Creative Garden Tweaks

The sap has risen; blossoms abound and new leaves are unfurling. Enjoy the gentle beauty of spring and tackle the usual spring chores with renewed vigour. But, also think of new ideas to tweak your outdoor spaces. This allows you to intensify the pleasure that your garden gives you. Let’s take a look at 7 creative garden tweaks!

1. Colour in a jiffy

Were you a bit lax with your planting programme for spring and early summer? Are you missing out on colour around you? Relax! Nurserymen did all the work for you during winter. Their display areas will be filled with colour pots or bags with annuals, bi-annuals and early flowering perennials already in flower to give you a quick fix.

2. Plug in some fleabane

Erigeron karvinskianus is one of those groundcovers that one can stick into nooks and cracks and will maybe forget about until it starts flowering (which is seldom not the case!). If your old garden steps have become a bit worse for wear, or you have nooks and crannies to fill up, use fleabane. In this scene they have turned ordinary steps into flowering, romantic steps.

READ MORE: Plant a blast of colour!

3. Keep it simple

A large ball cut plant or any other spherical form makes a statement as a focal point where one is needed. If you have access to any type of stone which can be used like this, give it a try. Just packing it neatly will be therapeutic and the result will please you. A stone dome like this one, would be great between grasses or in a succulent garden.

4. Create a mono culture patch

Planting many of only one type of plant might be too much, but not if it is lavender, as it will attract pollinators. If you have a sunny patch and want it to be low maintenance, create a spiral-like design by planting different types of lavender in curving rows, leaving a narrow pathway to walk on between them. Their fragrance will be a joy and you will be able to cut some flowers to bring indoors.

5. Go to the wall

We often complain because we have to live behind walls. But when a gardener runs out of floor space, those enclosing walls come in very handy as a means to do vertical gardening. In this water wise scenario, a window box moved from its old place beneath a window to the wall, now houses a very healthy specimen of Portulacaria afra ‘Prostrata’ or the trailing porkbush. To our minds, this is a very underrated candidate for a container which should be used more – a no-worries plant that just grows and grows.

6. Give these beauties a chance

The following three are probably not every day patio plants, but why not give them a try?

Lewisia cotelydon (cliff maid or bitterroot) must be one of the prettiest summer-flowering succulents around. They like the basic needs of a deep pot to accommodate its taproot, a gritty soil medium, and to prevent rot, a collar of sharp grit or gravel chips around the base of the plant. Water very sparingly in spring and summer and keep dry in winter. If you want to grow it indoors, place it in a warm spot without draughts in very bright light, or even direct sunlight from a window. The floriferous hybrids of this alpine-like succulent called ‘Elise Mix’ have been developed to be more heat- and drought-resistant.

Gerbera jamesonii ‘Colorbloom’ is the perfect range to rid yourself of the winter blues. Fill little window boxes with these colourful Transvaal daisies and even keep them indoors on a sunny window sill as long as it does not get too baking hot for them. Gerberas do best with regular watering when planted in garden beds and once established, watering can be reduced. Water potted plants when the top layer of soil feels dry. To encourage repeat flowering remove dead flower heads.

Aechmea fasciata is one of the showiest bromeliads to display on a lightly shaded patio or indoors in bright light. It is always sold in flower and all you have to do, is to fill its silvery-blue leaf urn with water now and again. It likes humidity so place it on a pebble-filled tray with a little water in, and mist spray it regularly. The mother plant will produce pups when she is done with flowering, which can be removed and replanted.

READ MORE: Check out these flowers for your spring garden!

7. Alluring potting

It is fun to have rather astounding specimen plants in a hanging basket or pot which veer away from the ‘traditional’ spring choices. Nothing gets these two down once they have found their happy spots.

Muehlenbeckia complexa (Wire vine) has long, but rigid and twisting chocolate brown stems covered in small, shiny dark green to nearly black leaves. When happy with regular water and fertiliser, it resembles a maidenhair fern on steroids! Keep it in full sun or dappled shade outdoors, or in high light indoors. As a topiary specimen in a pot, its vigorous growth ensures a quick end result,
requiring regular pruning to keep it in check.

Dichondra ‘Silver falls’ becomes a dramatic curtain of silvery grey with its cascading growth habit so suitable to hanging baskets. Thin stems are covered with round silver-white leaves of about 1cm in diameter. This plant can also be used as a groundcover in full sun.