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Author:AMICO’s Founder – Ami Bauer

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July 15, 2018 In Plant and Tree Ideas

What To Plant In Winter, Summer, Autumn And Spring

After cooler air sets in during Autumn, and turns crisp as Winter rolls around, it can be easy to think you need to abandon any hope of planting new greenery until Spring. Luckily, Australia’s nationwide milder winter climate and a lack of snow or frost, means you don’t have to wait. Regardless of the time of year, our helpful guide will unleash your green thumb and enhance your garden—no matter the season!

Winter Planting Plans

The great variety of Winter planting options means you can focus on enhancing your vegetable garden—and your dinner plate! Plants with large dark leaves are your best ‘go to’ for Winter planting and will give you something to harvest in Spring. This means leafy green spinach varieties, such as the tasty, quick-growing Winter Queen Spinach, winter-friendly Greenfeast peas, or gorgeous, bright red strawberries.

what to plant in winter

If your veggie patch is already full and you’re looking for some vibrant splashes of colour in your garden, think about adding in some flowering plants. The Madeira range of argyranthemum daisies grow rapidly, and the stunning ‘Red Double’ variety produces beautiful, eye-catching blooms to enliven your winter plot.

Summer Gardening Ideas 

Australia’s gorgeous Summer weather means it’s the perfect time to get outdoors, stretch your green thumbs, and enhance your garden. If the hot weather sends you to salads for lunch and dinner, support your green-eating habits with pot-friendly veggie options like rocket and beetroot. If you have a little more gardening space to play with, cucumbers and broccoli are wonderful vegetable options for your summer planting goals.

what to plant in summer

Summer flower planting options include the deceptively hardy outdoor varieties of cyclamen: dormant throughout summer, planting new cyclamens in a shady spot in your garden will ensure you’re rewarded with gorgeous, delicate-looking flowers in January. Planting cool-season bloomers (like violas) in Summer is also a great idea, as it means reaping the bright, flowery benefits later in the year.

What to Plant in Autumn

The mild Autumn weather makes gardening a pleasure, and Autumn is the perfect time to put the time and energy into your garden so that you can benefit from all your hard work later in the year. Cultivating your vegetable garden in Autumn means harvesting a wide array of veggies in winter and spring, and the cooler season means a welcome reprieve from summer pests. Cruciferous vegetables like broccoli and cauliflower are wonderful planting options for Autumn gardens, as are leafy green varieties like spinach and rocket.

what to plant in autumn

Autumn offers a wonderful opportunity to infuse your cool-weather garden with bright colours and beautiful flowering plants. Pansies planted in early Autumn will flower in late Autumn through to Spring and come in an incredible variety of colours and styles, including striped, frilly and bicoloured. This is also the perfect season in which to plant carnations, daisies and nasturtiums for splashes of garden colour.

Spring your Garden into Spring!

Spring is every gardener’s favourite time of year, and for good reason. Spring is undoubtedly the best season to get your hands in the dirt, and with an enormous range of veggies, fruits, flowers, and trees to plant, the biggest challenge is picking which ones you want! Great vegetables and herbs to plant in Spring include pot-friendly basil, spring onions, tomatoes, capsicum and chilli, while plots of soil can be filled with eggplant, cucumber, and pumpkin.

what to plant in spring

If flowering plants are more your style, some of the most popular include snapdragons, geraniums, and marigolds. Geraniums, with their beautifully-scented blooms and garden hardiness, come in over 300 varieties to bring life and vitality to your Spring garden. You can look ahead as well: planting a slew of sunflowers in Spring will guarantee a vibrant sunshine brilliance to your outdoors when Summer comes.

If you’d love to see how Amico’s horticultural experts plant and cultivate different gardens all year round, have a look at our project gallery! Here, you can get an idea of the wide array of stunning gardens we’ve helped to create over the years, no matter the season.

