Carpark Collections and Driveway Drop offs . Coronavirus Measures

Posted on March 23, 2020April 17, 2020 by Annette Tickenoff

23 Mar

CORONA-VIRUS MEASURES

In response to the virus and for preventative measures, like many small businesses, we are offering a couple of options to help you during the lockdown time at home and in the garden, enjoying the sunshine and fresh air.

Nursery Visits

You are most welcome to come and visit our nursery. We have found this is the most efficient way to collect your plants and you can select your own stock. Grab a trolley, fill it up and then just load it into your vehicle. We have contact-less payment- EFTPOS machine avail and also accept CASH.

We are on 5 acres of spread out nursery. It is pretty quiet out here with lots of fresh air and open spaces to wander and look at the plants.

We have 1- 3 people on site and 2 disappearing teenagers plus we have sanitation measures in place at our counter. We love to keep our distance.

ONLINE ORDERS -CAR PARK PICKUPS

We can still transact using hygiene measures of our H202 sprays and keeping distance recommended.

CASH and EFTPOS still happily accepted but Please do not ask to use the loo !

Place Order online and select ‘Local pickup Free’ at the checkout. We will collect the stock from the nursery for you , so that you can then load it into your car.
Phone order through – 0418933376 or Contact us and we’ll transact using credit card over the phone – and have the stock ready for loading into your car.

DRIVEWAY DROP OFFS

Alternatively, we can deliver plants to your driveway – allow a week window for delivery timeframes

This is for the Bunbury / Australind / Eaton area Post Code 6230/ 6262/ 6233 at this time. – Please contact us for any other areas.

Delivery Fee is $30 for most general deliveries. If you are wanting larger Trees in 90l tubs , just contact us and we’ll quote it up for you

Order through this website
Phone in with your order 0418933376
Or Contact Us –

Please note – Nursery Specials and also Clearance items are excluded from delivery – these are pick up only

SOCIAL MEDIA & TEXTING

Follow us on Facebook and Instagram. Feel free to Message through these platforms. Happy to show you plants in the nursery via these forums.

0418933376

0428874944

Which Plant is Best For Hedging?

Posted on March 5, 2020March 31, 2020 by Annette Tickenoff

05 Mar

Narrow Down your choices

Hedges are used in the garden mainly to form a backdrop, hide a fence or be the fence, and are a great way to add borders. So which plant to use and how many will you need you ask? Well, it depends on how you want your hedge to behave. Are you looking for a tidy hedge that is tightly knit, for a formal garden, with not a leaf out of place? or are you wanting to create a large wall for screening purposes? Do you want flowers? fragrance? There’s a heap of plants that you could use. Let us narrow down your choices. Here’s what we grow in the nursery.

Hedges to up to 1m

Formal and neat

Japanese Box – Classic Hedging Plant – Lovely light green, oval shaped foliage. Ties in with many landscape styles. Slower growing means you can keep this hedge under your control. The lime green colour looks great and contrasts beautifully with darker green foliage.
African Box – Classic Hedging Plant – Quick to grow with small, tight knit foliage. Perfect to use for topiary shapes – you can clip into a swan or an elephant or whatever your creative self wishes.
English Box– Classic Hedging Plant -Very robust, deep emerald green colour. Tolerates many soil types. Likes full sun and can grow in the shade. Good to use if you want a hedge that is both in the sun and shade.
Port Wine Magnolia – this shrub can grow 2-3m tall, but can be kept at around 1m quite nicely as it’s not the fastest of growers. Regular pruning encourages a dense habit and more flowers. The flowers produce the most divine scent, especially after a warm day. They flower mid stem not on terminals so you can cut and trim away without removing the beautifully fragrant bud like flowers
Acmena Allyn Magic– A super small hedging plant that only grows 0.5m x 0.5m. It’s a Lily Pilly, so reddens up in Winter, and flowers in Summer with small cream flowers, followed by pink berries. (non poisonous) Great for a low, low border. Or plant against your other hedge for a tiered effect. These look great planted against African Box, or English Box or Japanese Box as the latter are a constant wall of green, where the Allyn Magics change colour with more noticeable flowers and berries.
Syzygium Tiny Trev – Classic neat and tidy hedging plant with deep green foliage. Grows 075m/1m.
Murraya Hip High – Murraya paniculata dwarf form. Same as standard Murraya, but only grows to 1m x 1m. Perfect for small hedges or borders with a gorgeous citrus blossom scent

You’ll want to keep the flowers on these, so no need to clip so often

Gardenia Florida – grows to 1mx1m. Looks great planted in front of a larger, clipped hedge. Rarely needs pruning. Sweet smelling flowers bloom from spring to late autumn and even into winter
Gardenia Grandiflora Star – No pruning needed, this little shrub only grows to 50cm x50cm. Lovely fragrant flowers from spring to late autumn.

