Fresh Cut Christmas Trees Are Coming! - Nov 20, 2025
Dear gardening friends
This is what I come home to after a hard days work. It relaxes me straight away, it's the colour green. It's also the beautiful shade that these trees cast.
Have you noticed how your body reacts when you walk under trees on a hot day? You feel instant relief.
I planted most of my trees in the gardens. This makes them much easier to maintain and the leaves and sticks fall in the garden and I leave them as mulch.
There's not a lot of flowers here. I don't want my house to look like work, I want it to look like a park, it has that feel.
I've recently noticed that two Kookaburras have moved into the garden. They sit in the trees and hunt the prey that moves across the grass. I'm hoping they keep the snake population under control.
At night I often surprise an Owl at the gate. Occasionally it bangs into a window hunting the frogs.
When you plant trees nature comes to live in your garden. We don't consciously think about that when we make a garden. We are just doing it for us.
But as you get older you see and hear the birds. You suddenly realise that what you've created has attracted nature. The sounds of nature makes us feel good. It gives us better mental heath.
I got squirted on the neck by one of these Bronze Orange Bugs during the week. I was pruning my Citrus trees into nice shapes and brushed against the tree.
Next minute my neck was so itchy and the smell was disgusting. No wonder they get called Stink Bugs.
Bronze Orange Bugs are sap sucking insects that cause damage to new growth and to the fruit. The fruit can actually fall off.
Bronze Orange bugs are native to Australia and they have moved from Native Limes to introduced Citrus.
They explode in numbers in late spring.
Some people squash them using gloves and protective clothes and eyewear. Others bomb them with insecticides.
If you're spraying with an insecticide, wait until the tree has stopped flowering, then spray just on dark when the bees have gone to sleep.
We have numerous options here.
Come see us.
Crepe Myrtle season is coming and we have a dwarf variety that's suitable for smaller gardens or large pots.
It's called Crepe Myrtle "Enduring Summer Red". It flowers non stop through summer and into autumn. Yes it has spectacular red flowers for 100 days or more.
Crepe Myrtle "Enduring Summer Red" grows 1.5ms high by 1.5ms wide. But it can be pruned in winter to any height.
It has fabulous glossy green and red foliage which is the perfect backdrop for the spectacular flowers. This fast growing shrub flowers straight away.
You'll have flowers for Christmas.
Nice plants cost $34.99.
I just had a lovely surprise. James and Sandy just dropped in to see me. I went to school with James at Macquarie Boys High School. I don't see too many of my old friends from School.
James has his own accountancy business and he met Sandy 29 years ago on a blind date at Bankstown Sports Club. I found this all out today.
I thought they may have been coming out to buy plants, but when I asked about their garden, they both laughed.
They only have two plants they told me, a rose and something else, with yellow and black flowers. Turns out Sandy can kill everything, even plastic flowers.
I told them a story about another friend of mine Glenn Atherton, who we also went to school with. I gave him a Frangipani as a gift one Christmas and it stayed in the pot where I left it for 12 months. I planted it for him the next Christmas. But Glenny is a gardener now, and he rings me all the time for advice.
So I haven't given up on James and Sandy even though they came out here today to play Putt putt. When I asked them why they haven't planted anything they got worried faces, especially James "We have terrible clay soil" they both said together.
But I got all excited then and I explained how plants will grow in clay soils if you bring in good soil and sit it on top you can just about grow anything.
I showed them a nice photo of that Crepe Myrtle Tuscarora that I posted yesterday, they both agreed it looked fabulous. Would you have a spot for that? I asked.
James got a worried look but Sandy was excited, the look on her face transformed. "We do have a spot for a tree". She replied, James came around too and they both discussed where it might grow.
So I gave them a tree, I gave them a bag of Tim's Best Potting mix to dig into the soil. I told them to dig this into the existing soil. Make a mound then plant your tree. Water daily for a month then twice weekly.
I took their photo with the tree, their faces were transformed. Sometimes people want to garden but fear of failure stops them. James and Sandy are retiring next year. This tree just could start a hobby.
More exciting than Putt Putt.
Fresh Cut Christmas Trees are coming next weekend, yes we will have 100 on Saturday 29th of November and more on Sunday. Trees cost $89.99.
They make your house smell like Christmas.
Happy gardening
Tim