Gardening For Dummies, Australian and New Zeal E-Book

Shirley Stackhouse

• Herausgeber: John Wiley & Sons
• Kategorie: Lebensstil
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 671

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2013

Beschreibung

Brimming with advice, resources and suggested planting choices, this friendly guide shows you step by step how to create the garden of your dreams. From basic cultivation to garden design, this book is just what you need to start playing in the dirt ? even if you?ve never picked up a garden trowel in your life.

Leseprobe

Gardening For Dummies®

Gardening For Dummies®

Australian & New Zealand Edition published 2002 by Wiley Publishing Australia Pty Ltd42 McDougall StreetMilton, Qld 4064

www.dummies.com

The moral rights of the authors have been asserted.

Copyright  2002 Wiley Publishing Australia Pty Ltd

All rights reserved. No part of this book, including interior design, cover design and icons, may be reproduced or transmitted in any form, by any means (electronic, photocopying, recording or otherwise) without the prior written permission of the Publisher. Requests to the Publisher for permission should be addressed to the Legal Department, Wiley Publishing, Inc., 10475 Crosspoint Blvd., Indianapolis, Indiana, 46256, United States, 317-572-3447, fax [phone], or online at http://www.wiley.com/go/permissions.

National Library of Australia Cataloguing-in-Publication data is available from the publisher.

ISBN 978 1 74031 007 9

Printed in China byPrintplus Limited

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Cover photos

Front cover: Getty Images/PhotodiscBack cover: Left courtesy of United Nurseries, Petunia Avalanche. Photograph by Jack Sarafian©Middle and right ©2002 Getty Images/Eyewire.

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About the Authors

Shirley Stackhouse began her working career as an occupational therapist. Gardening, though, was in her blood: Much of her childhood was spent helping her grandparents on their rose farm, and her mother, a keen gardener, was also an early influence. Later on in life, Shirley lived and gardened in Australia, New Zealand and New Guinea, which gave her the opportunity to experience gardening extremes — everything from the balmy tropics to the rigours of cold-climate gardens. However, it was not until the last of her four children started school that Shirley was able to study horticulture formally in Sydney, which led to a career as a horticultural journalist and later, as a broadcaster. Shirley is well known for her columns in the Sydney Morning Herald; for many years, she was also gardening editor for Woman’s Day. Since 1988, she has advised and counselled thousands of gardeners over the airwaves with her weekend talkback gardening program on Radio 2UE. Many gardeners also treasure her book, Shirley Stackhouse’s Gardening Year, which is described as the gardener’s bible. She is a member of the Australian Institute of Horticulture and of Horticultural Media Australia, and is also a keen supporter of the Friends of the Royal Botanic Gardens in Sydney. Shirley regularly leads special-interest groups on gardening tours.

Jennifer Stackhouse had no intention of following in her gardening mother’s footsteps — she says it happened by accident. While still in primary school, she found herself answering the phone and helping distraught gardeners who had rung to speak to Shirley. She completed an honours degree in Fine Arts at the University of Sydney and began curatorial work at Sydney’s Elizabeth Bay House museum. It was here, while researching the marvellous garden that once surrounded the house and arranging exhibitions of historic plants and heritage roses, she realised she wanted to learn more about plants and gardening. After completing a Diploma in Horticulture in Sydney, Jennifer joined the staff of the Royal Botanic Gardens, became executive officer of the Friends of the Royal Botanic Gardens society and also began freelance journalism. She then moved to Melbourne to become editor of the industry journal Australian Horticulture and also gardening editor of Australian House and Garden. She later joined the team at Burke’s Backyard and was the founding editor of Burke’s Backyard magazine. She now has a large garden on the outskirts of Sydney and works as a journalist and horticultural consultant. She is a member of Horticultural Media Australia.

Publisher’s Acknowledgments

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Authors’ Acknowledgments

First we’d like to thank the Australian staff of Hungry Minds for their hard work: Jane Ogilvie, Acquisitions Editor, and Nicole McKenzie, Project Editor, and the rest of the team. We especially thank Kristen Hammond, former Acquisitions Editor, for her support and enthusiastic promotion of For Dummies gardening books and for getting the project rolling in Australia and New Zealand. We also thank Liz Goodman, Developmental Editor, for her close reading and creative editing of the text, and Jenny Scepanovic, for her careful proofreading. Thanks to artist Anna Warren for most of the illustrations in the book. A big ‘thank you’ also goes to the marketing and promotion team at Hungry Minds, particularly Selina Madeleine, Publicist, and Amanda Healy, Business Development Manager. On a personal note, thanks too are due to colleague Beverley Mohr for her initial help and support. We would also like to thank our families for their support, particularly Shirley’s husband John for his photographs, and Jennifer’s husband James Taylor, who frequently had to cope with kids, pets and meals while deadlines loomed.

