Pittwater Life September 2020 Issue

Garden Life
Garden Life
Help Dad bond with the
garden on Father’s Day
Don’t forget to spoil your Dad on
Father’s Day – get him into the
garden with a new toy to play with.
Garden centres and hardware stores are
full of good ideas: new sharp secateurs,
bush saws, and leather gloves make
pruning easier. Long-handled tools to trim
the hedge will stop him climbing up a
ladder, or really spoil him a new batteryoperated
chain saw or blower. A whipper
snipper makes weed control easier; or
for a very keen Dad, an electric spray gun
helps to feed the lawn, flower beds or the
veggie patch.
For new Dads, a tree or shrub that will
grow with the family is always fun. If you
are renting, plant it in a pot to take with
you when you move. (We have an azalea
that has been with us for more than
30 years. It flowers every Father’s Day
without fail!)
For a tree in the garden, choose a
flowering magnolia, a camellia or a
blossom tree.
If a native tree is to your liking, a golden
wattle, a cream-coloured coastal banksia,
a scarlet bottle brush, a grevillea or a
white paperbark tree are just the ticket.
with Gabrielle Bryant
Learn from
the mousse
on the road
Road builders learned many years
ago of the successful seed spray that
sticks to all surfaces, whether flat or
perpendicular. The green spray can be
seen on all newly graded
banks and roadsides.
Now it is supplied in small
domestic quantities.
Liquid Lawn Hydro
Mousse is the perfect
answer to seeding new
lawns on slopes and
embankments where the
seed would otherwise either
blow away or wash down the
hill, or turf would not hold!
It can be used to patch
worn areas in existing lawns
or to thicken the grass in
heavy traffic areas.
It is applied with a
specially designed handheld
hose-on spray gun. The
grass seed that is supplied is a mixture
of blue grass and fescue (but it could be
substituted with a seed of your choice).
The magic ingredient is the watersoluble
sachet that is included.
It may be hard to find in garden
centres but it is readily available through
Amazon, Ebay or online.
Check carefully what you are buying
though – some sellers sell just the bottle,
some the bottle and the Hydro Mousse;
while others include seed as well.
78 SEPTEMBER 2020
The Local Voice Since 1991