Or use climbers as a hedge – a bit more clipping to keep it in shape, but you’ll get a low hedge quite quickly.

Chinese Star Jasmine – let this grow rambling on the ground and then clip it into shape to create boundaries. This looks fantastic planted under pleached trees, neatly trimmed into shape. Or plant it in front of a higher hedge. Fragrant white star shaped flowers in spring and autumn.
Hibbertia scandens – native to the Southwest, this will normally climb, but can be clipped into a low growing hedge for borders.

Not So Formal

Agonis flexuosa nana– this has been around forever with good reason. Loved by landscapers all around the southwest and Perth, this plant is tough and looks good. Used as a backdrop for many styles of gardens. Can grow around 1m – 1.2m
Nandina Dwarf – lovely leafy little shrub. Keeps its shape nicely without any need for pruning. Wonderful colour in the foliage year round with lots of variation in colour. Greens, oranges, yellows and reds. Reddens up more in Winter time
Nandina Gulf Stream – Another form of Nandina.This one only grows 0.75m and keeps it shape . The foliage is different shape – to the regular Nandina. Both are great choices. Rarely any problems with either of these

Larger Screen style hedges 1.5m+

Formal and Neat

Syzygium Bush Christmas ( Lilly Pilly) Grows 4m+ and can be used to create a larger formal hedge. Quick growing with dense foliage. Little birdies love to hide and nest in the foliage. Red new growth precedes little purple fruits (edible) in Winter time, followed by sweet summer flowers. Read below on how to choose a Lilly Pilly
Viburnum Tinus– Classic shrub. You can’t go wrong with this. Bright white flowers in winter time. Classic hedging plant that is tough as old boots. Been around forever. Is a deeper green colour. Winter Flowers. Pick this one if you want your hedge to grow in the shade as well as the sun.
Viburnum Emerald Lustre – If you’re wanting a super fast, super glossy, large leafy shrub, then this is the plant for you. This one is the fastest growing plant in the nursery (after Grevilleas, ok and maybe Photinias) and makes such a beautiful screen or hedge. Grows 3/4m x 3m with a cluster of fragrance flowers in Spring. Great for a corner fence to block off the street , down the side of a house in a narrower spot, or just down a fence line.
Viburnum Emerald Jewel – Quick growing and quite vigorous, tolerant of many soil conditions. They like full sun with some shade. Emerald Jewel has smaller, greener foliage. Emerald Jewel has a cluster of fragrant flowers in Spring time. These are a good choice for those narrower sections down a fence line.
Murraya paniculata can grow to around 3m. Highly fragrant blossoms in the warmer months smell like citrus blossom. Attracts bees and butterflies. Nice looking shrub with lighter green foliage that’s been around for a long time. Makes a really lovely garden background.
Port Wine Magnolia – including this in with the larger shrubs as it can grow 2-3m. It’s a bit slower than the viburnums. The fragrant little bud-like flowers are to die for. But it really is a handsome shrub and makes a beautiful hedge as it responds really well to tip pruning and regular clipping.
Photinia Red Robin – a fast growing plant – 3/4m x 2m. Brilliant Red new growth and looks amazing as a formally clipped hedge.
Westringea – Tried and True, this Aussie native plant will grow just about anywhere. See it used in coastal plantings and you’ll see why it’s chosen. Small, dense foliage with tiny flowers, there’s a few varieties available. Try Lilac and Lace for a shrub that grows around 1.5m x 1.5m – or Wynyabbie Gem, also growing to 1.5m

