Johannesburg - Cool nights have arrived and the glorious days of autumn offer cool days for working in the garden.
There is still time to plant sweetpeas, sow a border of African daisies and plant spring-flowering bulbs.
The soil is still warm enough to move established shrubs and trees. If moved and replanted now, they will be established with good root systems before the winter rolls in.
What should you be doing in the garden? Here is a list of innovative ideas to start revamping your autumn garden:
* Soil: Improving the soil will improve the health of plants and enable them to grow stronger, flower more prolifically, and be less prone to disease. Adding generous amounts of compost and well-rotted manure before planting will help.
* Check the pH: Is your soil acid or alkaline? Simple soil testing kits are available from garden centres. A pH of 7 suits most plants.
* Balance: Has the balance between evergreen and deciduous plants been lost in your garden? Make sure there is a framework of permanent shrubs with good form and interesting textures as a backdrop. To avoid a bare look in winter, a good balance can be achieved if two thirds of the trees and shrubs in a garden are evergreen.
* Shade: Trees may have outgrown their space and now there is too much shade. You can remove some of the lower branches or, instead of thinking of shade as a problem, create a woodland garden with plants that thrive in these conditions.
* Gravel gardening: Where grass is not growing well, consider converting this section into a gravel garden or paved area, leaving occasional spaces for plants. Before spreading gravel or laying paving, level the area and lay down a weed-suppressing membrane. These areas retain heat, so choose hardy, waterwise plants, such as Arctotis, Bulbine, Festuca, Gazania, Stachys, Verbena and ornamental grasses.
* Narrow gardens. Do you have a narrow passage linking your front garden to the back?
Transform this into an attractive passageway by laying pavers for walking, leaving space on one side for a narrow bed and pots of miniature citrus. Frame the entrance to this passageway with an arch and attach trellis at intervals to the boundary or house walls for vertical interest. Place a statue or urn at the end of the passageway to create a focal point.
* Vertical gardening: For the trellis, choose climbers that are easily controlled. Foliage plants of varying heights and textures are best suited to this area if there is shade for most of the day. If there is sun for most of the day, drought-tolerant rosemary, lavender, small ornamental grasses and succulents would be suitable.
* Art in the garden: Turn an ordinary garden into something special with the careful selection and placement of outdoor ornaments. Rather have one or two choice ornaments than an overabundance.
A cherub perched on a plinth creates a focal point where a path changes direction.
* Containers: Plants in pots can brighten the dullest garden and provide focal points. Large pots planted generously are more eye-catching and require less watering than small pots. Think of containers as being gardens in miniature. For a good balance use tall upright plants for height, mounded plants in the middle, trailing plants to soften edges and fillers for any spaces.
* Add colour. Gardens are more interesting when we experiment with colour. Repeat a colour such as silvery grey or blue to link sections of a garden. Group enough plants of similar colour together for maximum effect. Try combinations, such as apricot flowers and bronze foliage, magenta and lime green, and scarlet and maroon.
* Think roses: Climbing roses have many and varied uses in the garden apart from covering an arch. An effective way of grouping roses with different growth habits, such as climber, shrub and miniature, is by choosing one colour and using paler and darker shades. Encourage roses to flower at different heights by growing them over arches and up columns and training those with whippy canes over low steel “umbrellas”.
* Meditation corner. Find a quiet corner or a space between large shrubs for a “wayside pulpit” with small-roofed wooden structures, as they had in the English countryside for weary travellers to rest. Use wooden poles and a trellis to support the sloping roof. Instead of using modern tiles for the roof, search for old pantiles. Add a small wooden bench to complete the sanctuary.
Kay Montgomery, Saturday Star