If you’d like to hear more about what we can do for you and your dreams of greenery for every season, get in touch with us for our expert gardening services advice, or tell us all about your seasonal garden dreams and ask for your personalised quote.

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June 15, 2018 In Garden and Landscaping Ideas

5 Best Outdoor Plants for All Seasons

Seasonal changes and differing planting requirements in your garden can be an absolute nightmare: especially if you’re time poor! Luckily, there’s a wide array of stunning, interesting, and hardy plants available to revitalise your garden and keep your world green; we’ve collected the best outdoor plants for all seasons to make sure your garden paradise is just how you want it, all year-round.

Grey Myrtle

This beautiful small rainforest tree is famed for its timber, bark, and the delightful cinnamon scent of its foliage, with gorgeous calming clusters of cream-coloured flowers blooming in spring. A tolerance for most soil types makes it a wonderful feature tree in your garden as it attracts local bird-life.

Grey Myrtle

Plus, with its preference for full sun to partial shade and the ability to survive light frosts, grey myrtle is perfectly suited to the New South Wales climate all year-round.

Agapanthus Snowball

A compact white dwarf species of Agapanthus, this flowering plant produces gorgeous blooms over a long period, with an abundance of pure white flowers in summer. Its strong, wide, short foliage, and maximum of height of only 60cm (when flowering) makes this plant a wonderful option for bordering your garden, around larger trees, or edging paths and driveways.

Agapanthus Snowball

Hardy and easy-to-grow, the Snowball Agapanthus thrives in most conditions and requires minimum maintenance, preferring full sun through to partial shade. An added bonus, Snowball Agapanthus produces very little seed, so it won’t run away with your garden!

Kangaroo Paw

This stunning Australian native provides an incredible outdoor feature point, either planted in pots or in a massed display in your garden. With neat, strappy leaves all year, and boasting sunset-orange, paw-shaped flowers from spring to summer, Kangaroo Paws enjoy full sun to partial shade and well-drained, somewhat drier conditions.

Kangaroo Paw

Drought-tolerant, Kangaroo Paws promise to attract stunning local bird-life to your garden and can serve well as a bright and interesting border for your garden. As an added bonus, their vivid, eye-catching blooms offer wonderful options for indoor cut flower arrangements.

Azalea ‘Alba Magnifica’ 

This vigorous, small to medium rounded evergreen shrub is a much-loved plant variety that produces pure white, single blooms with ruffled edges in late spring. A hardy plant once established, Alba Magnifica provides a stunning massed flowering display in your garden.

Azalea Alba Magnifica

You can create a free-flowering carpet in garden beds under trees or decorate courtyards and entertaining areas with Alba Magnifica in statement pots. These gorgeous plants prefer dappled sun conditions, but avoid letting them become too exposed, hot, or dry, and they’ll provide a cool, refreshing vibe for your garden throughout all seasons.

Hairy Wattle

Another bright and colourful Australian native, the Hairy Wattle provides wonderful options for a formal or informal garden screen, or simply to give shade to the favourite parts of your garden. It’s manageable size, growing to between 3-6 metres high and spreading 3-5 metres wide, and dense foliage ensures privacy for your garden.

Hairy Wattle

A low maintenance option, this shrub’s ability to resist drought and tolerate a light frost, and its adaptability to a range of seasonal weather variations make it a perfect outdoor plant for all seasons. The Hairy Wattle prefers sunny, dry conditions and rewards its owners with a profusion of gorgeous golden blooms every spring.

To see some of the wonderful ways in which Amico’s expert horticulturalist can use these and other beautiful all-season plants to beautify your home, look at our project gallery! Here, you can get some idea of the wide array of gorgeous gardens we’ve helped to create over the years.

If you’d like to hear more about what we can do for you and the gardening services we offer to our Sydney customers, get in touch with us for our advice and ask for your personalised quote.

