Jennifer Stackhouse

While garden centres carry a broad range of quality potting mixes to suit the needs of all plants, some gardeners like to blend their own using a range of additives. To blend your own potting mix to use in containers, for special plants such as orchids or succulents, or for propagation such as striking cuttings or sowing seeds, you need...

Many gardeners want to control garden pests, but in a way that’s not going to harm the environment or beneficial insects. Here are some environmentally friendly pest control tips to minimise impact on beneficials in the garden and product recommendations that are safe to use in the garden. There are now many organic options for pest control, which include biological...

Lace bug is a serious pest in gardens, attacking the leaves of azaleas and rhododendrons. The damage it causes is seen as bronzing or silvering on the top of the leaves (see image above), but the pest itself is active underneath the leaf. If you look on the underside of a damaged leaf, the tiny pest along with frass (insect...

When we moved into our new garden, the first thing we did was repair the irrigation system. It had missing sprayers, some bits were slashed and it didn’t cover all the garden. Despite it being the middle of winter, we knew we’d need the irrigation system in tip-top condition when the hot weather returned and the rain dried up. Whether...

Don’t let a bout of hot weather ruin your garden. There are easy ways to keep your garden thriving even through a heatwave. The key messages are to make sure the garden (especially new and potted plants) is well watered ahead of and during a heatwave, shade vulnerable plants, and use mulch to keep the soil cool and moist. Here...

Hedges don’t have to be just green. There are many dense, evergreen shrubs you can rely on on to add year-round colour to gardens from their foliage. Here are our favourite colourful hedging plants that thrive in temperate gardens such as the Sydney area. Most do best in sunny situations with extra water in dry times. To maintain colourful hedges...

While honeybees are the most obvious pollinators in most gardens, there are many insects - along with larger animals such as birds and even bats - which also act as pollinators. To check out a bat-pollinated plant, see the sausage tree (Kigelia africana). There’s a specimen in Sydney’s Royal Botanic Gardens, but you’re not likely to find one in your...

What better way to enjoy entertaining at home than in a garden full of flowers? Summer has plenty of colourful and easy-to-grow options. Here are some of our summer favourites to plant in your garden to bring it to life during the festive season. Gardenia (Gardenia augusta) With its creamy white blooms and dark green foliage, gardenia is a shrub...

White flowers work with any colour scheme and have wide appeal in a garden. Concentrating on a favourite colour is a great way to personalise a garden while creating a theme to unify plantings. One of the most famous white gardens is at Sissinghurst, an estate in the UK. It was created by Vita Sackville West when she designed and...

Concentrating on a favourite colour is a great way of not only personalising a garden, but also creating a theme to unify your plantings. Red is a colour that many people love and a bold choice for a planting scheme. Make it even hotter by combining red plants with other hot tones such as orange and yellow. For a calmer...