By planting herbs, shrubs, creepers and trees in your garden that exude heady aromas – by means of essential oils – you will enhance the dimensionality of your garden.  Perfumed plants emanate aroma via their flowers, leaves, wood, bark or fruit.

Shrubs, such as lavenders, abelias, buddleias, azaleas and gardenias are perfect fragrant plants to incorporate into your overall garden layout. 

Fragrant creepers include star jasmine (jasminum multiflorum) and most other jasmine species, Rosa species, such as rambling roses, Wisteria species, and Chilean jasmine (mandevilla laxa).

The indigenous white gardenia (gardenia thunbergia) and September bells (rothmannia globosa) are perfect fragranced garden plants to add to your garden.

Indigenous trees, which radiate heady scents, include the monkey thorn (acacia galpinii), camel thorn (acacia erioloba), fever tree (acacia xanthoploea) and the sweet thorn (acacia karroo).

Most scented plants prefer direct sun in hot and dry weather, with good drainage.

Just keep in mind that you should try your utmost to select indigenous plants, and that you need to consider the toxicity of plants, if you have children or pets.

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.

Having your own veggie garden is extremely rewarding.  Not only do you have fresh veggies on hand, but you will also find the entire process relaxing and rewarding. 

The first step to take when toying with the idea of starting your own veggie garden is to plan your garden.  Where will you lay it out?  How big do you want it to be?  Which veggies do you want to grow? You need to do your research!

You should draw up a design for your veggie garden layout; preferably to scale.  When deciding on where to situate your veggie garden you should consider an area that receives 5 to 8 hours of direct sunlight and which is protected from frost and wind.  The soil should be fertile and have proper draining.  Furthermore, your veggie garden should be close to your home, for easy access, and it should be close to a water source, such as a tap or even an irrigation system.

Your veggie garden beds should be accessible from all sides, so it is advisable to plant in beds measuring 2 meters in length and 1 meter in width.

Finally, you should carefully select the types of veggies you would like to plant.  For a beginner, these veggies should be hardy and resistant to pests and diseases.  Therefore, it would be wise initially not to plant veggies such as peppers (capsicums), eggfruit, potatoes and tomatoes.  A safer choice would be radishes, spinach, beans, peas and beetroot. 

Make sure you research each species properly, so that you will know when to sow or plant, when to harvest, and the like.

When planting your vegetable 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 veggies. 

Veggie 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 veggie garden with stepping stones, cobble edging and strips of pebbles, gravel of quartzite rocks.  You can border the entire veggie 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 veggie seedlings or sown your seeds, 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 veggie beds, will retain moisture in the soil and protect your veggies against weeds, pests and the harsher elements.

If you want your veggie garden to produce optimally, 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 veggies.

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.

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.