Authors’ Dedication

We dedicate this book to all those gardeners who have bought a plant at their local nursery — or even a packet of seeds — and have been seized by a vision splendid of how their garden will grow and blossom. We hope this book will help everyone to grow the garden of their dreams.

Introduction

Welcome to Gardening For Dummies, the ‘how to’ book that will help just about anyone to become a successful gardener — from people with only a sunny windowsill to those who have lots of hectares to play with.

In today’s busy and everchanging world, gardens and the plants that grow in them become a friendly refuge where we can forget our worries for a while. Your garden can also be a satisfactory way of expressing your personality and interests. Like the world around us, gardens don’t stand still but grow and change.

We believe that gardening, like cooking and interior decorating, is more accessible now than ever before. For gardeners, much of this liberation has come from the way plants are grown and sold. Modern nurseries have made more plants more easily available and more interesting. Plant selection, finding the plants that will perform well in your garden, is also much easier. Nurseries also cater to the decorative as well as the practical side of gardening and recognise the value of being able to display fully-grown and well-presented plants.

Much as cookbooks no longer have recipes that start off with the words ‘First catch your chicken . . .’, so gardening books can spend more time helping gardeners to create their vision and be informed about their plants, without going into the intricacies of plant propagation and seed collection. To take this to the nth degree, you can buy and plant an instant landscape with fully grown trees, topiarised plants that have already been shaped, annual plants in full flower and ready-to-lay lawns! But few people want a garden as instant as that of course, and we wrote this book for those gardeners who want to create a garden themselves. The more you discover about gardening, the more satisfying it is. After years of gardening ourselves and writing and talking about it to anyone who will listen, we wanted to share our knowledge and expertise. We are also keen to demystify gardening and get rid of some of those misconceptions that spread like wildfire and can make gardening more worrying than it should be.

We’re also keen to provide some keys to allow you to access all the new, interesting and stimulating ideas about gardens and gardening. In this book, we urge you to look around and learn from others, to buy yet more books and magazines that cover gardening, and to venture onto the Web to immerse yourself in the vast wealth of knowledge that’s available via your computer.

If you’ve never gardened before, congratulations on taking the first step. Be reassured that everything you need to know — from how to tackle a bare site to how to move an established tree — is covered in these pages. We also urge you to view gardening not as thankless toil in the hot sun but as a great way to exercise and be creative. Remember, for all the effort you put into your garden you’ll be rewarded in countless ways — with beautiful flowers, fabulous flavours and scents, visiting wildlife and, of course, by just being that bit of the world that’s your own personal paradise.

How to Use This Book

You have in your hands a user-friendly reference guide to gardening. Everything you need to know to get off to a good start in your garden is between these bold yellow covers. You can start reading from any chapter: You don’t need to read the chapters in order, from front to back. If you want to know how to rig up a watering system for your garden, just go straight to Chapter 15!

No matter what area of gardening interests you — growing roses or perennials or just cutting the grass — you’ll find good advice here. And when you outgrow the level of information we give, you can turn to the appendixes at the back of this book for pointers on where to look next.

In every chapter, our basic goal is to give you the information you need to go out to plant, prune or do whatever it is you want. But novices aren’t the only ones who will find this book useful. Gardening is such a huge topic that no-one ever comes close to knowing everything about it. (That’s one reason why gardening has become one of the most popular hobbies of all time.) If, for example, you are a seasoned rose grower but know almost nothing about starting a vegetable garden, Chapter 10 is an amazing source of information on incredible edibles.

Throughout this book, information is presented in ways that are readily understood, so you’re ready to go. You’ll find lists of plants to help you choose the ones you need to create a beautiful garden: We list the plants alphabetically, with the common name first, followed by the botanical name. Also, whenever we are describing plants, we give plant heights and spreads and provide other useful information such as spacing, depth of planting and what you need to do to ensure it thrives. In short, everything is at your fingertips!

To make this book as accessible as possible, we’ve split it into six major parts, followed by four appendixes. Each part is divided into several chapters.

Part I: Your Patch of Dirt

We show you how to analyse and understand the elements of your garden so you can better plan and plant. Then we tell you all about climates and microclimates and ways in which you can control the climate.

Part II: Planning and Designing Your Garden

Like all good things, a garden thrives with a little planning. We touch on the key elements of landscaping, go into the details of designing or planning a garden, with emphasis on making a rudimentary plan that you can refer to and refine later. Then we introduce you to some particular styles of garden to give you some ideas for your own.

Part III: Plants for All Occasions

Here’s where you get down and dirty! This part is the heart of the book because, for most people, the essence of gardening is putting in plants and watching them grow.

