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.

Imposing Cubedec Water Feature

water features have become increasingly popular in recent years. They can also support a wide assortment of wildlife that requires no taking care of, making the garden a centre of interest.

Water features can be anything from a simple fountain to an elaborate pond with aquatic plants and fish, so the first thing is to make the decision as to exactly what type of feature you want.

Plain and Simple Concrete Water Feature

Think very carefully about the proposed location of a pond. It should be placed close enough for it to be easily seen from the house or patio, but not too close to allow runoff water to enter it – this can contain harmful organic or inorganic compounds that may endanger fish or water-plants. If you are going to have water lilies in it, it must be placed where it will receive at least 5 hours’ sunshine a day.

Sleek Serenity

If you are considering gracing the water feature with a fountain or waterfall, it is imperative that you also include a filter – this must be a biological filter if you are going to keep fish in the pond. Water circulation is essential for both water plants and fish, and it is from this that you will get that pleasant background trickle sound. It is vital to spend time planning your water features well before starting to build them. You will need to know dimensions of pumps and filters and to plan any extra ditches the pond will need when you dig it out.

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.

Mulching is very important during winter.  It is a process by which you place a protective cover over the soil in your plant beds.  By mulching the plant beds in your garden, you protect the roots of your plants from soil frost.  Mulching has many advantages.  It moderates the soil temperature; stores moisture; enhances the nutrient count in your soil; prevents soil erosion; improves soil texture and prevents the growth of weeds.  Generally, mulching will improve the health and growth of your plants.

There are many types of both organic and inorganic mulch materials to use in your garden. 

Organic mulching materials include leaves, hay, bark chips, lawn trimmings, saw dust, shells, nut shells and tattered newspaper.  Should you use hay or straw as mulch, you need to make sure that does not contain any weed seeds, as this will cause rapid weed growth in your plant beds.

Inorganic mulching materials include, plastic mulch (such as plastic sheeting used in agriculture), gravel, stone chips, pebbles, rubber mulch (manufactured from recycled tires) and weed guard sheeting covered with a decorative layer of pebbles, gravel or stone chips.

You can also plant ground cover plants, such as dymondia margaretae (Silver Carpet), mazus reptans “white” and phyla nodiflora (daisy lawn) to act as living mulch in your plant beds or around trees. 

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.