Hey all! First ever garden. I transformed my sad dirt patch into what is hopefully going to be a native retreat. Based in Gold Coast QLD.
We have a mix of bottlebrush, grevillea, banksia, kangaroo paw and some grasses. I wanted to plant in October but due to how poor and compacted the soil was this project took a bit longer on my prep work.
I’ve been advised by my in law to water each plant once a week, maybe twice if it’s super hot. Our soil was naturally sandy and I mixed the soil with compost about 6 weeks ago.
Last photo is what we started with 🙂
by Clud-96
7 Comments
I’m not on the GC so I won’t say how often, but while they are becoming established, remember to promote root growth by watering deeply. Usually deeply, a few times a week is better than lightly every day.
Dude, first up that garden looks amazing. Congrats.
For what it’s worth, my advice would be a deep soak with a sprinkler or soaker hose 2-3 times a week for around 40-45 minutes. Then once a week or fortnight I would do a hose-on spray of Seasol and PowerFeed to give the soil and plants some good food.
This is exactly what we’re doing in Logan for our backyard to bring it back to life. So far it’s working a treat.
I’m in Brisbane so similar climate. For establishing natives I water every day for the first couple of weeks, then every second day for a couple of weeks. After the first month or so they should need water only once, maybe twice a week. Best advice is just to look at them and see what you think, rather than going off a schedule because it will vary with weather. I’ve got a native beds that I planted out a month ago that I’m still watering daily, and probably will for a while longer as it gets full sun and we’ve had some crazy hot weeks lately. You also may find certain plants are more thirsty than others, for example kangaroo paw hates staying too wet. It can be difficult but try to avoid watering the plant and just water the soil for those if you can.
Once they’ve been in there a bit though they should be low maintenance for the most part. We don’t really water our established native garden beds at our place unless there’s an extremely long dry spell, so they just get water when it rains.
Great new garden!
My practice is to water every couple of days in the first week to help plants cope with transplant shock and root disturbance. Second and 3rd weeks, twice a week. For the next month or two, once a week, then deep water once a fortnight or month after that, if at all. Modified around observation on how plants are doing and the weather (rain, heatwave, etc.). The idea with occasional deep watering is to encourage deep rooting. Frequent little watering encourages shallow roots, therefore less robust plants. I also mulch heavily 10 cm with leaf litter or straw or similar organic to keep moisture in and keep soil cooler.
Apologies if I’m teaching you how to suck eggs.
Hope your new garden thrives.
Key is to water them thouroughly so the roots dig deep rather than stay near the surface.
Deep roots can then look after the plants.
Infrequently but deeply. You want to promote deep root growth while they’re getting established. Few times a week for at least 10 minutes with the sprinkler. Make sure you’re watering them early in the day and not towards the evening to prevent any diseases.
Every other day for two weeks, then water once a week and seasol the other week