We divided plants up into different groups according to what they can do for your garden — such as provide shade, smell fragrant or look pretty — and on the level of care they need to survive. We also tell you how you can grow some of your own food, discover what it takes to grow a garden in pots and containers, as well as lawns, grasses and groundcover plants.

Part IV: Tried-and-True Gardening Techniques

Planting is easy — we tell you everything you need to know about the basics of plant care, including feeding, mulching and composting; watering and pruning; and starting seeds and growing from cuttings.

Part V: Gardening All Year Round

In a nutshell, this part covers long-term garden maintenance. We look at what you need to do to keep your garden tidy, the equipment and tools you’ll need to accomplish as much as you’d like, and what you need to do to control plant diseases and pests.

Part VI: The Part of Tens

This part is devoted solely to no-nonsense advice. The Part of Tens presents ten great gardening tales and offers tips for staying safe in your garden.

Part VII: Appendixes

One exciting feature about gardening is the endless amount of information available on just about every aspect of it. The appendixes we’ve compiled here are intended to help you find what you want straight away.

The variety of plants, seeds and tools that you can buy through the mail or via the Web and have delivered the next day is astounding — you can outfit your entire garden. Mail-order is the way to go, especially if you’re looking for anything unusual or want to save money by buying in bulk.

We’ve also zeroed in on useful books, magazines and Web sites for gardeners. All good, useful information to expand your green horizons.

Icons Used in This Book

Look for these icons in the margins to help you zero in on the information you want.

Points out ecological tips and ways to be earth-friendly.

These tips are words of gardening wisdom based on Shirley’s many years of gardening in many parts of the world.

This icon signals that we’re going to delve a little deeper than usual into a subject. Not that the information is too difficult to understand — just rather more detailed.

Suggests ways to save money.

This icon flags information that even some experienced gardeners may not know.

Indicates plants that really perform and are worth hunting for in your nursery.

Watch out! Alerts you to common pitfalls and problems, including some that may cause injury.

Part I

Your Patch of Dirt

In this part...

Gardening is about improving your surroundings and making a beautiful and comfortable environment in which to relax and play. Garden-making is not only a practical and down-to-earth pursuit, it’s also a way of expressing yourself and being creative.

In Part I, we show you how to discover your garden’s potential by working out how much sun and shade it gets and the direction it faces; we give you an understanding of soil and drainage; and, importantly, we finish with advice on how to deal with some of the climate extremes that nature throws at us from time to time.

Chapter 1

Analysing Your Garden

In This Chapter

Finding your garden’s aspect

Delving into the soil

Checking out the drains

If the grass is greener on the other side of the fence, find out what fertiliser they’re using.

Whether you’ve got an established garden or just a patch of bare earth waiting to take shape, you need to ‘read’ your garden and assess what you’ve got before you can begin to plan and plant. Take the time to get acquainted with your particular piece of ground. Discover your garden’s sunniest and shadiest parts. Feel the soil and look at where the water naturally goes. All these factors affect the success and wellbeing of the plants you grow and the garden you make.

If you’ve bought a house with an existing garden, you may be tempted to rush out and buy new plants or chop down existing ones. Don’t! You may want to make your mark on your new territory, but you probably won’t be doing what’s best for your garden in the long term. Wait until you’ve had a long, hard look at your new garden and its surroundings.

In this chapter, we show you how to start building your garden’s dossier — its personal profile, if you like. You need to be observant, so have your mental notebook ready (oh, and a compass may help, too!).

Which Way is North?

The direction your garden faces is known as its aspect. Your garden’s aspect is important because it can determine whether you’ve got a sunny garden or a shady one. To find what aspect you have, just figure out which direction is north (easier said than done on a dull day!).

To work out which way is north, watch the sun. It rises in the east and swings in an arc across the northern sky to set in the west. Structures such as your house, the neighbour’s place, fences or natural features such as cliffs or large trees will cast a shadow if they lie to the north of your garden. If you flunked scouts or guides and are unsure about working out directions, just cheat — use a compass to find north. Alternatively, check on your house plans.

Knowing which way is north is absolutely crucial if you want to grow plants — not so you can find your way to the nursery without getting lost but because north’s the direction from which the sun shines, and plants need sun to grow. To a certain extent, the kind of home you have defines your scope for gardening. If your house is free-standing, you have more options: some parts of the garden are certain to be sunnier than others, depending on which side of the house they are. However, terrace houses, villas and units often only have a back garden or a balcony, with a single aspect. If this sounds like you, we have loads of creative solutions! Here we describe the four main aspects (as well as the aspect you have when it’s half and half):

North-facing aspect. If your garden faces north and nothing blocks the sun (such as a house, a high fence, a tall tree or a rising slope) it will be warm and sunny all year round with full sun most of the day. These gardens are described as having a sunny or northerly aspect.

