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.

The use of hedges in your garden has numerous advantages.  They can be used to create privacy in your garden; as dividers to create different areas in your garden; to muffle noise and act as a windbreak; to create mazes; to attract birds and butterflies to your garden; to hide ugly walls; to improve your security around your home and garden; and to act as a green background for other plants in your garden.  Hedge plants are relatively cheap and low-maintenance.

The maintenance required once you have planted your hedge plants, involves pruning when the plants are still small.  This will encourage the plant to grow dense.  You also need to pinch the tips, while the plants are still actively growing to promote the growth of side shoots.

If you want to plant a hedge for security – along your border walls – you can use a paper flower bougainvillea (bougainvillea glabra), num-num (carissa bispinosa) or natal plum (carissa macrocarpa).

Other plants that can be used as security measures include aloes, cacti, agaves, and any other plant that has thorns.

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.

Ultimately the design and type of plants selected depend on the architectural style of the home and the home owners’ preferences.

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. 

There was a time when gardens were just for growing flowers and vegetables, and this trend can still be seen in many gardens. But landscaping has been with us for many years, and in the days of the Roman Empire was very popular. The Roman writer Vitruvius wrote on many topics that still concern today’s landscapers, and there is plenty of evidence of Roman landscaped gardens with mosaics and water fountains. However, the art of landscaping was largely lost in the Middle Ages, and it wasn’t until the Renaissance era that it started to become popular again, and there are hundreds of examples of landscaped gardens that date back to that period.

The eighteenth century saw a new breed of landscapers come to the fore, landscaping extensive parklands around stately homes throughout Britain, many of which may still be enjoyed today. This was continued into the nineteenth century when urban planning gave a modern focus to landscaping. This blending of old and new gave rise to such locations as Central Park in New York and the sculptured gardens of Washington DC. Landscape architecture is widely practiced in the modern world, as can be seen from the many designs and plans for public spaces around the world. Television shows and the Internet have been responsible for a new interest in landscaping small gardens and spaces, and the subject is becoming more appreciated by a much wider audience than yesteryear. A landscaped garden can make a complete difference to the appearance of a home, changing it from a featureless entity to one of aesthetic beauty.

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.