Horticulture for Everyone
The Art of Horticulture, with Chris.
Today I was going to talk about horticulture as an art form. The mission of Hello Hello is to make the beauty of horticulture accessible to millions of people. We do this by having an extensive website, by putting out reliable information on our socials, and by having a nursery with a huge range of beautiful plants.
You can’t see me through this page, but right now I’m in the receivables area, looking at what new stock that has come in for the Labour Weekend onwards. If you want a visual of what I’m talking about, just hop on over to our Facebook Page (links below) where you can watch this. I’d love to show you some of these plants and talk through the art of horticulture, in a way that even the most anti-green thumb can understand.
You walk into a nursery, and you see all these bushy, green, lively looking plants. But you don’t really know a whole lot about it – what soil type it needs, what type of climate it thrives in. Building your dream garden is actually a much more daunting task than it seems. Which is why I’m going to go through some of the new plants coming in so that you can be ready for this weekend.
Melaleuca Flowers
Blue Cedar Foliage
The Forest Pansy Leaves
Leaves of the Ginkgo Biloba American Standard
Fruit of the Cornus Capitata
Flowers of the Cornus Capitata
Now I’ve worked in the industry for many decades, but I still come across plants I haven’t seen before. Such as the Melaleuca. A lot of Melaleucas grow really big, I’m talking ten metres tall and eight metres wide, and are very bushy. But this one here just grows a couple metres tall, and a metre or two wide. It’s a lovely bright green plant and it would be really good in landscapes. Also it’s very hardy, doesn’t need much water and can handle a lot of wind and poor soil conditions.
So my dad was also in the horticulture field, and he brought all us kids into it. My siblings and I would go up to Lancefield and harvest the cones off of Indian Cedars. Then we would bring them back and warm them in this big boiler so that they would fall apart, and we could get the seeds inside. My dad would plant the seeds in a little pot and after about three years we’d get a little Indian Cedar. Incredible, isn’t it? That wasn’t the only Cedar we harvested, in Mount Dandenong there is a Blue Cedar that we would cut the shoots off of and then my dad would graft them. He would seal them up with a bit of plastic and tar and then grow them.
Nowadays the growing process of a Blue Cedar is a bit more complicated. You’ll have one guy that grows thousands of seeds that he’ll then sell to another bloke that will graft them and put them in pots for a year or two. Then that bloke will sell them to somebody else that grows them for another year or two. So it’s a lot of time and effort to grow a Blue Cedar and it requires a great amount of skill. The one we have here is five foot tall for $149.99, which is a pretty incredible price when you think of all the time and effort that went into it. If you are doing a classic or traditional style garden, a Blue Cedar would be the perfect addition.
Young Blue Cedar Trees
Blue Cedar Foliage
A Weeping Blue Cedar Tree
Now I’m going to show you something that you would never have seen before. It’s called Peria, a Purple Weeping Birch. This is a ground covering Japanese Willow that has been grafted onto a French Pussy Willow and then trimmed up and grown for about two more years in a pot. It’s a really hardy plant, particularly great if you have a boggy or windy spot. But it still has a beautiful fine foliage that is a gorgeous blue-green shade. When you look at a tree you probably never think about how many people and how much time was put into creating it. Our Peria here is a five-year-old tree and there is a real artistry and skill behind its creation, you could go to 60 other nurseries and not find one of these. In the horticulture industry there’s all these different people doing different things, and it’s really just quite incredible.
Deep purple colour of the Forest Pansy
The Forest Pansy Leaves
Forest Pansy plant in at our Nursery
Next, we have the Forest Pansy, another grafted tree. What they do is, they get a normal green surface that has pink flowers and then graft a purple one onto it. Now this Forest Pansy has stunning purple leaves throughout summer and autumn and in spring it will have pink blossoms. What a show of colour! It truly is a work of art. But quite difficult to do. To get it to the size that you can graft it takes about two years, and then to get it to a decent size takes another two or three years. Also there isn’t a super high success rate when it comes to grafting these, you really have to know what you’re doing.