The canny gardener will check out the aspect before buying a new property. If you add sunny north facing aspect to your selection criteria, you can be sure of having a sunny garden where you can grow all your favourite plants, herbs and vegies without too much trouble.

To grow shade-loving plants in a garden with a sunny aspect, you’ll need to create some shade (for example, with a pergola) or find a more sheltered spot to the east or south. If there are trees or other tall structures to the north, your garden will get filtered sunlight or shadows as the sun moves across the sky.

A sunny aspect is ideal for roses, hibiscus, vegies, annuals and lots more.

South-facing aspect. If your garden faces south, it’ll be mostly shady because your house casts a shadow over it throughout the day. In summer, though, you’ll get early morning and late afternoon sun. Away from the shade of the house, the garden will be in full sun. In the winter, the shadow cast by the house will be longer and your south-facing garden could become very shaded and cold. A south-facing aspect is the ideal place to grow deciduous plants such as hydrangeas, as well as clivias, fuchsias, ferns or even make a moss garden. Some of these shade-lovers will need protection in summer from the late afternoon sun, which could scorch their leaves.

If you’ve been looking for the ideal plant for your south-facing garden, consider starting a clivia collection. Clivia miniata (or the Kaffir lily) has gorgeous heads of salmon-coloured flowers in late winter and spring and is a dark green, leafy clump year round. Even more exciting are the new flower colours now available, including white, yellow, red and bicolours.

East-facing aspect. If your garden faces east and sunlight isn’t blocked by a neighbouring house, an overhanging tree or a fence, it will bask in morning sun and be protected by afternoon shade. Of a summer morning, it may get quite hot, but your garden will be cool and shaded by the afternoon as the sun moves into the western sky. You may find your garden a bit cold and damp in winter, though. Plants that need a full-sun position may struggle, especially in winter, so it is best to concentrate on the shady customers, such as azaleas, camellias, hydrangeas, ferns, fuchsias and rainforest plants, which love the shade or semi-shade. Perennials will do well, too. Try the lovely Japanese windflowers which flower in autumn and winter or look for deciduous perennials that will be dormant in winter but grow through spring and summer.

For cheerful pockets of colour in winter, plant primulas — these are annuals that love shade, flower in winter and happily self-seed in spots where they feel comfortable.

West-facing aspect. If your garden faces west, it will be shaded in the morning but be hot and sunny in the afternoon. Away from the shade of the house, especially in summer, a westerly aspect may be rather too hot and plants may get burnt. But in winter, your garden comes into its own, and it becomes a warm spot to enjoy the afternoon sunshine.

A westerly aspect can be quite a challenging one for gardeners but, with careful planning, you can make it work. Close to the house, in the area which is shaded the longest, try growing some shade-loving plants, but don’t forget to provide them with something to hide behind so they don’t wilt when they get the full brunt of the western sun. Further away from the house, go for plants that love full sun and are tough as well, such as succulents and oleanders.

The house as well as the garden will really heat up on hot summer afternoons. Cool everything down by planting some trees. Evergreen trees such as conifers give shade year-round but are not so good in winter, when they can block much needed light and warmth. To let in the warm winter sun and light, go for deciduous trees as they lose their leaves in winter.

Half and half. Not every garden is going to be clear-cut in its aspect. A garden may face north-east, south-west or anything in between, but as a guide remember that the more north- or west-facing it is, the more sun it will have, and the more east- or south-facing it is, the less sun it will have, particularly in winter. We discuss how to deal with your climate, particularly with the problem of too much heat and sunlight, in Chapter 3.

Remember that gardens don’t stand still. As your plants grow and the seasons change, the garden will change. Patterns of sun and shade will be modified, as you can see in Figure 1-1. Trees, shrubs and hedges will grow to shade previously sunny gardens or a tree or fence that was providing shade may be removed, opening the garden to more light.

Figure 1-1: How a garden becomes more shaded as a tree or hedge grows.

Digging the Dirt: Reading Your Soil

You know how farmers always grumble about the weather? Well, gardeners love to complain about the soil in their gardens, they’re never really happy with it. Everyone is searching for that ‘Holy Grail of Gardening’ — the perfect loam.

Soil is split into two camps: Sand or clay (neither of which is really desirable). A perfect garden loam falls somewhere in the middle and has the best features of both. The perfect soil is

Well-drained but still able to hold moisture between waterings.

Easy to dig but not so loose that you can’t dig a hole without the soil collapsing.

Full of nutritious organic matter and minerals.

DIY soil test

Not sure what soil type you’ve got? Here’s a quick way to find out. When you were a kid, this was called making mud cakes; now you’re a gardener, it’s called a soil test. We illustrate this test in Figure 1-2.