Not so formal

Casual and carefree, but does the job of a quick growing hedge or screen

Photinia robusta – Quick growing. Red foliage. Big white flowers late winter through to spring. Can grow to around 5m
Photinia Red Robin Another quick growing Photinia with brilliant red growth. Grows to 3m
Hibiscus – Try Hibiscus cottonwood – you’ll probably see this grown everywhere. Especially in recent developed suburbs. Has pleasing colours, interesting heart shaped foliage, with yellow flowers throughout the year. And it grows very quickly. Can be grown on the coast and tolerates salty winds and still looks good. Good for a quick growing screen. There’s also Hawaiian Hibiscus varieties – Considered by some to be an old fashioned sort of plant. But if you’ve got an area that needs to be screened now, these can do the job in no time. Best grown in full sun, but will grow nicely in shady spots too, these are really tough plants that can look spectacular if given the right treatment. Feed them up in the warmer months and watch them bloom year round.
Callistemon Kings Park Special – this one’s great if you want a native screening plant. It’s quick growing, not fussy on soil type. Can tolerate boggy areas, but also will grow in sandy soil. Attracts birds and bees and is quite quick to grow. Waterwise once established.
Grevillea Robyn Gordon – and associated cultivars like Grevillea Superb , Grevillea Ned Kelly , Grevillea loopy lou, Grevillea Coconut Ice are quick growing and non fussy if left to grow and do their own thing. They’ll reward you with flowers most of the year and you’ll have birds and bees visiting your place in no time. They’ll respond to pruning once a year, which will make your hedge more attractive. Fertilise using native fertiliser
Hibiscus Cotton Wood Very fast growing shrub that is used a lot by landscapers and home gardeners due to its robust , hardy growing habit. This plant can survive just about anywhere.

How many plants will you need?

What kind of hedge do you want? For a formal, clipped hedge with no gaps at the bottom, space close together. We generally go by the rule of planting 1 third spacing depending on the height you want to achieve.

Example – you want a hedge to grow to 1m, then space your plants around 30cm apart. You’re hedge will knit together quicker than plants spaced out further.

It does depend on the shrub you choose and which size plant you initially choose and of course, your budget. So if you want a hedge that runs 10m at a height of 1metre, you’ll want about 30 plants.

It’s not uncommon to get a phone call asking for replacement plants. You may want to consider getting a few extra to plant in other areas or in pots if you need to replace a for a hedge, where the customer has lost one or two.

So you like the look of Syzygiums (Lilly Pillies) How to choose a Lilly Pilly plant

A word of advice

It’s quite common for us to get a panicked phone call asking for replacement Syzygiums of a certain variety. There’s a tonne of varieties out there with bright shiny labels promising to be redder, or bushier, or have a quicker growth habit, or are psyllid resistant. Sounds great. These are great plants. Customer buys their hedge. And after a year, customer notices they need to replace one or two. Or they want to extend their hedge. So they start ringing around, starting with the first place of purchase. No luck. That variety isn’t available, there’s a new variety in stock though…gah! Why isn’t the plant available any more?

You see, plants, just like other shiny, products need to be redeveloped, repackaged and marketed to keep consumers interested. This results in newer, plant varieties along with shiny labels presented mainly at big box stores. Growers grow them for a season, and move on to the next ‘better’ plant next year. Result? That Lilly Pilly plant is not available any more.

This is one reason why we stick to one type of Lilly Pilly – Syzygium Bush Christmas. Why? It’s a great plant. It’s handsome, reddens up beautifully in Winter, and also grows quickly. Because it’s been around for a long time, it’s easy to get anywhere. We grow it every year. If we don’t have it, someone else most likely will. No need to worry.

Here’s another thing to consider when choosing your hedging plant

If you’re looking at variegated plants or interesting foliage plants that ‘twist’ have an interesting leaf as they grow, you may want to reconsider if you’re wanting to achieve a uniform look. It all depends on how fussy you want to be though. You see, plants, through selective breeding can be developed to have a certain appearance and your variegated plants can revert back to being green. Not all, but maybe one in your hedge, or part of the plant. Or from that interesting twisted foliage to a normal leaf growth pattern.

It may not worry you, if you’re happy to let plants do their thing but just bear in mind that what you’re buying today, may change further down the track.

Now You’ve chosen. How to Plant Your Hedge.