Now this is a plant I only saw last week for the first time, it’s a Ginkgo Biloba American Standard. A lot of people love Ginkgos and it’s easy to see why. They have beautiful autumn colour, lush foliage and leaves that can be used as a herb. They also tend to be quite big. Now a Ginkgo Biloba American Standard is actually a miniature Ginko and it’s also a grafted plant. So it’s been grown from seed, grafted, and then grown for another few years. Most people are too frightened to put a Gingko in their garden because it might end up too big. Which is why this Gingko Biloba American Standard is so good because it’s compact and you could grow it on a balcony or in a small garden. It would never get too big.
Also we’ve got a really rare Dogwood coming in and it’s called Cornus Capitata. It’s an evergreen with these beautiful big pink flowers which bloom right around Christmas time. Normal Dogwoods are a bit hard to grow, they can be quite slow and fussy. But the Cornus Capitata will grow in any soil. We got another really cool type of Dogwood coming in, called the Eric Gennet. It’s the best flowering Dogwood I’ve ever seen, even better than the Cornus Capitata. The flowers are this creamy colour with little hints of pink, just absolutely stunning. Not to mention the other types of Dogwoods we’re bringing in, like the Dogwoods with yellow stems or the ones that have red stems in the winter. If you’re interested in Dogwoods than it’s a great weekend to come in.
Flowers of the Cornus Capitata
A small Dogwood Cornus Capitata
Fruit of the Cornus Capitata
Beyond Dogwoods, we have so many interesting plants brought in to our nursery recently. It’s the perfect time to visit and see the artistry of horticulture. Come down and enjoy yourself and indulge in that dream garden vision of yours.
As always, we have a little Q&A Section where we answer some of the questions that popped up. If you have any questions of your own come to our Facebook Live, it happens every week on Wednesday, and we cover a different topic every time. Here this week’s question:
Q. Burnett: What would you recommend to plant between fence and driveways? I have about a 10-15 centimetres gap.
A. Chris: Chinese Star Jasmine, Boston Ivy, or Ficus Pumila are all very good options. All of them could be grown up to cover the fence. The Chinese star and Jasmine need some trellis or wire or something to grow. But the Boston Ivy and Ficus Pumila will just stick on the fence and grow on the fence.
Well, there you have it, Horticulture as an art form. I hope you enjoyed today’s topic and don’t hesitate to reach out if you have any more questions.
Chris
Feeling inspired to create your own garden, but want some expert advice? Try our one-on-one garden design service with Chris. Together you’ll come up with a selection of plants along with a layout plan that gives you the look you want, as well as being suitable for your local soil and conditions.
Maintaining your hoe is very important – the poor thing is being slammed and dragged through the mud, the least you can do is clean it once every while. A good trick is to always carry a piece of broken timber or bit of board with you in your pocket and when you’re catching a breather you can clean your hoe with it. When I was a kid, my dad would have me out hoeing acres of land between veggies and nursery plants and things like that. And if I was out hoeing all day, I’d take a file out with me. And when I got tired, I’d sit down, I’d file a hoe while I was sitting there.
Did it surprise you how many different types of hoes there are or are you already an expert when it comes to the gardening field? Until next time, keep your weeds wrangled and your hoes in order.
But think about this, all nurserymen like me invest fortunes in building hothouses for our plants to grow in. What do “hot” houses do? They make it hot! And I’ve got a growing nursery in Shepparton with hothouses (or glasshouses) and I can tell you that it’s five or six degrees hotter up there than it is in Melbourne most days and the plants just love it. They going crazy there. So basically, plants LOVE heat!
That’s the first thing to know about plants and most people just don’t realise it, but plants really do love heat. We humans might suffer and it might be a bit terrible for us when the weather gets too hot, but plants love it. To prove this point, I took a look at some of the plants in this new garden that had just been planted literally 2 weeks earlier. Some plants in the garden had beautiful new growth on them, so they were loving the conditions and starting to grow. In fact, the 
Now when trying to work out when is the best time to plant in Melbourne, it’s important to realise what sort of climate we have here compared to other parts of the world. For example, I remember going to a nursery in Texas and basically it’s so hot in Texas in the summer and so cold in the winter that this nursery there was only open for a couple of months in springtime, which is the season that is between when it’s raging cold and raging hot. And that’s the only time when people in this Northern part of Texas, will plant anything. It’s just this little period between the end of winter and the start of summer. They plant their plants then and then for the rest of the year it’s just too hot or too cold to plant anything.
