Let your garden grow with advice from the gurus
GERRY and Valery Zwart have been offering up gardening advice, tips and tricks to the Daily's readers for years.
But the couple, who has called the Sunshine Coast home since 1989 have been in the business for decades.
It began with the launch of a bi-monthly gardening magazine in South Australia in the early 1980s, continued with the Queensland Nurseryman's Cooperative magazine, and ended this year after about 20 years of writing gardening columns for the Sunshine Coast Daily.
Here are just a few of their pearls of wisdom for green thumbs.
Get your garden growing with these top tips
YES, spring is here, with warmer weather, some very welcome rain, and very few of us would complain about that.
It is, of course, a great time to be growing almost anything we would like in the back or front yard, and every year there are plenty of new varieties raising their heads to be selected.
Squash the bugs or try other plant
MANY gardeners are bemoaning the grasshoppers and locusts attacking our pristine beauties - cordylines, citrus trees and hosts of other plants in between.
We find carrying a pair of secateurs to chop them in halves or a quick crush between your wrists is pretty effective so try it out for yourself.
How to freshen up your indoor environment with plants
AS MOST of us are aware these days, the inclusion of indoor plants in our homes and work places is recommended, as the plants absorb the air pollution, providing good fresh air to keep us healthy.
In fact as I understand it, the plants absorb carbon dioxide and exhale oxygen - which provides us with fresh oxygen to inhale, and we keep the plants happy exhaling carbon dioxide. So what a happy combination that makes.
Create a hedge, plant a bed or put them in tubs
MANY people would enjoy having some camellias growing in the garden because the plant makes an attractive addition with evergreen, glossy-green foliage all-year round.
But for a variety of reasons, gardeners may not have gone any further with the idea.
