Take a 15 to 20 cm semi-hardwood stem cutting, strip the lower leaves, and push it into moist potting mix. That is how to grow katuk sweet leaf in a temperate garden: fast shoots, a deep pot, bright shade, and…
Sow stonebreaker seeds indoors 6 to 8 weeks before your last frost, at 25 to 30 degrees Celsius, and seedlings emerge within 1 to 2 weeks in a warm, bright spot. That is how to grow stonebreaker from Indonesia in…
11 pests attack pumpkins in Australian gardens. Six of them suck sap. The rest chew leaves, stems, or fruit, and the fix follows the feeding type. If you searched for sap-sucking bugs on pumpkin, start here, because the most famous…
A witch garden is a working garden with a point of view. The beds grow herbs for the kitchen and the teapot, the paths curve on purpose, and the whole planting glows after dark. Gardeners have built versions of it…
Every October the same thing happens on this street. One house sets out a single perfect jack-o’-lantern, and the whole street quietly agrees the gauntlet has been thrown. Funny pumpkin carving ideas win that friendly contest more often than scary…
Match the browning pattern to 1 of 9 causes before you spray, prune, or feed anything. A lilly pilly turns brown from water stress, weather burn, insects, fungi, or one biosecurity disease, and each cause leaves a different mark on…
Sow sweet corn in a block of at least 4 rows after the soil warms, feed it like the heavy feeder it is, and pick each cob the day you eat it. That is growing corn in Australia in one…
Planting takes one autumn afternoon. At 10 cm spacing, 60 corms need about 6 square feet of bed. Harvest comes the next October. Difficulty is moderate: the planting is easy, the patience and the drainage discipline are not. Kashmir saffron…
White stuff on plants in Australia comes from 3 culprits in most gardens: mealybugs, powdery mildew, or scale. Run 3 tests before you spray anything. The rub test names the culprit. The sticky test confirms it. The disturb test rules…
Water it 1 to 2 times a month. Give it bright indirect light. That is how to grow ZZ plant the honest way: the plant grows steadily for years on that alone. A ZZ plant (Zamioculcas zamiifolia) stores water in…
Chill your tulip bulbs 6 to 12 weeks in a paper bag in the refrigerator crisper before you plant them. That is how to grow tulips where winters stay too warm to do the job outdoors. In my experience, those…
Pick the right hibiscus before you plant anything. The word “hibiscus” covers three very different plants: tropical Hibiscus rosa-sinensis, hardy Hibiscus syriacus, and the Australian native Hibiscus tiliaceus. Tropical hibiscus grows 4 to 10 feet tall with flowers up to…
Push the pot 1 to 2 metres back from your brightest window, tie the main stem to a damp moss pole, and give the plant two full growing seasons. That combination is what earns a monstera its fenestrations. Learning how…
Start tulsi indoors 6 to 12 weeks before your last frost, move it out only when nights stay above 50°F, and you can cut your first handful of leaves at the four-month mark after sowing. In USDA zones 10 and…
Give one Lonicera japonica vine a 2-meter trellis in full sun and prune it hard twice a year. That is how to grow honeysuckle for tea without the plant eating your fence line. The rest of this page is 12…
Yes, you can treat Phomopsis canker at home. Cut out every cankered branch 6 to 12 inches below the visible damage, disinfect your tools between cuts, and destroy the debris. Do the work in dry weather. That prune-out-and-dispose protocol is…
What’s eating my plants in Australia? Start with the damage, not the pest. Holes, slime trails, curled leaves, and missing seedlings each point to a short list of culprits, and the 15 pests below match each sign to its maker…
4 to 5 years. That is how to grow white peony root from a bare-root division to a bai shao harvest: plant in autumn, give the plant four full seasons to build thick roots, then dig, peel, boil, and sun-dry…
To grow Arabian jasmine, give the plant full sun, a loose well-drained mix, and a pot you can carry indoors, because this tropical shrub only survives outdoors year-round in USDA zones 9 through 11. A healthy plant reaches 6 to…
Start with a 20-gallon (76-liter) pot, full sun, and a plan to bring the tree indoors before hard frost. That is how to grow bilimbi outside the tropics: the tree stays small enough to wheel inside, and seeds grow into…