What this means is if you put a plant in and keep it moist, it’ll take off and grow straight away. So end January and February is a great time to plant. It’s much better than Springtime. Basically, what you need to understand about plants is that the hotter it is, the more humidity they require. So basically you can plant in the hottest part of summer, and as long as you keep up the moisture, you’re fine. Now, if you are planting and you’re just starting to get, a little bit of dew in the morning – a nice, cool morning – followed by a lovely warm, sunny day, it’s great weather for growing. So long as you are keeping your plants moist, you’re OK. And that’s where people get into trouble and fall down is keeping their plants moist.
Now there are little tricks that you can use to keep your plants moist. First of all, obviously, watering is the answer. I mean, if you don’t water, then you’re really in trouble. But how you water and when you water is all very, very important.
The next thing to realise about watering is that in Melbourne, over the past big drought, it was heavily promoted to have these little water handguns to water with. And most people have a half inch hose on their tap, and this combined with the little handgun heavily restricts the water flow.
What you really need is a three-quarter inch hose. Now the water resistance with one of these would be maybe a quarter of the water resistance for a half-inch hose. Now if you were to test a half-inch hose against a three-quarter inch hose on the same tap, with the tap turned on to the same full amount, the difference in the amount of water coming out would be 4 times greater. Yes 4 times more water!
Another thing about watering is your technique. It’s better to water in stages. Don’t just stand still and water the same area for ages. What I do, is I’ll walk up and down the garden bed and I’ll go up and down three or four times and I’ll put the water on in sort of layers. I think water goes in best in layers with a little bit of time between the layers. So it’s kind of like putting on layers of icing on a cake or something like that.
Root growth is so important when planting. Most people don’t realise most of your root growth occurs in autumn, so you get lots and lots of root growth. But you only get a very little bit of top growth if any at all, so it doesn’t look like the plant is growing but underneath, in the ground it is. It’s establishing itself. So then when spring comes, you’ve got this beautifully well-rooted and well-established plant, and it’s going to go absolutely crazy in spring and it’ll grow like crazy right into the summer.
This garden was a bit of a fusion style garden. It had a 
Now because everyone thinks the best time for planting is springtime if you do decide to plant in summer is that you’ll find some of your best discounts on plants are happening at the end of summer. You’ll actually find great bargains because most people aren’t planting at this time of the year and so the nurseries need to keep their staff busy so they offer big discounts at the end of summer. So not only can you get the garden you want, you can get it on the cheap. And if you plant it properly and water it properly, like I’ve explained here, you’ll find yourself saving money and having extra good plants, because you’ve planted at a sort of secret, but optimum time.
I chose things that are hardy and easy to grow, so they’re acceptable to lots of people. For instance, if you’re fixing up a garden to sell, you’ll find that a 
The No. 1 selling plant in Melbourne without doubt is your 
Now we’ve also included probably the bestselling plant just about in the whole nursery at the moment. It’s the 
Now when it comes to screening and flowering plants, probably my favourite is 
Now each time I design a garden, I actually have a process that I go through. I remember I had a job when I first left high school and I was fixing up gardens for a local real estate agent up in the hills for houses that had been sort of abandoned, when their prices were terrible. But then prices started going up so the people would go in and get their gardens fixed up so they could put their houses back on the market. I was doing that when I was just 17 so it’s actually more than 40 years I just realised!! So, I’ve got quite a long history of designing gardens.
Now back in those days people used to say to me to just “chop all that stuff out” when it came to cleaning up these gardens in the hills – just chop it all out. But I didn’t like to just chop everything out. Now back then they had me on a super low budget so what I used to do is I would look at things and if there was a Weeping Cherry that could be salvaged and made into a beautiful tree with a bit of clever pruning or so on, it was much better to save it and keep it and make the most of it. So back in those days when I was 17, I learned that by fossicking through the bush or the jungle of these gardens that if I could find the assets and find the things that I could do something with, I would open it up and reveal it, and that would make that garden come to life.
