the roots are entirely wet.  You should also gently loosen the roots to ensure optimum growth potential.  Another helpful tip is to our a little bone meal into the holes, before planting your herbs. 

Herb gardens are not just functional, but can be decorative too and form part of your over-all garden design and lay-out.  You can demarcate the various areas of your little herb garden with stepping stones, cobble edging and strips of pebbles, gravel of quartzite rocks.  You can border the entire herb garden with neatly trimmed hedges – such as a viburnum or buxus hedge – and you can construct a pergola over the area, which will still allow enough sunlight and rain water through.

Once you have planted your herb seedlings, you should water them properly during the first week or so.  After that time, you should only water them when the top layer of about 3cm’s of soil is dried out.

Applying a layer of mulch over your herb beds, will retain moisture in the soil and protect your herbs against weeds, pests and the harsher elements.

If you want your herb garden to produce optimal herbs, you should mix organic fertilizer into the soil, once a month during summer.  During winter 2 or 3 times will suffice.

Pruning away dead leaves and flowers regularly will also ensure the most favourable growth for your herbs.

Finally, you should harvest your herbs, using a sharp knife or a sharp pair of scissors.  Do not tear, bend or break the sprigs off, as this will damage the plant and prevent optimal growth.  You should harvest little amounts each time and always harvest from the strongest and healthiest plants only.

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.

We are all constantly waging war against weeds in our gardens…in our garden beds, in our paving, in our lawn…

This war increases in intensity during spring and summer.

Weeds are in direct competition with your plants for water, sunlight and soil nutrients. 

As with most things in life, prevention is better than cure.  In order to discourage the growth of weeds in your flower beds or between you paving, stepping stones and gravel strips, you should lay down sheets of weed guard (biddum cloth) before planting and before laying out your pavers or gravel.  This helpful product is available at most garden centres.

When you lay down weed guard in your garden beds, you can cut out holes for where you would like to plant your seedlings or other plants.  Then you can cover the area with mulch or decorative stone.

Preparing your soil properly before planting will also reduce the risk of weed infestations.  Till the soil properly and pick out all weeds, root systems and seeds that you can see.  Mix in a healthy blend of fertilizer and compost; making sure that it is a reputable product and will not introduce more weeds to your soil. 

To get rid of weeds, you will need to loosen the soil and pull the weeds out roots and all.  Ideally you should do so before the weeds have had the chance to produce seeds.  This process can be somewhat time-consuming and arduous, but if you look at it in a positive light, it will be great to be working outdoors with your hands.  You can even work on you suntan – provided you are wearing a hat and sunscreen. 

Finally, applying layers of mulch is also a good anti-weeding measure.  As we have informed you before, mulching has many benefits for your garden, such as retaining water and protecting the roots of your plants.

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.

Spring is the season of regeneration.  You can get the best out of your garden by doing the following during this invigorating time of year.

First of all you should prune all the plants in your garden that have suffered frost damage.  This will promote new growth.

Remove dead leaves and branches from your plants and trees to stimulate growth.

You should divide your perennial plants in order to multiply them and fill your garden beds with more lush growth.

Apply mulch to your plant beds and feed your plants and lawn with fertilizer and compost.

Have your irrigation system checked out and maintained.

You can start to water your lawn and garden more regularly again – two or three times per week.

You can also plant bulbs, which flower in summer, such as arum lilies (zantedeschia species), sword lilies (gladiolus species), and dahlias.  Sow flower seeds and plant seedlings to add vibrant splashes of colour to your garden.

Once your spring flowering plants have finished blooming, you can prune them back to ensure strong growth during the next spring period.

Finally, you should check all of your plants for diseases and treat them accordingly.

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.

Spring time is a good time to prepare your lawn for summer. Mowing, watering and feeding are all important aspects to lawn care during spring. Your lawn has probably started turning green again, after being dormant during winter.

You can mow your lawn at a height of between 2cm and 2½cm. You should mow your lawn once a week to stimulate blade growth. After the first mow of the season, you should feed your lawn. Lawn dressing or organic compost is ideal lawn food. Cover your entire lawn with either lawn dressing or organic compost, and make sure to water the lawn properly afterwards, to ensure that the compost goes down all the way to the roots and soil.

Lastly, you should water your lawn two to three times a week. Do not water it more often than that, as the lawn is likely to rot or attract weeds and diseases. Irrigation is the best option for watering your lawn, and the rest of your garden. Irrigation saves water and time.

Kingfisher Landscaping has been installing state of the art irrigation systems for many satisfied customers over the years. An irrigation system takes away the need to water your garden the old fashioned way with a hosepipe and sprinkler, which is time consuming and wastes water. It is a much more convenient and effective approach to ensure your garden stays alive and healthy.

You can choose between a manual or computerized system. The former being less expensive, with the latter being automatic and, therefore more convenient. Our irrigation specialists can install a watering system which would perfectly suit the spread of your garden, as well as, the varying water requirements of all the plants in your garden. Kingfisher Landscaping will take into account the amount of watering stations you would need on your irrigation system. Each station will cover a specific area in your overall garden layout. Should you prefer a computerized system, our irrigation experts can set the times of your watering according to the length of the watering period, as well as, the intervals between watering, depending on the water requirements of the plants in any specific area. This feature gives you peace of mind that your garden will be watered often enough, while you are away on holiday.

With a manual system, you will need to operate the system by hand. It is still, however, much more effective than watering your garden with a hosepipe and sprinkler, which needs to be moved continuously. Furthermore, you can choose between rotary and pop-up sprinklers. Pop-up sprinklers are the better choice, as they are concealed in your lawn or plant beds, and only “pop up”, when the watering period commences. Both types of sprinklers can be set to cover only a specific area, preventing water being wasted by having a sprinkler spray against a wall or onto a paved area. This element adds to the water saving benefit of an irrigation system.

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.

The basic way to make compost tea is by placing a cloth bag filled with compost into a pail of water and letting it soak for a couple days. The water solution is then applied to plants as a foliage spray or used to water their root system. There is another method of making compost tea by the use of aeration and water. This process keeps the oxygen levels in the compost tea from depleting, which in return enhances the aerobic micro-organisms that are the most beneficial. The benefits that you can get from the use of compost tea are extremely rewarding. Any way you choose to apply it you will have a nutrient rich water solution that can be use to feed your plants and help defend insect and disease problems in your garden.

Geohumus is a commercial product, made in Germany, that is used for soil improvement. It is a countermeasure against soil salination and supports plant growth. The word Geo is a Greek prefix meaning “earth” in the sense of “ground or land”. Humus is Latin for soil and is often used simply to mean mature compost, or natural compost extracted from a forest or other spontaneous source for use to amend soil.

No garden is a garden without a compost heap. Compost, also known as brown manure, is the aerobically decomposed remains of organic matter. It is used in landscaping, horticulture and agriculture as a soil conditioner and fertiliser. A good tip is to keep a plastic bag or bin for your kitchen waste and scraps. In it you can place potato peelings, off cuts and skins from any vegetables, eggshells, coffee grounds, dead flowers – anything that is biodegradable. If your garden is too small for a proper compost heap, most nurseries sell compost bins that fit well into a discreet corner. From the garden you can add grass cuttings, green weeds and leaves, but not weeds that have seed heads – these should be burnt. This will prevent weeds from spreading throughout the garden. Recycling kitchen and garden waste into compost is not only good for your garden, it’s good for the environment too.