Bulleen Art & Garden -

Garden Releaf Day 2019 – Sunday March 24

Mar 192019

BAAG will once again be supporting the Garden Releaf program in 2019 with Garden Releaf day on Sunday March 24. Focusing on the benefits of plants and gardens to enrich our lives, BAAG will be exploding with gardening ideas. The aim is to encourage people to get into their garden and get planting.

Get involved in a local community garden!

This year Bulleen Art & Garden will be holding a talk for people who would like to get involved in gardening, but who don’t have a garden of their own, as well as those who have thought about getting involved in a local community garden.

Marina Bistrin from MacLeod Organic Community Garden will be at Bulleen Art & Garden on Sunday 24th March at 11am to speak about what Community Gardens are in our local area, and how you can become involved.

Marina is very knowledgeable and is actively involved in many of the Community Gardens in our local area, and has a keen interest in cold composting and keeping things out of landfill. You may have heard of her if you subscribe to Local Food Connect, another valuable resource for local food and local gardens in our area, as she has had some articles published under the heading “Marina’s Musings”.

Half price blueberries all weekend!

All Blueberries at BAAG will be 50% off all weekend, with $1 from each Blueberry sold going directly to Beyond Blue. We will also be accepting donations for the talk and our gift wrapping service.

New Exhibition – Metal Transformations

Tagged with: Gallery

Mar 142019

Sculpture by Issa Ouattara

15th March to 21st April 2019

This exhibition will showcase the work of African/Australian sculptor Issa Ouattara. Although now based near Daylesford in country Victoria, Issa’s birth place was Cote d’Ivoire in West Africa. With a successful sculpting career in both Africa and Australia and family life in rural Australia, Issa demonstrates how a difficult start to life, including child labour, poverty and war, can be overcome. His contemporary sculpture draws on his West African cultural and artistic heritage as well as his life experience to create large figurative sculptures and functional sculpt-artworks .

More pictures and info at http://gallery.baag.com.au/?p=4052

Violas

Tagged with: Colourful Plants

Mar 122019

Happy vibrant violas – easy to grow and easy to love.

Lower growing and more profusely flowering than pansies, their smaller flowers have the bright and bold colours associated with their larger cousins and are equally enchanting. They will flower most of the year, but avoid the summer sun, as excessive heat will make them yellow off. Great from early autumn all the way to the end of spring.
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Old Man Salt Bush

Tagged with: Australian Natives, Bush Foods, Colourful Plants, Habitat Gardening, Rare & Unusual Edibles

Mar 012019

Atriplex nummularia

A summer growing perennial reaching 3m high and 2 to 3m wide. The attractive silvery grey leaves are variable in shape and size, and when dried and crumbled are sought after as a salty flavouring for many foods. Used fresh the leaves can act as a wrap around fish or other meats and grilled.
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March in your garden

Tagged with: This month in your garden

Feb 272019

It’s harvest time in your vegie garden, and time to think about what you want to plant in winter. It’s also a great time for making changes to your ornamental garden… the soil is still warm but the summer sun’s intensity. For those who have been asking, our autumn bulb range is starting to arrive, and garlic, traditionally planted around the autumn equinox (roughly March 21), is due in the first week of March.
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Preparing your winter vegie garden

Tagged with: Edible Gardening Info

Feb 192019

Autumn is the best time to plant your winter vegetable garden. As the weather cools and the rain starts to fall more frequently it is a pleasure to get back into the garden, remove spent summer crops and plant vegetables such as cabbage, broccoli, broad beans and peas. It is an advantage to start planting at the beginning of autumn as many winter vegetables require a long growing period. Read on for everything you need to do to ensure a bumper winter vegie crop.

Fruit Tree Espaliering

Tagged with: Fruit General Information, Garden Design, Pruning Grafting & Planting

Feb 162019

Espaliering is a fantastic way to grow trees (including fruit trees) in smaller spaces. It does require regular work and is definitely not recommended for the lazy gardener or those scared of secateurs, however the effort is well worth it.