And I remember one time I saved a Weeping Cherry they had told me to cut down. I said just give me an hour to see if I can make you want to keep it. I recall the lady saying, “oh, I’m so glad we didn’t chop that cherry down. It looks fabulous now!” So I think that finding assets in your garden is really, really important. It’s the very first step I always take now when I assess a garden before doing anything to it.
I’ll actually look at the garden and you can do this too, just actually sit there and make a balance sheet for the garden. What you do is ask yourself what’s really nice about this garden? So is it nice and big and wide and it’s got a bit of size to it? That could be an asset. A great view could also be an asset. Is it a cute cottage garden? Or is it a fabulous architect designed home? So what you’ve got to do first is find the assets. Now the assets could be that it’s just an interesting space or it could be that the garden has a lovely brick pathway. So you find the assets first.
So in terms of liabilities, what you have to do is, you have to be ruthless. You have to say, well those taps over there and those meters look terrible, I’ve got to cover them up. So that’s a liability that has to be fixed. So you’ve got to focus attention on what are your assets and your liabilities and your assets need to jump out at you a little. So that’s the first step.
Then I thought, I don’t like gardens that are not in keeping with the age of the property. See I’ll often see a beautiful old Victorian house and people have used the latest slate for a great big black slate pathways or something like that and it doesn’t look so good. It just doesn’t go with the house.
Now what I felt the garden wanted to be was an old-fashioned 
It’s lovely and simple. And it’s very, very inexpensive. Lilydale Toppings are not expensive or difficult to do. It didn’t take very long. Just some good soil preparation, there was quite a few hours involved in that. But the plants themselves were just a very simple selection of 
And the secret to it was I let the house speak to me, it really told me what it wanted. And then I used my simple rule that if you can’t put in a decent lawn, then go for no lawn. And by choosing that, the garden is actually quite big and looks big. A lot of gardens are so small now, but when you’ve got a small space, either do all lawn or all garden or all something but don’t try and do a lawn and a garden. If you stick to that rule you can turn a small space into something really worthwhile.
Now this garden was created using my 
Now I mostly do these myself and I do up to six or seven a day. And if somebody is wanting to do a front garden AND a backyard, we have a longer session for 45 minutes but that costs more of course and you have to buy more plants to get it for free. It’s a great way to have somebody with a sort of an external viewpoint to your garden. But often I get people with very strong ideas of what they want. They know which plants or how to do it or where to start or whatever. And what’s good about my garden design is that I’ll work with you. Whereas what happens sometimes with other garden designers is that somebody talks to you, but then they go off, they do the garden design, they come back and they say, here it is. And you don’t really have much of a say in it.
Often, I’ll write down on the top of the page that the No. 1 priority for this garden is that it must look good. Now No. 2 might be low maintenance. Or sometimes I might write No. 1 is low maintenance and No. 2 priority could be that the garden must be “Tropical” or whatever. So it’s good to prioritise what you really want before you come in for a garden design. I always recommend to people to walk around their neighbourhood and pick out what it is that they like or get some concept of what you are looking for in a magazine or go online and look at things that you like. This can help you work out what you like and don’t like and then give you some inspiration.
Now my next rule that I have about lawns is that I do my absolute best not to put a tree or not to put a circle or a square or a little garden bed in the middle of the lawn I think that a lawn, particularly if you’re fighting for space, the lawn should have its own space. So what I’ll tend to do when people want to say put a tree or a flower bed or something like that, in the middle of the lawn, I’ll tend to take a corner of the lawn or take two corners of the lawn and put the trees or the garden beds in the corners of it and have the lawn preserved and open.
I think there’s this one odd thing in Australia, the way Australians have of doing a garden. They build a house and then they put a fence up and they put a driveway down one side and a garage and so on. And then what they do is they draw a line around the edge of everything and they make each area into a garden bed (see example left). So they have a little garden bed behind the fence, a garden bed beside the drive, a garden bed next to the garage, a garden bed next to the house, a garden here, a garden bed there…. You get what I mean. And there are just garden beds everywhere!
I really noticed this years ago when I was writing a little book on hedging and I grabbed all of these English magazines on gardening and real estate. And what I noticed is the English, don’t do that at all. They just put a garden out in the middle or out at the front. They don’t automatically put a little garden bed around the edge of everything.