Not going to bore you too much with how to plant, (too late??) here’s a few key points

Dig a trench and fill with soil amendments – clay, rockdust and compost . You’ll want nice nutrient rich soil for all those shrubs, planted close together competing for nutrients. Your hedge will grow quicker and look green and lush.
Don’t trust your eyes. Use a string line to get plants in a straight line.
It’s painful to do, but clip plants immediately after planting to promote bushy lateral growth.
Clip in an slight A-line pattern so plants get more light and therefore more uniform growth.
Use a string line to cut height once established.

This post is an update of a post that was originally published June 17 2016.

Best Screening Plants for Privacy

Posted on January 31, 2020January 31, 2020 by Annette Tickenoff

red Cottonwood Hibiscus - good screening plant

31 Jan

Help! We need some very quick growing trees to plant around our fenceline for privacy -  We've just moved into our new home and everything is bare – our neighbours are constantly watching us from over the fence?  What do you suggest??

This is one of our most common requests – You are looking for the best screening plants for privacy from your neighbours. Something fast growing, but low maintenance plant (who doesn’t?) to hide an ugly fence, or soften hard-scaping such as a fence or retaining wall, for privacy from your nosy neighbours and even the rest of the street .

A good solution is to plant small trees or large shrubs or a combination of both. A row or hedge of the one plant or tree is nice and simple and creates a uniform look. You could also plant different shrubs and trees that overlap for a windbreak or sound barrier which also encourages biodiversity for local wildlife, including beneficial insects and native birds.

Your garden beds need to be as wide as you can make them for trees and shrubs to be happy and healthy. If you don’t have the space – climbing plants can be the better option. Try a few well mannered climbers like Chinese Star Jasmine or Dipladenia – (plant both of these together, they look stunning!) and you’ll achieve a quick (and great looking) screen as they clamber upward toward the light. Both are tough enough to climb up steel patio/pergola structures in the hot summer sun.

Fast Growing Shrubs

A word on fast growing – it’s often the case that fast growing means more maintenance – the quicker it grows, the more it’ll need a haircut. Fast growing also often means a larger tree, which may not be suitable for those with smaller blocks. Something to keep in mind when selecting your screening plant – perhaps, depending on budget of course, you could plant, a more advanced, slower growing variety.

Here’s a list of shrubs and trees that we have growing in the nursery that we consider good screening plants for privacy. Use these as a hedge row, or plant them mix and match to encourage biodiversity. These work around the Southwest area, if you’re in Bunbury, and Perth. We often have these available in a small, medium and large size pots to suit your requirements.

Best Screening Plants For Privacy

FASTEST GROWING

Grevillea Olivacea – Olive Leaf Grevillea – This would have to be one of the quickest growing plants in the nursery. Makes a gorgeous, dense screen, that can be clipped to shape

Viburnum Emerald Jewel – This Viburnum is a large shrub, growing up to around 3m with large, leathery leaves. Creates a dense hedge or screen.

Viburnum Emerald Lustre – Big glossy foliage – fast growing and can grow 3-4m. Good for those narrower areas, or along a fence line. Likes full sun and can tolerate a wide variety of conditions.

Hibiscus tiliaceous cottonwood – (pictured above) best selling plant, selected for its beautiful burgundy and green, heart shaped foliage with bright yellow flowers year round. It’s quite a vigorous plant, quick growing, providing a good size screen. Tolerates windy, and coastal conditions quite well.

Olives – are quite fast growing and make a good screen, with the bonus of fruit. you could leave them to bush out or plant them in a row, training them with a small trunk – called pleaching, or a hedge on legs.

Syzygium – Bush Christmas – – these grow 4m if left unpruned. Quick growing with Winter red new growth, flowers in Summer, followed by small red (edible) berries in Autumn, providing year round interest.

Callistemon – Kings Park Special – Quick growing native shrub – bird attracting. These grow quickly with moderate watering and are drought tolerant once screen is established.

Golden Cane Palm – this clumping palm can be used for screening, their dense, leafy fronds adding extra privacy.

Bamboo Himalayan Weeping – Clumping – This is a nice bamboo for a cooler, shadier are in your garden. They are both fast and slow. They tend to sit for awhile and you wonder what’s going on with them. Then BAM! Up they grow – an quickly

Bamboo Slender Weavers- Clumping Bamboo – This grows up to 6m and is a good choice for a tall, bush screen. Like all other bamboo, it will sit for awhile before putting on new growth quite quickly. Trim to shape if needed

Bamboo Golden Goddess – Beautiful golden form of Clumping bamboo Grows 3/4m x 3/4m wide. Great for a nice dense screen to block out

Westringea fruiticosa – Another fast growing native plant. Great for coastal screening and windbreaks.

