These long lived deciduous or evergreen shrubs can be grown purely for their ornamental value. With their lovely pink brushed white bell shaped flowers and brilliant yellow, orange and red autumn foliage on a 1 to 2.4m high thornless shrub, they add value to any garden.
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Don’t throw your old plastic pots out, bring them back to us and we will recycle them for you. You’ll find our Pot Recycling Bin at the end of the driveway, on the corner just before you turn into the Landscape Supplies Yard. Any plastic pots the carry the recycling logo with the number 5 can be placed in here. (Please don’t drop terracotta or other types of pots off as these can’t be recycled).
Anyone who can re-use these pots please help yourselves to as many of them as you like. We suggest that you give them a good wash in hot, soapy water before re-planting anything into them.
Well, the last weeks of winter are finally here, with the scent of Wattle signalling the promise of spring just around the corner. The first Magnolias are in flower and the gold and purple of Acacias and Hardenbergias create a dramatic floral display. The cold, frosty mornings are a prelude to the burst of new growth that heralds the coming new season of life. We have already had our fair share of frosty mornings and more are likely, so continue on with those frost damage prevention measures for a few more weeks yet.
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Bulleen Nursery was established on this site way back in 1967, and we have dug up a bunch of old photographs to share with everyone. We will be adding new pics to this post regularly for the rest of the year… stay tuned.
A likely bunch of rowdy rascals… puffing out their biceps in an attempt to fill up the sleeves of their classy, skin-tight bottle green 80’s T-shirts.
English, Korean, Japanese and Dutch Box can all turn an annoying orangey bronze colour in winter. This bronzing is a natural response of this genus to cold and bright winter sun (cold winds don’t help either). It is not uncommon after a series of frosts (cold nights, sunny days) to get calls to the nursery from distressed gardeners about their bronzy box. This is more common in younger plants, but can also happen in mature plants. The plants are still healthy and will put fresh new green foliage on in spring. However, if your aim is to prevent this happening in the first place:
• In autumn, sweeten the soil with dolomite lime and feed well with all purpose fertiliser.
• Try to shield young Box plants from severe winds and strong winter sun, a temporary wind break is helpful.
If despite your best efforts your young box hedge goes bronze – don’t despair. Feed well in early spring and good new growth will soon emerge and your box will once again be a brilliant green. As they mature, the problem is less likely to occur.
Winter can be a challenge, but it sure puts a rosy hue in your cheeks when you rug up, brave the elements and go about doing some of those winter gardening tasks which have been beckoning from outside. Enjoy a warm drink – and the satisfaction – when you come inside.
Duo or multi planting is our preferred option (rather than double or multi grafting) when two or more trees are wanted in a small space. The resulting multi trunked, single canopy tree, is easy to manage and prune. You can radically increase the number and variety of fruit trees in your back-yard orchard with duo or multi planting. This allows you to enjoy a wider range of fruit over a much longer period.
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Acer palmatum and Acer japonicum
Of all the ornamental trees, the Japanese Maples are easily my personal favourites. Light, airy, layered.
The Acer palmatum is generally seed grown, so there is some degree of variability within trees, but generally speaking this is a delightful small airy vase shaped tree with a 5 lobed leaf, bright green in spring, mid green over summer, turning orange, crimson and yellow over autumn. Roughly 3-8m x 4m. It is from this species that the vast majority of the cultivars are derived.
Acer japonicum is sometimes called the Full Moon Japanese Maple. The rounded leaves have 9 – 13 lobes and give a wonderful light and airy effect. It leafs up early in spring with lovely lime green leaves, deepening to green over summer and then autumn sees stunning, almost iridescent, oranges and deep crimson reds. The larger leaf surface gives an amazing autumn display. Slightly taller at 4m to 8+m in height, you will need to allow room for it to spread.
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Nothing compares to the taste of homegrown strawberries, and those monster things you buy in punnets at the shops are generally a poor (and expensive) imitation. So, why not grow some strawberries at home! Good position and good soil are the keys to successful strawberries. Strawberries are actually a European cool-climate plant, and need to be treated with a bit of love in our part of Australia. For those of you growing strawberries during the warmer periods of the year, we suggest growing under a little shade cloth cover. This is ‘slip, slop, slap’ for your strawberries to stop the sunburn… they’ll thank you for it! In the cooler months, a nice, warm, full-sun to part-shade spot is perfect… morning sun with protection from the afternoon rays.
Asparagus are a hardy perennial vegetable that is highly versatile in the kitchen. They are great on the bbq and fantastic in stir frys. Asparagus are best grown from crowns in winter as they are guaranteed to be male plants, which are generally thicker and higher yielding than females. They can also be purchased and planted from seed-grown stock at any other time of the year, however there is no guarantee the plants will be male.
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Rhubarb adapts well to all climatic zones and most soils with good drainage. It can be grown in full sun or part shade, but avoid planting in heavy shade. Rhubarb plants are gross feeders and beds should be prepared by working through liberal quantities of well-rotted manure. Plant crowns 1-1.5m apart with the top of the crown level with the soil surface. Harvest very sparingly in the first year.
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A few years ago I wandered into the Wolf Bar in Carlton and was enveloped in the warm and heady nostalgic aroma of mulled wine. It shot me straight back to university days in the 70s and 80s, and every June since has seen me reaching for cloves, cinnamon sticks and red wine. I just love this time of year: the satisfaction of a major clean and tidy up in the garden, planting for spring with all the hopes and promise ahead, the camellias in bloom and debating squeezing in just one more gorgeous tree only available in the bare root season. It may be getting chilly, but now I have my mulled wine. Read on!
We sometimes speak to customers who are a little confused about what exactly an indigenous plant is. Yes, they are all Australian Natives, however the definition is a little more detailed. Specifically, indigenous plants are those that occur naturally in your local area. Obviously this term will refer to different plants according to where you live.
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Due to the removal of native trees across Australia for building, logging, agricultural or firewood purposes, millions of natural tree hollows are lost every year. The devastation is particularly apparent in urban environments, where the loss of established trees has seen a dramatic decline in native fauna over the last fifty years due to a lack of appropriate habitat and nesting sites. Even if you live in an area with quite large trees, hollows usually take over 100 years to develop. Thus it may be many years before appropriate nesting / roosting sites are available for many species. It is this lack of habitat that places significant stress on our native animal populations, and can result in once common garden residents becoming rare or non-existent in our suburbs.
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Sculpture and ceramics
by Nicola Hoyle & Ann Maree Gentile
19th May to 9th July 2017
Exhibition Opening – 2-4pm, Saturday 20th May
We are pleased to welcome Ann Maree and Nicola back to the Bolin Bolin Gallery. They have had a number of successful exhibitions in our gallery. Regulars to our gallery will know & love their work. Ann Maree makes colourful and quirky ceramic sculptures. Recently she has been making lots of birds. Some of her new work has been influenced by recent travels in France. Nicola’s metal sculptures and bird baths often feature in the gallery and garden at Bulleen Art & Garden, and are exemplified by the gallery sign in the new Bolin Bolin Gallery.
Find out more about this exhibition at http://gallery.baag.com.au/?p=3353