See a garden is a bit like a canvas for an artist isn’t it really? Yeah, that’s right, it is. So by doing lots of little garden beds everywhere you’re creating a high maintenance, low impact garden. Also it’s going to spread your attention all over the place with small plants all competing for attention. But with a big garden bed you can focus your attention on it because it’s a real feature and it creates a real impact.
I guess the other thing with a lot of gardens is that they are way too complex and I think that simple, but bold gardens are the way to go. So what I’ll do is I’ll look at a garden and I’ll think of a theme and then I’ll tend to repeat that theme. And it could be a really simple thing such as I like really hot pink carpet roses. So often if you’ve got a driveway and there’s a garden bed on both sides of the driveway and another up the side of the house, what I’ll do is I’ll put in something like say your 
One of my favourite combinations starts with a fun, gorgeous plant called 
Often I’ll see something there that the people haven’t even seen themselves. Or I’ll capture some aspect of the garden or the home or something like that. It’s funny because some people start and they’re quiet and don’t have a lot to say at the start of the garden design but as we get talking, they start getting really, really emotional because they suddenly see how they can have what they always really wanted or suddenly that outcome becomes realised. And I’ve had people laughing and almost crying and all sorts of things during the garden design because suddenly we have a breakthrough and then we get to someplace where they never thought they could get to. And they go… wow!
Now for somebody who comes to me for a garden design and they say they have absolutely no clue, they’ve just got their place and they don’t know what to do with it. Well what I start with is I always just ask them what is the outcome that you want. So do you want your garden to be low maintenance or do you want it to make the house look friendly from the street or do you want lots of colour or do you want a garden where you can go out and pick flowers all the time. You just have to say whatever it needs to be. And as long as I have an outcome that you want and a budget then you don’t have to think much about it beforehand. Just come along and book your 20 minutes or 45 minutes.
I guess another aspect of garden design is there’s things that you have to balance in a garden. Like for instance, I might get someone who comes in and they love 
So there are often aspects to a garden where you have to think of things beyond what you see right there at the time. You have to balance things. You have to know that this plant here is 
They had beautiful, 
Now you can get the Convolvulus in a form that has both blue and white flowers on the same bush. You can also get it with white flowers and you can get it with beautiful blue flowers each on separate bushes. And it’s one of the longest flowering plants around. It’s one that I’ll often plant underneath, say 
Something like the 
Another problem people might have with their flowering plants is aphids. Now these are one of the easiest things in the world to get rid of. Now if you’ve got kids and pets and you don’t want to put anything really toxic on your garden, I find that a bit of pyrethrum and a bit of dishwashing detergent mixed together and sprayed on your flowering plants that have Aphids will work wonders. Spray it once on a warm sunny day and then 48 hours later, do it again to get the next hatching of Aphids coming out and they will be done too. This mixture doesn’t have a residual poison and it’ll clean them up for good.
Now if you have clay soil, it’s nowhere near as bad as what some people reckon for flowering plants. Clay soil is millions of years old and it has got lots of nutrients in it. But the main problem with your clay soil is the clay particles in it are all squashed tight together. Now plant roots need water and oxygen and they both can’t move well through heavy clay soil. So when planting your flowering plants in a clay soil, dig a nice big hole, much bigger than you probably think and mix your 
Now don’t forget when you are planting your colourful flowering plants in baskets and pots and so on, you can mix up different colours in the same basket or pot and that makes for some fun and interest.
Another problem with Ficus is extreme frost can cause them to go black or brown over the top. In a few weeks after that the leaves will fall off, but then as soon as the weather warms up again, the leaves will grow back again. So basically frost can be a limitation for your Ficus but it will recover mostly. Unless it’s in a really, really frosty area and then your Ficus can actually be killed by frost.
Now I was talking to a nursery person in Mildura recently and she told me that once you get through the first couple of years of frost, your Ficus will become much more frost hearty. Now she grew grew Ficus Flash and Ficus Hillii commercially in Mildura, which has very severe frost down to -4° or -5° or even -6°,. She said that the Ficus Hillii is very frost hardy compared to the Ficus Flash.
