Appropriate drainage in a garden is of utmost importance; otherwise you will end up with muddy areas in your garden, rotting plants or even worse, damaged house and wall foundations.

Soil types, such as clay soil, will certainly cause drainage problems in your garden, as it tends to retain water.  A shallow water table on your property will also create drainage problems.  You can check for poor drainage on your property by looking out for wet patches or puddles of water on the ground.  

The first technique you can use to improve the drainage in your garden, entails removing the first 15cm of topsoil and replacing it with more soluble soil.

Another technique which can be used – and which is not as intensive – is to create different levels in your garden area.  You can either arrange a slightly sloped ground level in your garden, or you can shape your garden areas in such a way, as to create channels to carry the excess water away.

A third technique involves installing a French drain.  This entails creating a type of underground sieve, by digging a trench and filling it with loose debris, like excess building materials or pebbles.  This sieve should be covered by a strong steel grid and a layer of top soil of about 15cm thick.  The ideal place to create this sieve would be at the lowest part of the garden, where most of the water gathers.

You can also utilize a poorly drained area by having your landscaper design and create a large pond. 

Should you wish to have your very own Kingfisher garden, you can contact our office on (012) 460 7990 or send us an e-mail to edrich@badecbros.com and we will send one of our highly experienced and innovative landscaping designers out to create a unique garden design, tailored to your specific needs.  You will also be provided with a free, no-obligation quotation.

Our team of dedicated professionals has been designing and implementing exceptional and beautiful gardens in a professional manner for the past 12 years.  We can also 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.

Linda Poultney ©

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.

There are two main methods which you can use to plant your plants into our exclusive range of Cubedec steel décor pots, manufactured by our sister company, Badec Bros Deco.  You can either plant indirectly in plastic liners or stackers, or you can plant directly.

Firstly, we can customize your Cubedec pot according to three different sized plastic liners.  The sizes available are 25cm, 32cm and 55cm in diameter.   We can construct circular rims in your steel pot to ease the adding and removing of the plastic liners.  Therefore, you can change the plants in your pots at any time without any hassle.  Alternatively, we can customize your steel décor pot to suit a square stacker, measuring 28cm in diameter.

For direct planting, we fabricate a 3cm lip at the bottom of the pot and lay a steel plate over that.  Then we drill holes in the steel plate to enable ventilation.  This steel plate also forms the base for your plants.  Firstly, you need to lay down a layer of gravel to facilitate drainage.  Then you can fill your pot with potting soil and plant your selected plant into the pot. 

In the past we have constructed a 1m³ gabion basket, which we planted with trees.  We lined the sides of the basket with weed guard cloth to prevent weeds from sprouting and growing.

This proves once again that Badec Bros Deco manufactures truly versatile products.

The landscaping experts at Kingfisher Landscaping design and implement exceptional and beautiful gardens in a professional manner and 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 imaginative experts at Badec Bros Deco manufacture a wide selection of Cubedec décor products, such as Cubedec gabion bollards, gabion water features, gabion planters, gabion feature walls, gabion terraces, gabion dustbins, sculptured living walls, sculptured flagpoles, unique pots and drip trays, customized sculptures, Cubedec benches, trendy steel décor with your company logo emblazoned on it, mild steel inspirational slogans, steel laser-cut signage, mild steel moulds, Cubedec pots, hanging sculptures, wooden or steel feature poles, bar code trellises, Cubedec water features, pergolas, arches, sculptures, dustbins or trellises, and much more.

Should you wish to have your very own signature Badec Bros Deco product, please feel free to contact our energetic and knowledgeable sales representative, Mareleen van Zijl, on her cell phone at 078 800 5112, the office number at 012 460 7990, or via e-mail at mareleen@badecbros.com. 

She will gladly arrange an appointment with you to listen to your ideas and to stun you with our own creative ideas! You dream it, we manufacture it!

Badec Bros Deco will create a 3 dimensional render and calculate a quotation FREE OF CHARGE for you! We can deliver your unique Badec Bros Deco product(s) within 10 to 15 working days, upon acceptance of the design and quotation and the required 50% deposit.  These services come standard and will not cost you a cent extra!

We offer a 1 year guarantee on all our products. 

