Living outdoors and spending time with family outside is such a part of the South African way of life especially during summer. There are a few things you can do to stay on top trends as well as keeping your garden looking fabulous.

Grow something different

The challenge is on. Sometimes the best way to make your garden stand out and feel different is to plant something different. One tends to go for the favourites all the time but shaking it up is a quick way to revive interest and make the garden feel new and modern.

A browse around Eckards will lead to many including one that we have growing in our famous circle garden, The Fringe Flower – Loropetalum. The Fringe Flower is a surprising addition to the shade garden and does extremely well in a light shade or half day sun spot. If left it creates an open vase shaped shrub with arching branches. The dark pink flowers cover the stems in spring and autumn and summer interest is from the leaves that can have a plum to burgundy colouring. Also does well if clipped to shape.

We also love the White Correa. Growing in full sun is what one would expect from their grey leaves but what makes these plants most useful in the garden is their tolerance of shade. They grow in quite shaded conditions, but will flower more heavily in a sunny spot.

They flower right through autumn covering in buds and the creamy white almost fuchsia shaped bellflowers. After flowering clip them to shape and the plants will become denser. Extremely versatile Correa forms a fantastic hedge or ball, so clip it to shape.

Feed the garden

With the heat and watering to keep everything going we see how the gardens lose their lustre. We recommend that you feed boost growth and restore colour before the summer really sets in. Our top selling fertiliser BioGanic is a 100% organic and environmentally friendly fertiliser. Safely used throughout the garden. Apply across the bed or as a boost per shrub. For veggies or herbs the higher nitrogen levels promote good growth and as an organic using Bio Ganic will lead to better tasting edibles too.

Plant for Pollinators

Nothing is as satisfying as seeing the bees and pollinators making your garden their home. Salvia are one of the best perennials to plant for almost all year-round colour and for attracting pollinators. We love all the Spire and Bloom series ones because of their larger flowers and stand out performance. The Salvia Rockin Fuchsia has deep pink flowers and grows in all soil conditions in full sun. One plant will give you almost over a square meter of colour being incredible value for money.

Plant Bougainvillea

Bougainvillea have long been one of our favourites with their striking flowers and lush look. Grow them in a full sun spot which gets really hot in the garden or in containers close to the patio.
Not liking their roots disturbed when planting a new one make sure you don’t damage the root ball. Bougainvillea’s flower best in a well neglected soil. Plant them with a good start to let them grow and establish but once up simply ignoring them is the best way to get good flowering results.

Be on the lookout

Its summer bug time and the three most prevalent in our local area are the Mole crickets, Clivia worm and Christmas beetles.

Mole crickets are identified by a rolling sound they make at night, the damage to lawns is visible by the lawn becoming loose and thin in patches as they burrow just beneath the surface. Clivia worm attacks the Clivia leaves this time of the year by burrowing through the leaf all the way into the base of the plant and it can kill your plants. The Christmas beetle eats lace like holes into the leaves of Roses, Fuchsias and Arums. They only come out in the early evening and can make your plants look quite unsightly.

Because of the nature if these bugs we recommend using a systemic insecticide – Efekto Plant Protector, as this goes into the plant with a residual of a few months.