Mulch, mulch, mulch

Mulching is one of the most important aspects of gardening in Western Australia, without it your wasting your time.

Just imagine how hard it would be to live in baking hot desiccated sand, just like running over the hot sand to the beach without shoes. The surface temperature can be quite extreme, which is just sucking the moisture and life out of your garden.

Mulch serves two purposes, the first to provide an insulating layer over the soil and secondly, to feed the soil. The top 50% of the mulch provides the insulation and the lower will become a humid area that starts to break down. This humid area is what keeps the soil happy and in turn the plants happy.

Mulch should be applied as thick as possible or at least 10cm thick. The best mulch is ordinary street tree prunings (and it’s free), the key to look out for is Rough, Course and Irregular shaped particles (black mulch is a waste of time, usually shreaded in shape). Mulch isn’t something that should hold water per se, the water should be able to pass through it down to the soil. Black mulch tends to wick moisture from the soil, causing it to be evaporated.

Free mulch can be acquired from Mulchnet.com. This is a service that connects local tree contractors to people who want the waste or simply GREAT MULCH! Have fun gardening.

Free Great Gardens Workshops

FREE Great Gardens workshops, focused on saving water, fertiliser and having a great time, these workshop are a winner when it comes to gardening in Western Australia.

Find out the recipes of what will improving the look and the functionality of your garden, how to save time and money, enhance the environment and the local wildlife. These workshops are jam packed with useful knowledge even for the most experienced.

The Great Gardens team also run several other workshops that focus on “Energy Efficiency” in the home, how to grow “Great Fruit Gardens” and “Heavenly Hectares” a workshop directed towards people with properties from 1 to 1000 hectares.

“Re-defining community environmental education through a unique, comprehensive and highly successful range of free environmental education programs tailored specifically for the people of Western Australia.” Chris Ferreira and Garry Heady.

For more information or to reserve your seat check out the Great Gardens website.

“The Great Gardens team, 2009.

Waterwise

Sustainable Outdoors has been endorsed by the Water Corporation and Irrigation Australia to provide high quality, industry standard irrigation systems.

When we install a system we like to see that our clients get the best advise every time. Being waterwise in the garden isn’t a challenge, we recommend the system includes a rain or soil moisture sensor, a programmable controller that can meet watering rosters and drip irrigation for the gardens and directional matched precipitation sprinklers for lawn areas.

For more information about our irrigation systems, click through to the drip irrigation page