At any one time there are hundreds of landscaping projects going on in different parts of the world. These can range from creating a new city park, to school gardens, industrial or commercial estates and even something as mundane as digging and landscaping a new drainage trench. Naturally big companies usually undertake large projects, but there are many smaller schemes that can be undertaken.

There are plenty of smaller landscaping projects that can be undertaken by the homeowner though, whether he carries out the work himself or engages professional landscapers to do the job for him. The sort of landscaping projects that you can carry out yourself include:

• Garden fences
• Retaining walls
• Ornamental water features
• Rock gardens
• Wooden decks
• Patios
• Garden lighting
• Irrigation
• Raised beds
• Flower beds
• Swimming pools

Some of the larger projects listed here can naturally only be carried out with the help of a professional team of landscaping workers, but some of the smaller tasks can give immense satisfaction when completed by yourself. Whether your home needs a complete garden makeover, or just some smaller task such as the installation of solar lighting, we will be happy to discuss the job with you and give you a quotation for its undertaking. Our workers are all highly skilled and their sole objective is the satisfaction of our clients. We are a service orientated company that always puts the client first.

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.

Perhaps the most well known landscape gardens were those designed by ‘Capability’ Brown in England in the eighteenth century, even though the term itself was not used in those days. The term enjoyed popularity in the nineteenth century when it was associated with the classical style of serpentine curves and clumps that had started to become unfashionable. Only in the last fifty or so years has the term become associated with contract gardeners. There are, of course, plenty of examples of landscape gardens that survive today, for example the Gardens of the Palace of Versailles.

Both residential and non-residential gardens need good designing to make them look attractive, and a well-designed garden can add immense value, both aesthetically and practically, to a property. For centuries, one of the most popular things to do around one’s home has been to create a garden. Gardens have been filled with flowers, plants and vegetables, and have provided enjoyment and sustenance for the homeowner for many years. Landscape gardens go one step further, transforming a seemingly haphazard collection of flora into a work of art. Landscape gardens are planned meticulously before being constructed, and take into account many factors such as the architectural style of your home, the amount and direction of sunlight, how much privacy you want and, most important the practical considerations such as the soil type and quality, drainage considerations, whether to provide for the needs of animals or children and any special factors you may specifically want such as entertainment areas or water features.

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.

A beautiful landscape starts with an innovative design. An innovative design is the vision of the customer brought to life by experienced landscape architects. At Kingfisher Landscaping, our team of landscape architects works side-by-side with customers to create memorable environments for people to enjoy day in and day out.

Our design team consists of the most talented and innovative landscapers in South Africa. Throughout the years our designs have broken new ground in the landscaping industry and will continue in the years to come…
Our Design Philosophy
There are five definitive elements that we take into consideration when designing a garden.

Element 1 – The architectural style of your home.
The design of a garden should emphasize the characteristics of the residence. A perfectly designed landscape should always compliment the architectural style of your home.

Element 2 – Sunlight.
Our second step would be to find out where the sunniest areas in the garden are. This is not only for the benefit of plants but also for people. There’s nothing more magnetic than a spot showered with morning light, and good garden design is all about arranging subtle magnets to draw us outside…Element 3 – Privacy
It doesn’t matter if your garden is small or large, every garden needs some element of privacy. We are always looking for new ideas and designs to make privacy a design feature in your garden…

Element 4 – Viewpoints
Viewpoints are one of the success factors for a perfectly

designed garden. It is very important to create garden viewpoints so that you can pull the garden into your home through a featured window. Viewpoints are wonderful compositions in themselves and yet blend in perfectly into the garden when viewed from outside.Element 5 – The practical side
Lastly, there is the practical and functional side. It is important to check soil type and quality;

to take drainage into consideration; provide for children and animals; consider access and utilities; and to establish entertainment areas.

Ever hear the expression ‘well drained soil’? Of course you have. Because raised beds are elevated, the soil drains more rapidly than soil in a flat garden. You can work in the spring, when your garden is still mud and rainy days won’t be lost days in the garden. Of course this also means they can dry out faster, but raised beds are also easier to water than open gardens. The smaller area is perfect for installing drip or mist irrigation. Even if you use a garden hose, you’ll be wasting less water and taking less time than watering traditional garden beds.