Moderate Growers

Viburnum tinus – This is one of those old fashioned, classic shrubs that has withstood the test of time. Viburnum tinus is slower to grow than other Viburnums – meaning less maintenance for you! and it keeps its shape quite nicely as it grows. These are also covered in clusters of brilliant white flowers in Winter – Spring. Grows well in both full sun and shade, so if you’re wanting to plant an area that is both sunny and shady, this is a great choice.

Evergreen Ash – smaller, evergreen tree with glossy leaves, growing to 4-6m. Looks great for added height. Plant larger shrubs underneath

Magnolia Little Gem – Dwarf form of Magnolia Grandiflora. Very tough plant, providing glossy foliage with large white flowers year round. Drought tolerant once established.

Port wine magnolia – this shrub has the most divine, bubblegum like scent. These are slow to moderate growers, but worth the wait. The flowers are small, but the fragrance is divine.

Upright Flowering Plum Tree – This tree is upright and can be used for narrow passages, or down a fenceline. These are relatively quick growing, the beauty of these is that they are already a great size. Deciduous, so lose their leaves in Winter.

This article has been updated. Original publishing date is Nov 2 2015

Cool Your Home – Choosing Trees for Shade

Posted on November 29, 2019November 29, 2019 by Annette Tickenoff

29 Nov

Cool Your Home with Trees

Is your street hot? Are you living in an area that is suffering from the Urban Heat Island Effect and craving some shade? Don’t just put up a patio or shade sails, plant more trees! The best trees for shade to cool down your home are those massive trees planted 50+years ago. You know, those large n leafy Jacarandas, and Plane trees plus others that line leafy suburbs, growing more than 15m+ and usually found in older areas close to the city or town centres in surrounding parks and gardens, sucking up urban pollution and creating cool patches around the city. – But this isn’t practical for our small plots of land that have been taken over by large houses. We care way too much about tree roots getting into the plumbing and cracked retaining walls.

And fair enough, but we really need to do something to counteract the rising temps in our suburbs. Something that probably should have been addressed at the pre-development level by local shires, now rests in our hands. We’ve got to be planting more trees.

Aside from uncomfortable rise in temps in the suburbs, there’s the huge environmental impact as we use more energy to cool homes, there’s less biodiversity in our urban areas, and associated health problems with more heat related deaths. Plus, the mental aspect – we’re just happier living amongst trees.

We’re still suffering from the hangover of those ‘low maintenance’ gardens thrust upon us from early 2000. You know those gardens thrown together using grassy, spiky yuccas and cordylines, flax and dianellas. While these plants are very easy to look after and quite drought tolerant, they quickly look scraggly if not kept up and they don’t really encourage the birds and insects into the backyard, or provide much shade. Yes, they were a low maintenance, hard to kill type of garden, so we could focus on the important stuff like buying all the latest mod cons and toys for our larger homes. But now the burbs are heating up and we need to remedy this by creating shade back into our gardens.

Here’s a list of trees that you could use to create more shade in the garden

Large Shrubs

Great for smaller blocks, these large shrubs can grow into small shade creating trees.

Large shrubs can be quite useful for creating shade. Plant different varieties with trees and you’ll have lots of local wildlife like birds, bees and lizards making a home in your garden – creating a little microclimate for these little guys.

Hibiscus cottonwood – used a lot in landscaping projects all over the place. It likes living in our corner of the world and grows quickly.

Viburnums -Very versatile large shrubs. We usually have a few varieties growing. Can grow in the full sun. Or in the shade. Great for those narrow areas down the side of the house.

Syzygium -Lilly Pilly – Bush Christmas can grow up to 4m, creating a beautiful, evergreen little tree for shade that small birds, like the Blue Wren, make homes in as it has dense foliage.

Magnolia Little Gem – Chunky, white flowers year round, this is the small version of the huge 20m+ Magnolia grandiflora. These are a very adapatable small tree that can be planted in the sun and in shade.

Bottle Brush – WA favourite, fast growing, big beautiful flowrs and they can be grown in wide range of soil types and sun and shade positions.

Grevillea – Enjoy these year round, Grevilleas are really easy to grow. Fast growing and bird and bee attracting, as many are long flowering.