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May 15, 2018 In Garden and Landscaping Ideas

6 Interesting Outdoor Garden Ideas for Small Spaces

Small gardens can leave you feeling you’ll never achieve the garden design you’ve always dreamt of. But don’t let lack of space kill your garden plans! These 6 interesting design ideas allow you to maximise space and create the garden you deserve – no matter where you are.

Small Garden Ideas

Trees in Small Spaces

Beautiful tree varieties aren’t just for spacious courtyards: incorporate them into your small garden to a gorgeous focal point. If you’re not sure of the best place for your trees or want the option to move your tree around with the seasons or with changing locations, potted dwarf species might be a great option for you.

Trees in Small Spaces

Use Spaces You Didn’t Even Know You Had

There are plenty of unused spaces in your home and garden area to bring more greenery into your life. Balcony railings and windows can be excellent places to brighten and green up with small flowering planter boxes. Meanwhile, gorgeous hanging arrangements can be hung suspended from overhead beams on balconies, and any other place your imagination can come up with!

Balcony railings

Trellis Plants for Colourful Accent Columns

Create gorgeous columns with compact flowering climbers to provide a pop of colour in your garden while conserving space. There are endless variations for your personal garden dreams, and the colour and foliage these climbers provide will leave you feeling immersed in an oasis of greenery. Shade-loving climbers include Chinese Star Jasmine, while if you love native plants, consider planting Australian native dusky coral pea.

Trellis Plants

Create a Delicious Edible Garden

Edible gardens mean the best of both worlds: the joys of growing your own vegetables, coupled with the lush greenery and vibrant splashes of colour provided by your delicious bounty. Chilis will thrive in warm, sunny spots such as your kitchen windowsill (and spice up your dinners!), while window boxes can house sweet red strawberries; tomatoes, leafy greens and an assortment of fresh herbs are all wonderful tasty options for your small edible garden, and can be planted to suit your garden and landscape design needs.

Delicious Edible Garden

Choose Shrubs Carefully

Carefully selecting shrubs for your space ensures long-term enjoyment and plenty of greenery for your oasis. Consider the plant’s mature size and growth rate, so you don’t find yourself in an overgrown jungle! There are plenty of beautiful shrubs that maintain a small, compact shape as they grow and so are ideally-suited to small space, and there are plenty of shade-loving shrubs that will thrive in your small space.

Shrubs

Incorporate Interesting Articles into Your Garden

There are plenty of old and unused items you can find to feature in your green space for an eclectic vibe and great focal point. Pallets are a popular tool to create beautiful upcycled pieces such as flower displays and wall-mounted vertical gardens. If you’re particularly crafty, think about repurposing old aluminum food containers to plant colourful flowering plants; use an old colander for your hanging plants, or use a collection of mason jars and a wooden board to create a vertical herb garden.

Interesting Articles

For some examples of Amico’s expert horticultural approach to small spaces, have a look at our project gallery! Here, you can get some idea of the wide array of gorgeous gardens, both large and small, that we’ve helped to create over the years.

If you’d like to hear more about what we can do for you and your small garden space, get in touch with us for our garden maintenance advice in Sydney, or visit our Queens Park office and ask us for your personalised quote.

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April 15, 2018 In Garden and Landscaping Ideas

5 Garden Design Ideas for Small Gardens

It can be challenging to realise your small garden won’t allow you to get the design you’ve always wanted. Luckily, limited space doesn’t have to mean barren and boring! Instead, let us show you 5 beautiful and innovative garden and landscape design ideas for your small garden paradise.

  1. For Small, Simple is Best

It’s not hard to discover that your small garden has quickly become cluttered, crowded and overwhelming. For a beautiful green space, consider what you have to work with: what is taking up room and ruining your aesthetic?

Get rid of it! Now is the time to simplify and tidy your outdoor area. Small spaces are perfect for simple designs, allowing your garden to speak for itself without being overrun by chaos.

  1. Going Vertical: ‘Living Walls’ for Small Gardens

If you have a small outdoor area, you’ve probably resigned yourself to the idea that a shortage of ground space means a shortage of greenery… But have you thought about going vertical with your garden?