1. Take a small scoop of soil in the palm of your hand and moisten it with a little water.

2. Mix the soil and water together so you can shape the soil as if you were making a mud patty.

3. Roll the patty into a sausage shape then try to bend the sausage into a ring.

If the soil is easy to mix and shape and forms a ring without cracking or breaking, you’ve got clay. If it is very difficult to mix together and will not form into a circle or even roll into a sausage shape, you’ve got a sandy soil. If it rolls into a sausage, but breaks as it bends into a circle, you’ve got a loam soil (a mix of sand and clay) and, depending on how much clay it contains, it will be a sandy loam or a clay loam.

To find out more about each of these soil types, and how to make them into the best garden soil, see Table 1-1. Don’t despair — all soils can be improved. To find out more detailed information about your soil and all the wonderful things you can do for it, irrespective of the lousy stuff it seems like you’ve got now, see Chapter 14.

Figure 1-2: Basic soil types you may discover in your garden.

Topsoil, subsoil and humus

Soil is divided into layers collectively known as a soil profile. You may have seen areas where the soil is cut away vertically (for example, where a road has been cut through) and noticed different layers of soil each with slightly different colours. From top to bottom, the layers are

Humus. Humus consists of fallen leaves and decaying plant material and is black or dark brown.

Topsoil. Beneath the humus is the topsoil, the best soil for gardening, which contains rotted humus and is a rich dark colour (in some areas, however, it is red). It can be a few centimetres deep or several metres deep (in some parts of Australia and New Zealand, the topsoil can be three metres or more in depth).

Subsoil. Below the topsoil is subsoil which may be fairly poor soil made of partially decayed rock or shale. Some subsoils are clay and these may cause drainage problems.

In some areas, the topsoil may have been removed by earth clearing. If you are building in a new area and have to have your block of land cleared, ask the contractor to store your topsoil in a pile. Not only is topsoil the best possible start for your new garden, it may also contain seeds of native plants that only grow in your area.

Over time, you create in your garden a soil profile that has a good thick layer of humus on top (the mulch you add) and at least 300 mm of rich organic topsoil (the original soil enriched with compost and manure). Below this is the original soil or subsoil that plant roots gradually infiltrate, and the underlying substrate and rock.You can see how this profile looks in Figure 1-3.

Too hard to dig

If the soil is too hard to dig, or isn’t improved by the addition of gypsum (or claybreaker), build up the soil level using compost or an organic soil mix from a landscape supplier. It’s a good idea to contain the soil with an edging or a low wall.

To grow large shrubs or fruit trees (such as citrus including oranges and lemons) you need to raise the soil by 600–900 mm. Smaller plants such as annuals, or a vegie patch need less extra soil: 300–600 mm is enough. The new soil becomes your garden soil and needs to have added manure, compost and mulch from time to time or when you make new plantings. This is done to maintain the original depth of soil and also keep the garden full of nutrients so plants grow well.

Figure 1-3: A generalised soil profile.

Water, Water Everywhere

When a house is being built, all the plumbing and wiring goes in before the walls and floors are finished. It’s commonsense, isn’t it? Well, it’s the same deal with a garden. Before you cover the ground with lawn, garden beds, a swimming pool and paving, you need to locate the drains and services and make sure they’re working properly. If you’re starting a garden from scratch, the access will be straightforward. If you’ve inherited an established garden with drainage problems, you’re in for a bit of work.

What the rain can teach you

By finding out where the water goes when it rains, you can pinpoint any areas that seem to stay wet long after the rain’s gone and the rest of the garden has dried out. Then you can set about fixing any problems by installing an effective drainage system. So if it’s raining outside, pull on your gumboots (vital gardening gear), grab an umbrella and head outside to watch the rain.

By the way, when it’s raining is also a good time to fix a leaking roof or at least pinpoint where the leak is coming from!

During a rain shower, you’ll see run-off— water flowing across the surface of your garden. You can see where this water goes and where you have drainage problems. Poorly drained soil hinders plant growth, while a lack of drains and uncontrolled surface run-off can wash away driveways, paths, paving and even your prized plants.

If your drains are too small and inadequate this will become evident during a really heavy deluge. If water is running down a path or heading straight down the steps towards your back door, instead of going down a stormwater drain, you definitely have a problem! You’ll probably need a surface drain across the path to take away the excess water.

Part of your property may be a natural watercourse in very wet weather. If the rain forms a creek or a waterfall, consider incorporating it as a landscape feature, but look elsewhere for a spot to build the sandpit or start your vegie garden!

If it’s raining cats and dogs and you’re about to take to the lifeboats, you can take a temporary measure to control flooding. Grab a spade and dig a surface drain to channel away the excess water. Direct it into an existing drain or into your stormwater, or across a lawn or an area where it can be quickly absorbed.