Espaliering trees is a way of making them two-dimensional rather than three. It is all about maintaining the height and width of a plant while reducing the depth and is a great way of maximizing the productivity of a warm sunny spot along a wall or a fence. Effectively, it means you can grow what is normally a big tree (or two) in a much smaller space. We have quite a few examples for you to look at in our Edible Alley (located in our driveway) and all the pics on this page are
from that garden (except the large picture above, that one is outside our classroom doors in the nursery). Have a look next time you come down.
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New Exhibition – ‘Wozbits’

Tagged with: Gallery

Feb 042019

Rustic art by Warwick Hillis

1st February to 10th March 2019

Many varied creatures are taking up residence in the Bolin Bolin Gallery this February. They are unique garden art sculptures created by Warwick Hillis using metal scraps, long-forgotten tools and a great imagination. What started as a hobby has turned into a passion for bringing these quirky characters and sculptures to life.

More pictures and info at http://gallery.baag.com.au/?p=4031

Reducing the heat with vegetation

Tagged with: Garden Design, Sustainable Living, Trees

Jan 302019

As the temperature begins to rise and water conservation continues to impact on gardeners, people are watering less and are looking to find alternatives for vegetation. But by using some simple planting techniques you can help to decrease the heat around your home and in turn reduce energy consumption.

In response to global warming and water restrictions across the country, politicians are suggesting quick fix strategies to combat climate change. The latest suggestion to come out of Western Australia is that we need to get rid of lawns because they are impractical. But as members of the gardening and landscape industry what we really need is long-term solutions.

February in your garden

Tagged with: This month in your garden

Jan 292019

I am VERY glad I installed a drip system three summers ago now, fully automated, and finally all my pots are now included. I was unexpected delayed in Adelaide for two very hot weeks at the start of the year, and came home to a flourishing garden – such a relief. If you are a busy person – I cannot recommend an automated watering system highly enough!

Drought Tolerant Produce Plants

Tagged with: Bush Foods, Edible Gardening Info, Garden Design

Jan 132019

With Melbourne’s potential for very hot periods during summer, for exposed positions we need to think about heat tolerant produce plants. Even though there are many garden plants that burn and suffer through the heat without protection, there are also those that just seem to soak it all in and actively grow. For the home gardener, fostering happy plants can involve many different factors including good plant selection, appropriate planting time and soil preparation. One might argue then that for tricky spots, such as the hot and dry ones, good plant selection is the most important. It can be difficult however, to know from the myriad possible plant choices which ones are then most appropriate for those conditions. On top of all that, if you are like myself and want every plant in the garden to be edible, medicinal or useful in some way, the planting palate can become even more limited, but then the results of careful selection are very rewarding.
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Holiday-Proof Your Garden

Tagged with: Garden Design, Sustainable Living

Jan 062019

Planning to get away for a break is a part of summer in Australia. But the last thing you want to happen is to go away on a holiday, only to find a dead garden when you return. So before you head off, it’s time to holiday-proof the garden.

Avocados

Tagged with: Fruit Trees, Tropical Fruit

Jan 042019

The avocado is a versatile and nutritious fruit that, apart from being the perfect baby food, is high in vitamin C, full of anti-oxidants, great for our skin and a good source of beneficial mono-unsaturated fats and folic acid. The avocado tree is a generous, shady evergreen tree that may be pruned as little or as much as you require.

Generally regarded as a fruit of more tropical climes, many varieties of avocado will do just fine in Melbourne, as long as the soil and drainage is just right. Click here to see Karen Sutherland explain how to grow avocados in Melbourne.
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Cacti & Succulents

Tagged with: Cacti and Succulents, Colourful Plants, Garden Design

Dec 182018

Unbelievably ‘on trend’ at the moment – succulents are the botanical star of social media. More photogenic than George Clooney, they cover just about every look from cute and country rustic (think Hens and Chickens (Echeveria) tumbling out of an old boot) to chic and architectural. Add in the ease of growing and caring for succulents and their meteoric rise in popularity makes more sense. Minimal water and maintenance, plenty of sun and generally good drainage, these are very simple plants to grow. Neglect works for succulents. Some have beautiful flowers which is an added bonus, but their true strength is in their fleshy leaves.

Check the slideshow below for some of the great cacti and succulents we have snapped at BAAG.

Summer in your Garden

Tagged with: This month in your garden

Nov 282018

Long summer evenings, friends over for dinner, weekends reading outside in the shade, gardening with the radio on…..finally summer is here.

I love Christmas because I don’t stress over it. I can always grab a plant from work for a last minute gift, and the current preoccupation with indoor plants and decorator pots has made it soooo easy. You can tailor the choice to the person’s personality: sleek modern, folksy rustic, quirky handmade, its all available. Just slip a plant into the appropriate pot – job done.

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