Crepe Myrtle – This is one of our favourites here at Lakeside. In the heat of summer, Crepe Myrtle will dazzle you with its vibrant flowers. Leave as a large shrub or train into a multi stemmed tree. Spectacular flowers in the heat of summer. Long flowering. Well suited to our climate. Can grow 3m – 7m depending on variety.

Small – Medium Sized Trees

Agonis flexuosa – Peppy Trees – native to our Southwest area, these trees are very easy to grow and the local, wildlife likes them too.

Chinese Elm – classic deciduous tree with an interesting shape. Quick to grow and easy care.

Gleditsia There are 3 types. Ruby Lace, Sunburst and Shade Master – Quick growing, these trees put out a lovely shade canopy.

Chinese Tallow very popular deciduous tree that does very well in Western Australia’s hot and sunny climate. Chinese Tallow is fast growing and displays gorgeous Autumn colours.

Evergreen Ash – Lovely small tree with dense, evergreen foliage. Use these as tree row against a fence with shrubs planted underneath.

Silver Birch – this deciduous tree has a gorgeous stark white character trunk that cracks with age and contrasts beautifully with small, dainty green foliage.

Flowering Plums – add one of these to your garden for a splash of red/purple.

Cercis – American Redbud or Forest Pansy – a beautiful small tree with heart shaped leaves.

Ornamental Pear – there’s a few different choices when it comes to this tree. Choose one that suits your block. They range from column shaped, upright tree shape to more of a traditional pyramid shaped tree. All display autumn colours.

Olive Trees – grow 6-10m. Can be kept clipped and are easy to grow, plus you get olives!

Large Trees

Pick these trees if you’ve got some room for the canopy and roots to grow. These are big, beautiful shade giving trees.

Jacaranda – everyone’s favourite tree that flowers in late Spring and Summer. Creates a gorgeous shady canopy

Tipuanu Tipu – fast growing tree with fern like foliage. Also has a nice canopy for shade

London Plane – elegant and grand, these trees can grow quite large.

Brachychiton – big leaves that stay most of the year, followed by bright red flowers.

Alford Blaze – this oriental plane tree produces fiery red foliage in Autumn.

Claret Ash – Lovely tree with soft, handsome foliage that turns a deep claret colour in Autumn

Liquid Amber – well known large tree with large, colourful autumn foliage. Quick to grow

Come and check out our tree nursery or get in touch with us if you’re after a specific tree for your backyard.

Rock Dust Fertiliser for Plant Health

Posted on October 4, 2019April 27, 2020 by Annette Tickenoff

04 Oct

Add Basalt rock to your garden. It’s volcanic and chokkas full of minerals.

Rock Dust Fertiliser for Nutrient Dense Plants.

The only supplementary gardening products we promote and sell is stuff we actually use in the nursery for growing and maintaining the plants to the standard that you see out here. As well as what we use in the gardens that we maintain.

We make our potting mix for the nursery out of select raw materials. In our own garden, we use a quality, composted soil conditioner to plump up our existing soil which grow our plants One special ingredient we add to both potting mix and soil conditioner is Rock Dust.

We stumbled upon Rock Dust quite by accident, years back, while ordering some road base for a new section of nursery. Upon overhearing a vineyard operator asking for ‘fertiliser dust’ – found out what it was and proceeded to order 10 m3 as a trial, adding it to our potting media. It didn’t take long to see results. Plants were stronger and healthier, and customers started to comment on the health of their plants purchased from us, months after putting them in the ground.

Jack’s been using it to top dress the lawn, after a clumsy spill on the grass produced a brilliant green colour within a week!

What is Rock Dust?

It’s not a true fetiliser as it doesn’t contain NPK. It just commonly gets called ‘fertliser’ .

Rock dust is Volcanic Basalt Rock. The name Rock Dust sounds magical and if there was a miracle product, this would be it. On top of the real life results we’re seeing in our plants here in the nursery, we’ve been doing a bit of reading as to why it’s so good.

Rock Dust is ground up volcanic rock, sand like in texture, that holds water, and adds lots of goodies that are instantly available to all plants – fruit trees, vegetables, natives, exotics, trees and palms, even proteacea (such as Grevillea, Banksia, Protea and Leucadendron) will all benefit from the addition of this product.