Living walls come in all shapes and sizes, to add a unique touch of lushness to your space when you’re running short on room. And this design decision has a few extra perks, too! It can provide a fun and interesting way to camouflage unsightly walls.

If you’ve always wanted to try growing your own vegetables, vertical gardens, with trellises for your new vine crops, go beautifully hand-in-hand.

Living Walls

  1. Maximise Your Open Space

If you’re a small garden-owner, you want to make the most of every little bit of space you’ve got. But that doesn’t mean cramming all of your great gardening ideas into the one area. Instead, think about leaving a large open space in the middle of your garden.

Moving design features—like your outdoor furniture, trees, and flowerbeds—to the perimeter of your garden will leave the largest possible open area in the middle. This creates a spacious, inviting atmosphere, despite your limited room.

Open Space

  1. Stick with a Monochromatic Colour Scheme

Small spaces make it tempting to fit in as much as we can, but this won’t do your garden any favours. Similarly, going wild with your colour scheme can make your garden feel confined and close: not a relaxing vibe.

This is especially true of ‘hot colours’, like red, yellow, and orange, which make items appear closer than they are. A monochromatic scheme of cooler colours—think blues, violets, yellows, and beautiful silvery greens—imbues your garden with a welcoming sense of space.

  1. Upsize your Pot Plants

Simplicity really is the name of the game for small gardens! When it comes to your potted plants, an array of assorted small containers can make your space feel busy and cluttered.

Instead, think about getting a few large, decorative pot plants as a statement piece. This will draw the eye to where you want it to go, and give your outdoor area a spacious, elegant vibe.

For some examples of Amico’s expert horticultural approach to small spaces, have a look at our project gallery! Here, you can get some idea of the wide array of gorgeous gardens, both large and small, that we’ve helped to create over the years.

If you’d like to hear more about what we can do for you and your small garden space, get in touch with us for our garden maintenance advice, or tell us all about your small garden ideas and ask for your personalised quote.

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easy to maintain garden plants
March 31, 2018 In Garden Maintenance

5 Easy To Maintain Garden Plants

Have you always dreamed of having the perfect, picturesque garden yet don’t have a lot of spare time – or perhaps even patience – to maintain it?

Well we’re here to help – and turn your gardening and landscaping dreams into a reality!

Our expert gardeners in Darlington have devised a list of five easy-to-maintain plants that not only look beautiful, but are also low maintenance – saving you precious time and money.

  1. Aquilegia

These perennial plants will add a beautiful, colourful edge to your garden- without the hassle of requiring your constant attention and time.

Also commonly known as columbine and granny’s bonnet, these bell-shaped blooms come in a variety of colours – including white, yellow, red, pink, blue and purple.

Their flower seeds can be directly sown in the garden anytime between early spring and mid-summer.

They’re frost hardy, tolerate both sun and shade and can remain in the ground for many years. They’re also hardy, highly adaptable and tending to be drought resistant means they’re perfect for rock or woodland gardens

Aquilegia

  1. Bird of Paradise

A great landscaping plant, and recognisable and much-loved due to its bold, colourful flowers, the Bird of Paradise is very versatile and adaptable.

Capable of flourishing in varying climates and conditions, it can be found growing anywhere from alongside sidewalks and streets, to seaside and of course domestic gardens.

Although it grows and blooms best in full sun, it also thrives in part shade and can be easily moved from outdoors to indoor settings.

It also tends to cope with either very little water or lots – provided that the water is running through the soil away from the plant.

Bird of Paradise

  1. Canna lilies

These colourful, pretty plants grow anywhere from Tasmania to the Tropics – and make the perfect addition to any garden.

The bright, tropical style plants certainly can’t be missed once they’re in full bloom, their vibrant flowers striking in either red, yellow or orange. They look particularly magnificent growing in large groups.

Best planted in fertile soil, they’re easy to grow, require minimum care and are quite effortless to maintain for years on end.