Your local council is the best place to start if you have to improve the drainage around your property. They can explain the rules and regulations about how to deal with water flowing from a neighbouring property, and what can and can’t go into the sewer and stormwater drains. If you don’t have plans that show the location of drainage pipes on your property or have no knowledge of local creeks and water courses, ask the council what plans they have on file.

Ask the locals

Don’t forget to talk to the neighbours, as they can be a mine of information about local drainage problems.

Jennifer’s neighbour had been putting up with a flood of water down his drive everytime it rained. The water came past Jennifer’s place, flowed along the road verge and then headed down his drive, regularly flooding his carport.

The neighbour showed Jennifer a ditch a previous owner had dug, designed to catch run-off water and channel it into a dam on her property. The ditch, which had never been big enough, had become overgrown and blocked so that the water couldn’t flow down it any more. A few hours with a bobcat saw the ditch enlarged. Come the next downpour, the ditch channelled the water into her dam where it was needed and her neighbour’s carport stayed dry.

In a suburban garden, the same problem is often caused by a blockage in the gutter out in the street. A build up of leaves, papers or even a car parked over the storm water drain can cause a flood than may head straight down your driveway. So, keep the gutters cleared of debris and check the street if you get an unexpected inundation.

The following section details the different types of drains you can install to stop you going under.

Installing drains

Lots of different drains exist but there’s one thing to remember about any drain you build: However big you think it needs to be, make it bigger again! Drains have to be designed for the heaviest rainfall you are likely to experience, because when the really heavy rains come, you need to move water away fast to avoid a flood. If you are making a new garden, you’ll need extra drains; however, it may take a few downpours before you know exactly what you need. If you are working with an existing property, most of the drainage should be in place. However, if you have drainage problems, such as localised flooding or parts of the garden being slow to dry out after rain, your existing drains may need clearing out or enlarging.

As well as wet soil, signs of wash-aways and flowing water, other pointers to poor drainage include moss, weeds such as rushes or wild cannas, and water-loving plants such as willows or tea-trees, which all grow in water-logged soil.

Pointers for hiring a contractor

There are a couple of things to remember when you get someone to come to your place with heavy equipment such as a trench-digger or a bobcat:

When you hire a contractor with a machine you will be paying an hourly, a half-day or a full-day rate, depending on the size of the job.

The contractor will often expect you to pay a float fee, which covers the cost of getting the machinery to and from your property. Ask about the float fee when you are seeking a quote on the job as not all contractors tell you about it up-front.

Ask about the operator’s insurance and public liability insurance. Make sure both are adequate and up-to-date.

Make sure that you have a detailed plan of the area where the operator will be working that shows where all the services are located. If a trenching machine digs up telephone cables or other pipes by accident, you could be liable for cost of repairs and loss-of-business claims if accidents affect neighbouring businesses.

Importantly, when you’ve got a contractor working at your place, always supervise their work.

For more on garden contractors see Chapter 4.

You can dig drains by hand (hard work especially in clay soil but certainly the cheapest option), hire a trench-digging machine from an equipment hire store (you need to be quite strong to manage this), or employ a trenching contractor (an operator with a machine).

If you find yourself with several trenches to dig and little experience in that department, a good operator will save you time and money. Look in your local paper or check the Yellow Pages under ‘Excavating &/or Earthmoving Contractors’.

The following sections explore the types of drains that are used to fix the most frequently encountered domestic drainage problems.

Sub-surface drain

As the name suggests, these drains are underground and you use them to fix boggy ground. A sub-surface drain will take in the water from the surrounding soil, direct it into a pipe and channel it away. To create a sub-surface drain, follow these steps:

1. Locate a stormwater drain near to the area of boggy ground.

Refer to your council or water board plans for pipe location. (See Chapter 4 ‘Locating services on your block’ for more information.)

2. Dig several trenches across your boggy area in a herringbone pattern as shown in Figure 1-4.

Your main trench should run to the stormwater drain so that the water is taken away from your property (shown as discharge in Figure 1-4.) All trenches need to be at least 1 metre deep and around 250 mm wide, or wide enough to comfortably hold the drainage pipe. Buy 100 mm pipe for the main line and 65 mm pipe for the lateral drains.

The spacing and the number of trenches you dig will depend on how large your garden is, and how wet it gets during the heaviest downpours. When you dig a trench, make sure it has a small fall in it, as it needs to slope down slightly so that water can flow away quickly. A gradient or fall of 1:250 (1 cm fall for every 250 cm of distance) is ample. Use a spirit level to check that you’ve got the right fall.

3. Partially fill the trenches with coarse gravel or blue metal aggregate, lay a length of plastic agricultural pipe on the gravel and then shovel in more gravel to cover the pipe.

Agricultural pipe (or ag pipe) is perforated so that water can flow into it from all directions.

