Gardening and growing plants.

Box Hill Horticultural Society - 60th Anniversary Floral Exhibition

By James Wall

Well it was a beautiful Melbourne Day today and I was fortunate to be invited to do a talk at the Box Hill Horticultural Society Floral Exibition at the Box Hill Town Hall.

 

 

Here are a few snaps of some of the exibitors work. A lot of hours have been spent in doing these displays and it was work of a very high standard. I observed good colour use and excellent balance and structure.

How to lay turf. Tips from a beginner.

Well, there are some sore muscles inside my body. My sides just below my shoulders have a bit of an ache because I have just laid about 30 sq metres of turf. Having never done this before, I had a few chats with the team down at The Smart Water Shop here at Gardenworld. They sell around 6 different varieties of turf, and have them all on display. I am going for Sir Walter Buffalo as that is the already existing grass that I will be joining up to. Sure you can also buy grass seed, and both methods of raising a lawn have there own special tricks, but here are a few that I have learned whilst laying turf.

Don't let the whole project drag out or your greatest enemy will emerge before your turf - those wretched weeds. Once entrenched in your patch, you will be forever plotting their demise. The sooner you lay the turf, the less area for them to multiply.

Preparation. I can't express the importance of this enough. Getting it right means the turf laying is the easy bit. The topsoil we had seemed a bit fine and I was worried about it draining well, so I added some granitic sand and forked this through the soil. This would add larger particles and allow more oxygen to help aid root growth.

The other key to good preparation is getting the levels right. If you are running up to a hard surface, you need to level the ground about 20mm below this surface so as the two end up level. This will help when it comes to mowing and will ensure that no dangerous blades hit the hard surface. It will also make doing the edges easier. At one stage I was too high, and as I had not checked this with an actual piece of turf, when I got the turf, it had been cut quite thickly. Maybe it is thicker when they harvest it in winter. I am not sure, but I had to skim some soil of the surface and this took me quite a while.