So, my parents would be picking heaps and heaps of these hydrangeas and we kids would help carry them in big bunches up the hill. Even back then in the Dandenongs hydrangeas were very popular. Everybody had a couple in their garden. But in the last few years they’ve tended to go out of fashion and people have forgotten about them and they’ve forgotten how to grow them. So that’s why I’ve written this article.
The first one is that they LOVE water! They NEED water and basically they’ve GOT to have water. It’s water, water, water. And that’s why they call ’em HYDRAngeas I guess. (Hydro = water, get it!)
Now because hydrangeas need plenty of water it’s good to grow them in a shady spot. If you grow them in a pot, it’s a good idea to put a saucer underneath the pot so that they can soak up the water and the water doesn’t drain away too quickly.
They get new shoots on them and then as you’re approaching Christmas, you start to get large flowers on the end of some of the shoots. They start with a very brilliant clean colour like a white one or a red one. And these flowers remain on them right through until April and May.
Then they start to go into their autumn colours. So, one colour might get kind of greeny tinges to it. Another might get sort of bronzy and purpley tips to it. Now these sorts of autumn coloured hydrangea are really, really beautiful. And they were the main ones that my parents used to pick and sell.
You can grow hydrangeas in a pot, you can grow them in a garden bed. If you grow them in pots, you can bring them inside at certain times of the year. For example, there are beautiful, brilliant red hydrangeas that are just gorgeous to bring inside for Christmas. And if you mixed them up with some white hydrangeas, they would just look lovely inside for the festive season.
One more hydrangea I really go for is the 
What’s also really great about the Oak Leaf hydrangea is that when winter comes and a lot of other hydrangeas shed their leaves and just look like dead sticks, the leaves on your Oak Leaf hydrangea will colour into burgundies and purples and reds, and then they will stay there all winter long keeping all their colours of burgundy, purple and red.
Then in springtime, when the new leaves come, they push off the autumn leaves and then suddenly it becomes renewed lovely and bright green. And then the flowers start almost immediately. So your Oak Leaf hydrangea, while not as spectacular as some of the other hydrangeas, it’s the only one in my opinion that looks good all year round.
Now another really exceptional hydrangea is the 
And there they were in absolute full sun in a really hot paddock. No shelter at all, and there was no sunburn on them. Of course he made sure they were given plenty of water. So if you are doing say, a 
So hydrangea are basically like litmus paper. (Remember from your school science days where you would dip a piece of litmus paper into different acids and alkalines and it would turn a different colour?)
What you can do if you use for instance, an acidic product, like a fine crushed pine bark and grow your hydrangeas in fine crushed pine bark, they’ll tend to turn into blues and greens and things like that. Then if you, on the other hand, were to grow them in a very alkaline soil, using lots of dolomite lime for example, you’ll get them in the reds and the pink zonings.
But before you plant your hydrangeas, what I suggest is you go for a little walk around your neighbourhood and see what colour the hydrangeas are in your local area. And if they’re all blue and you buy a “red” hydrangea and plant it, it’s going to turn blue because clearly the soil in your area is fairly acidic. I do have people come in and say to me “Chris, I bought a red hydrangea from you and I planted it and now it’s turned blue!”. Now you know why!
So just fertilise them once or twice a year with chicken manure or 
But of course, you can do it the other way and decide what plant you want and then find a pot that suits it and the place you’re going to put it.
But that’s not all, I will also ask you, why are you wanting to put something there? Do you want something big and bushy to block off the neighbours? Or do you want something colourful that makes a statement? Or do you have a beautiful modern building and you want something that leaps out at you and makes a modern statement.
Now just because you might decide to get a big feature pot doesn’t mean you need to put a big plant in it, because you might feel a little overwhelmed or enclosed by that big plant and it can be hard to get a bit plant that’s exciting. But what you might do with a big pot, is put 3 or even 4 different plants in it, with say some pebbles and something that overhangs the front like a 
Generally I recommend to people don’t end up with lots and lots of pots. Just put the minimum number of pots on your balcony. But go big and put some different plants in them. So for example put one big featured plant in your big pot then you can put some ground cover type plants below it, that will cascade over the sides of the big pot. If your big pot is in the shade you could put a beautiful fern or palm with some baby tears underneath. If your big pot is somewhere sunny, you could put some silver dichondra or succulent ground covers underneath.
