Spring Is Coming, Warm Up - Jul 31, 2025
Dear gardening friends
Every morning I listen to a bird who sits outside my window, in this beautiful Magnolia tree. I've noticed as I'm getting older that I'm hearing birds more. I love their happiness, I listen to them talking to each other.
I'm wondering if this is what happens as you grow older? Will I be sitting in a park feeding pigeons next? Where is this heading?
But I have a park here, I'm living in a park. This Magnolia denudata was one of the first trees I planted. There was a famous tree at Camellia Grove Nursery on the corner, in St Ives, and they had this tree lit up at night when it was in flower, it was mesmerising for me in my teens.
I've been amazed how fast this tree grew at my place, they aren't known to be fast growing. But I did a lot of soil improvement, I dug in lots of Tim's Cow manure and raised up the soil. Magnolias love compost improved soil, mulch to keep the roots cool, and lots of water.
As I'm going to bed my bird returns to serenade me. Yes it's my bird now, I planted a home for it to live in. It's a wonderful feeling.
My mum and dad have one of these in their garden.
It's an old world shrub that's gone out of fashion.
But it's coming back, this is a dwarf variety that's perfect for smaller gardens. It has been called Ginger Megs in the past, now it's Dwarf Browallia.
We have them for $19.99.
Centradenia Cascade, more commonly called Spanish Shawl is a ground cover plant that's perfectly suited for hanging baskets or pots. It spills over the sides with these purple flowers during winter and spring.
It grows best in morning sun, I've seen it used as a border plant in a garden at Ingleburn. It's a winner, we have plants covered in buds for $19.99. Buy a bag of Tim's Best Potting mix to make it thrive.
I walked past this tree on Monday, on my way back from the mechanic. It's just over the bridge from our nursery. When you walk, you see things.
I noticed this Iron Bark or Eucalyptus sideroxylon was still in flower, this native tree is endemic to the east coast of Australia. On a recent trip to Griffith I saw thousands of these trees growing beside the road.
The native birds absolutely love these nectar filled flowers, you can hear them squawking with happiness. The nectar must almost be alcoholic.
The flowers can be white, cream, pink or almost red. The bark is black and textured, you think it's been burnt in a bushfire, but it hasn't. It flowers through winter when food is often hard to find for bees and birds.
I've fallen in love with this Eucalyptus tree and I planted 10 on Sunday, which just happened to be Planet Ark, Plant a tree day. I honestly forgot, and I'm disappointed I didn't promote it.
I'm going to plant around 30 of these bird attracting native trees around Macarthur. In 5 years time you'll hear the bird's squawking with delight, I can't wait to hear that.
This was interesting, a customer just came in and bought 8 punnets of Dianthus. She bought a cutting in from a plant she had at home. "Can you tell me what this is?"
I found her the plants, and she bought them all, she really loves these colourful plants. I asked her what she was going to do about soil improvement?
"What do you mean?"
It's interesting how customers buy a tray of seedlings but they don't buy any soil improvement products.
I sold her a bag of Tim's Cow manure. Her garden was about 2m2. She was very suspicious, she thought I was just trying to get an extra $8.99.
But what I'm really doing is helping her have success. The Tim's Cow manure is going to make her seedlings grow, the difference will be incredible.
I advised her to dig the Tim's Cow manure into her soil, then plant her seedlings and water them daily. She will need snail and slug pellets too.
Sugarcane mulch would have been perfect to cover the soil to stop the weeds growing. If you want success, you are better to buy less plants, and more soil improvement products.
Happy gardening
Tim