4. Completely fill in the trenches, a process called backfilling (see Figure 1-5), using the soil you excavated.

Try to buy your ag pipe with a sleeve of geotextile fabric around it. This fabric allows only water to enter the pipe, thus keeping silt out of the waterways and reducing blockages and clogging.

Surface drains

Also called dish drains, surface drains are called for when you have water running where it shouldn’t and you need to redirect it. The additional benefit of surface drains is that they are easy to keep free of blockages because they are open and can be readily cleaned out to keep them clear and flowing.

Follow these steps to create a surface drain:

1. Dig a shallow trench, at least 150 mm deep, but wide and deep enough to accommodate the size of drain you are using.

Dig into the soil, across the flow of water and in the direction of the stormwater drain.

Figure 1-4: A trench in herringbone pattern for a drain.

Figure 1-5: Installing a drain with ag pipe and backfilling.

2. Lay half-drainpipes (available at hardware stores or plumbing specialists) in the trench.

Make sure the tops of the sides of the drains are level with the ground surface so as not to impede the flow of water into them when it rains. Where the drain cuts across a path or anywhere else it may be walked over, use a U channel drain, which is a drain with a grill across the top.

3. Backfill around the drain to set it firmly into the ground with no gaps — you don’t want the water flowing next to the drain rather than along it.

Drainpipes

When you have water running as if in a creek and washing away soil, you need to install a drainpipe to carry the water under, rather than through, the garden or across a driveway or path. If you have a serious water-flow problem, you may need to call in professional help in order to get it under control. However, smaller jobs, such as directing water under a driveway, can be tackled in the following way:

1. Dig a trench where a drain is needed to redirect the water flow into a suitable drain such as the stormwater drain or a natural creek or damp area.

Note: The trench size you need to dig varies with the size of the pipe that needs to be installed.

2. Lay the pipe into the trench.

Pipes can be plastic (polyethylene) or concrete. The advantage of a good quality plastic pipe is that it will not be invaded by tree roots.

3. Backfill with soil around the pipe to conceal it.

Cover the surface with turf or with soil so that it blends in with the surrounding area. You can even turn the drain into a feature by backfilling with gravel and topping it off with river pebbles.

Where the ground can be dug up, putting a pipe in is straightforward, but you may be wondering what to do when you encounter a driveway or a concrete path. Relax, you don’t need a jackhammer.

Contouring

When you have sheets of water running across the ground, you can redirect the run-off by contouring the landscape. By moulding or contouring the surface of a lawn, or by building mounds that then become raised garden beds or are turfed over with grass, you can encourage water to flow more slowly or to flow into certain specific areas. Use contours to direct run-off into areas where there are trees and shrubs that can soak up the water. Gentle contours, often called swales, can disperse the water that flows from your driveway or large paved areas, or slow down the flow of water heading downhill. Contouring the landscape is best done by an experienced operator who will use a bobcat (a mini-grader) or, depending on what needs to be done, even larger equipment. In most areas, a licence is required to use this type of machinery.

If the drain needs to be installed under a paved or concreted area, burrow underneath the solid surface then push the drainage pipe through the hole you’ve made. For a small drain, you can do this yourself with a crowbar and a bit of exertion but for a large hole you’ll need a machine. Stop by your local equipment hire outfit which should be able to rent you a machine which rejoices in the name of a ‘ditch witch’. Why sweat — let the witch do the work for you. If all this DIY talk of big, heavy machines isn’t for you, get someone in (and see ‘Pointers for hiring a contractor’ earlier in this chapter).

When you install a long stretch of piping underground always include manhole points along its course so you can access the pipe to clear it if becomes blocked.

Chapter 2

Climates and Microclimates

In This Chapter

Identifying your climate zone

Working out the weather forecast

Making the most of your climate: Which plants where

Spotting a microclimate

If you don’t like the plants you can grow in your climate, take the TNT solution — pack and move.

Australia and New Zealand experience huge variations in climate. Depending on whether you live in northern or southern Australia, you could be surrounded by the lush vegetation of the hot tropics or be on top of the world in the cool air of the mountains. In New Zealand, although the climate variation is not usually as extreme as it is in Australia and is moderated by the country’s size and surrounding oceans, gardens in the north can have a subtropical feel while those in the south verge on alpine conditions. Gardening in Australia and New Zealand is very different from gardening in the northern hemisphere. In general, our temperatures are much warmer, with fewer areas experiencing extremely cold or harsh winters.

Climate is a real grab bag of elements. As well as the obvious temperature variations and the timing and amount of rainfall, climate can also be affected by the amount of sunshine or cloudiness you have and the direction of prevailing winds at different times of the year. By knowing all about your region’s climate, you can concentrate on planting and growing the best plants for your area. In this chapter, we help you avoid the heartbreak of trying to grow the wrong plants in the wrong place, and steer you towards the plants most likely to succeed.

