:
- To attract butterflies, birds and bees to your garden, do not over-manicure but let your shrubs and creepers develop into well-formed plants with lots of flowers that also provide places for birds to build nests.
- Plant lots of indigenous plants because birds and bees have evolved with these plants and depend on them to sustain life.
- Heavily mulch the surface of your soil with organic litter which will help to conserve soil moisture, add humus and provide an environment for birds to hunt their insect prey – especially the robins and thrushes.
- Plant ornamental grasses or let the wild grasses in a part of your garden grow to the flowering and seeding stages as these provide excellent food for the little finches, seedeaters and manikins.
- Have a bird bath in your garden which many birds and insects will appreciate during the dry weather. Place a feeding table alongside the bath on which you can spread millet and sunflower seed and the remains of your breakfast fruit of pawpaw, bananas and avocados – which many birds love.
- Daily sweeping of leaves from your lawn will damage the grass and deprive the lawn of the nutrients that the leaves provide. Fallen leaves can be mowed when cutting the grass and either left in place to feed the lawn if not too thick or swept up and used for mulching or compost making. Frequent sweeping of other areas should also be avoided.
- Never use a panga to cut a branch from a tree or to prune a shrub. Always use a pruning saw, secateurs or loppers depending on the thickness of the branch to be dealt with.
- Complaints are often heard that a bougainvillea shrub or table won’t flower, which on inspection are found to be frequently clipped so that the plant never has a chance to flower. Stop the clipping and within a month the first flowers will appear and eventually the full colour will develop.
- Trees should not be planted in holes the same size as the container but should be planted in square holes at least 50 cm square by 50 cm deep (better 100 cm square by 100 cm deep) with lots of compost and bonemeal.
- Don’t let your gardener stand for hours with a hosepipe in his hand: buy him a sprinkler.
Plants Galore Garden Centre
Directions: Use the Limuru Road from Muthaiga and continue past the Village Market and the turning into Runda. 200 m beyond the Runda turning take the murram track on the right hand side, where there is a Plants Galore sign board. After the bridge over the river fork right; the Centre is 100 m on the right. You can’t miss it!
Telephone: 0773 612589
Email: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