The sure signs that your plant needs water is it will start to drop a few leaves and the other leaves will start to shrivel and wilt. The key to helping your pot plant get enough water is to ensure it’s in a big enough pot. Really small pots empty out of water very quickly. Now a good potting mix also holds water well, so that’s important too. With a good potting mix and a nice big pot, your plant can draw up as much water as it needs.
Now a lot of people believe you have to re-pot your plants every year or two. That’s not really true. You might need to top up the 
So there you have it. A whole range of pots to choose from and some tips on how to make sure the plants you put in the pots look fabulous and thrive.
If you’ve ever dug up a big, fully grown Japanese Maple, you might be surprised to see how small their root systems are compared to other trees. Because they don’t have an overly large root system, you can plant them in courtyards or other small spaces, really quite close to buildings.
One of the popular varieties of 
Another popular variety is the 
It can be quite a lot of work to graft them and it can be very difficult. But doing this can produce the exact shape and style of plant the grafter wanted. For example, they might do it to create a very, very broad head on one or to graft an older head onto a younger stem. This kind of skill takes years to develop and practice. So when you see a Japanese Maple at a nursery for several hundred dollars remember it might be anywhere between 8 – 10 years old. And it would have taken a lot of work and time in grafting and care to get the plant looking like it does when you see it in the nursery.
If you really want a spectacular show in Autumn you can’t go past the 
Another issue in Melbourne is that we have a lot of hard clay soil. If you dig a hole for your Japanese Maple that is only the size of the pot it was in and plant it, it won’t do well because the roots are not overly aggressive or tough and they can’t spread through the clay. In hot windy weather they burn and shrivel.
So the secret is more in how you plant it than where you plant it. Ideally, dig a nice big, very wide hole. Fill it with a good quality 
Of course, if you get a really hot spell the other secret is to just water it well. Daily is fine in summer, even twice a day on a real scorcher. With enough water they’ll survive the sun and hot winds. If you are still worried you can always use a soil 
So this is almost all you ever needed to know about Japanese Maples in one article. If you are still unsure about which variety to choose for your garden or exactly where to plant which one, don’t forget we have a 
They have it near the drive-in bottle shop in a narrow little garden bed that’s a bit shady and it’s the perfect spot for it. It grows lovely and lush and won’t get too big, only needs a little bit of trim now and then.
It’s beautiful, it’s green and lush, it’s very happy in its little shady corner but again it contrasts beautifully with all the plum coloured 
They look like the old-style metal tractor seats from say the 1940s and 50s. The ones that were set on a big steel spring. Now these plants love a shady spot too. They get this beautiful, big lush foliage on them all year round and then in late spring you get this lovely, yellow, daisy-like flower that blooms with a sort of spidery like nature.
Underneath this particular Tractor Seat Plant, they’ve used a little 
Now in these planter boxes they will have to keep it well watered, which they clearly do. So if you’ve got a little patio or a balcony or somewhere you want to create some privacy then using long narrow planter boxes just like they have here, with Ficus Flash in them, can create a narrow but thick privacy hedge or screen.
Moon Bay Nandina are a really good hardy plant. They don’t need much water and don’t need really much of anything. They are really low maintenance, a bit of weeding sometimes. They are really lush, beautiful, hardy plants. What I love is that when they are mass planted like they are at this hotel you could just walk through them and they’re lovely and soft. I think they’re fabulous. All year round they’re bright green with red tips on them, but in winter they turn an absolutely brilliant red.
Now, whether you’ve got a commercial garden you need help with or a garden for your home, then please take advantage of our 
You’ll also find 
Don’t miss our Overflow Area. This is where we display some of the best bargains we have. Sometimes we find a great deal on plants and we might buy 500 or 1000 of them. Or if we think the industry is going to run short on something for an upcoming season we buy up big to make sure our customers don’t miss out. 
If you pine for conifers you will love this section. We have 
Our famous “bare-rooted” area is where we sell plants out of their pots with their roots exposed and free of soil. We can only do this with plants during their dormant stage so it only happens for a limited time each year.
Our 