Finding Your Climate Zone

Australia and New Zealand contain the following climate zones:

Tropical: Hot and fairly humid with a distinctive wet season (Australia only).

Subtropical: Warm to hot, especially in summer, with seasonal rain.

Temperate: Warm, cool and Mediterranean, with seasonal variations in both temperature and rainfall patterns.

Mountain: Cold winters and cool summers with reliable rainfall throughout the year.

Arid: Hot summers and prolonged dry spells.

The map in Figure 2-1 will help you identify which broad climate zone you live in. Then, check out the details of your climate zone in the following sections.

Figure 2-1: Climate zones of Australia and New Zealand.

If the area where you live is on the border of one or more zones, then read about all of those zones — just so you get the complete picture.

The descriptions and details of each broad climate zone are meant to give you a rough idea of the conditions in your area — obviously, climate patterns vary from year to year, as we experience the inevitable droughts, heat waves and cold snaps. The five climate zones we talk about in this chapter are based on maximum summer temperatures and on rainfall patterns. This differs dramatically from the northern hemisphere, where it is minimum temperatures that determine plants that can be grown and planting times across different zones.

Plants that are grown outside their normal climate zones do not grow well, are short-lived and suffer more pest and disease problems along the way. Although roses, for example, do grow in the tropics and subtropics, they suffer more frequently from black spot and other fungal diseases in these areas. In less humid and milder climate zones, such as in temperate and particularly in Mediterranean zones and mountain gardens, roses are superb and less prone to fungal disease.

The Tropical Zone

The tropical climate zone stretches right across the top of Australia, a region often referred to as ‘the Top End’ and extends down the east and west coasts. Sorry, guys, but a true tropical climate is not found in New Zealand.

Australia’s tropical region defines itself by its rainfall rather than the seasons of summer, autumn, winter and spring. Tropical climates do not experience frosts, and temperatures rarely fall below 16°C, even at night (one of the most over-used words in the tropics is ‘balmy’ and for good reason!). Most tropical plants are sensitive creatures and cannot withstand temperatures below 10-16°C for any period of time. The further away from the coast you are, the less rainfall and humidity you are likely to experience.

People living in tropical Australia divide their year into just two seasons — The Wet and The Dry:

The Wet. The rainy season generally extends from October to March, and is known locally as ‘The Wet’. In these months, the tropics experience storms and heavy rains. In the months leading up to the first storms, humidity begins to build and the weather becomes more oppressive. Rain is usually brought by afternoon storms or develops from intense low-pressure systems that can become tropical cyclones. In the wettest parts of tropical Australia, such as around Cairns in Queensland, the rainfall is measured in metres rather than millimetres.

The Dry. The dry season, which usually extends from April to the end of September, is known as ‘The Dry’. It’s still hot but it may be cooler at night and is less humid and sticky. Rain is rare and drought conditions may prevail for many months. The season may be extended if The Wet is late in arriving.

A huge range of flowering trees, palms, shrubs, vines and boldly coloured foliage plants thrive in the hot, humid conditions of the tropical north. Most are fast-growing and lush, particularly where additional water is provided during the dry season. Those plants that flower do so over a long period, often responding to the amount of rain and humidity. The following are among the most outstanding:

Colourful shrubs. Acalypha, bixa (Bixa orellana), crotons (Codiaeum hybrids) and hibiscus create a riot of colour through both flowers and foliage.

Deliciously fragrant flowers. The scent of frangipanis (evergreen and deciduous) is unforgettable, especially in the cool evenings.

Beautiful and lush climbing plants. Bougainvillea, congea (Congea tomentosa) and jade vine (Strongylodon macrobotrys) drape themselves over pergolas and shade blazing hot patios.

Watch some climbers though, they can go beserk in all that heat and humidity. They scramble up huge trees, engulf your house or even strangle you in the night if you leave a window open! Several climbers that are well behaved further south are positively feral in the tropics. Watch out for the sky flower (Thunbergia grandiflora), philodendrons and others!

Exotic flowers and foliage plants. Gingers (for example, the marvellous shell ginger, Alpinia zerumbet) and orchids (such as Cooktown orchid, Dendrobium bigibbum) grow in thick profusion.

Shady flowering trees. The poinciana (Delonix regia) is a favourite in the tropics.

Palms. The graceful forms of foxtail, royal and sealing-wax palms offer welcome shade.

Tropical fruits. Last but not least — can you see a custard apple, a jackfruit, a mango, a pineapple or a rambutan without thinking of tropical climes?

The Subtropical Zone

Australia’s subtropical climate stretches down the east coast of Queensland and into northern New South Wales as far south as Coffs Harbour. Although New Zealand doesn’t have a true subtropical climate, pockets of the temperate North Island, for example, around Auckland and north, enjoy a mild subtropical microclimate.