As you already know, volcanic regions produce some of the most mineral rich, nutrient dense soils on Earth. Rock Dust is full of minerals and trace elements ( micro and macro nutrient) that are lacking in our dry infertile, sandy soils. Rock Dust helps us to build the soil structure, buffer the pH, retain moisture as well as encourage healthy soil organisms which have a mutually beneficial arrangement with plants – they help plants access more nutrients and water – and in turn, these microbes get their sugary carb fixes from plants. Rock Dust improves the Cationic Exchange Capacity (CEC) of soil. Soil then becomes adsorbant – meaning the soil holds onto and chemically binds nutrients like nitrates and phophates in for plants to use, rather than being leached away.

Add Rock Dust to Your Soil

Add Rock Dust to composted soil conditioner and you have yourself a great all round planting mix. And you’ll see the results in your garden with lush, healthy plants and nutrient dense fruits and veggies with superior flavours. You can sprinkle some into your already established gardens at any time.

Talking to you in the nursery, we find that those of you living on the coast are quite disheartened to have to contend with sandy soil on your house block- and often have trouble establishing a garden.

What we’re living on is a strip of land called The Swan Coastal Plain . It’s about 30km wide and runs up and down the coast, North of Perth all the way down South to Cape Naturaliste. This land is mostly sandy, infertile and highly permeable which means that it doesn’t hold much water. While there are thousands of unique, local endemic species that have adapted to this type of ground over many years, this vegetation has mostly been cleared for farming or development.

If you’re in a new house in a newly built suburb, this sandy substrate, gets cleared of any natural top soil, with yellow builders sand plonked down on top. Furthermore, this infertile sand has tendencies be hydrophobic. ie – water repellent . The theory is that sand here in Western Australia is coated in a wax like substance leftover from plant residues, and microbial byproducts, that prevents water from actually seeping into the soil below. No doubt, you’ve seen this before. Water runs right off the soil instead of penetrating into the soil beneath.

To remedy this, build up your soil structure using composted soil conditioner, make sure the soil conditioner that you purchase is not diluted with sand. (don’t need more sand!) Good Soil conditioner is comprised of well composted organic material called humus and is a breeding ground for the microbial good guys – essentially bringing your soil and garden to life. Adding mulch keeps your soil moist and microbes alive while also adding more organic matter to the soil. Use a wetting agent if your soil dries out.

If you build your garden soil this way, you can grow a wide variety of plants.

By the Way, there’s one advantage to all of this sandy soil. It’s easy to dig to work in soil conditioners and clay and is also free draining!

Where Can I Get Rock Dust?

Rock Dust is produced locally from volcanic rock deposits found nearby. We have access to Basalt Rock right in our own backyard! 5 minutes away from us, across the highway, in Gelorup, ( Bunbury ) there is a Quarry that mines this Basalt rock. They use it to produce the blue metal, gravelly stuff of varying aggregates for road construction to use loose for your driveway, or hot-mixed into a highway. Rock dust is actually a by-product of this, called blue metal fines.

Incidentally, this rock dust is from ancient lava flow that formed around 130 million years ago when Australia was separating from India and Antarctica. Pictured here are basalt rocks at Bunbury’s Back Beach.This area used to be the site of a basalt quarry from 1890 – 1951 with gravel used for road construction.

We keep a pile of Rock Dust to sell by the scoop – bring your ute or trailer – you don’t need much – and it’s pretty cheap – $35 will get you a tractor scoop which goes a long way. (cheaper than sand!) or come and grab a bag and shovel and fill yourself – grab some clay and compst as well.

Alternatively, for those of you who don’t want a pile of rock dust in your backyard to shovel into the garden, we’ve got some pre-packed on the shelf which is ‘No Frills’ Rock-Dust-Plus.

It’s basically the rock dust, with other added essentials that your plants will love – It’s got some added ingredients that help to break it down so that it is readily available for plant uptake – A Great product. It’s easy to apply by the handful – with a little going a long way.

Our Soil Conditioner is also available by the tractor scoop or by the bag. We sell it for $35 per tractor scoop *We also have a soil organics plus BioChar, clay and rock dust mixture avail in tractor scoops for $55 for a 1 mixed scoop. Or $45 per scoop when getting 2 scoops . Bring your ute or trailer.

This post is an update . OP April 2015.