They also thrive well growing in pots, and transfer easily from outdoors to indoors.

Canna lilies

  1. Flaxes

One of the oldest cultivated crops, these striking Kiwi native plants are now grown around the world, particularly in contemporary gardens.

They look amazing accompanied with a wide range of plants and are also a great alternative to ornamental grass within your landscaping designs.

These low-maintenance plants tend not to be fussy about soil, and they’re also drought tolerant and have no problem coping with the summer heat.

Requiring minimum care once they’re mature, dead and unhealthy leaves can be easily removed to maintain their appearance.

Flaxes

  1. Yucca plants

If you’re time poor and/ or struggle to keep plants alive, the striking and easily maintained yucca is the perfect solution to solve your gardening woes.

Drought tolerant, yuccas are very versatile and easy houseplants to care for, with similar minimal requirements to that of cacti.

A flexible indoor or outdoor plant, ongoing care is easy to maintain – proper sunlight, soil and water pretty much all they need to grow for years.

Low-maintenance, attractive and hardy, they’re the perfect plant for gardeners of all experience levels.

Yucca plants

These are just a few of the many species that fall into this category. We are happy to come and discuss further options that may better suit the specifics of your garden and taste. We hope you found these easy-to-maintain plant tips helpful and they get you well on the way to the garden of your dreams!

Remember that gardening doesn’t need to be hard work or all time-consuming – so enjoy it and reap the rewards.

Our team at Amico are always here to help you with your garden maintenance needs anywhere in Sydney, so please feel free to contact us or give us a call at 1300-GARDEN (1300- 427 336) for any further gardening advice or questions.

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March 15, 2018 In Tree Removals

How Much Does it Cost to Remove A Tree?

If you’re seeking to create the outdoor space of your dreams, you’ve probably considered how much it will cost you to remove that one tree that’s ruining your perfect garden aesthetic. Whether it’s the lovingly-tended garden of your home, or the pristine grounds of your office block, a tree in the wrong spot can spoil your dream garden: so once you’ve identified the problem, it’s time to get it fixed.

Tree removal can be tricky and dangerous, so it’s always best to contact the experts to take care of it. But how do you go about that, and why, and more importantly… how much is it going to set you back?

Tree removal

The Benefits of Tree Removal

If there’s a tree that’s not right for your garden, then it needs to go! Undesirable, unhealthy, dying, or dead trees, or trees that drop debris or threaten buildings are a problem, and the benefits of removal are significant.

As repayment for your quick work in addressing the problem, you’ll have a garden space that is safer, cleaner, and more open. You can remove a risk to nearby buildings or structures, and increase your garden’s daily sun exposure, encouraging better grass and plant growth.

Factors That Influence The Cost

There are three main factors that influence the cost of removing your problem tree, and we’ll take all of these into account when assesing your garden and providing your personalised quote.

Health. Dead or dying trees are riskier to handle than their healthy counterparts, and require special equipment and additional labour over a longer period of time to ensure they’re removed safely.

Location. A tree that is difficult to access, or is close to powerlines or structures requires a lot more care and effort to ensure both our crew, and the surrounding area escape unharmed.

Size. Not surprisingly, the bigger the tree, the harder it is to remove and dispose of! As tree sizes increase, costs are going to increase as well.

As well as these obvious factors, there may be other, less visible costs associated with the removal of a tree. The requirement for specialist equipment, additional labour hours, increased skills on the part of our gardeners: all of these aspects affect how much it’ll cost to remove your tree.

Tree removals

How We Handle Tree Removal

Here at Amico – expert gardeners in Sydney, we know that creating the garden you dream of is a serious business, and we’re passionate about helping you create the green space you’ve always wanted. Our team of expert arborists are dedicated to using their decades of experience to make your garden into a thriving oasis.

We can provide a custom-built team to provide the specialist work your garden requires to achieve precisely what you are looking for. Working in teams means that we can maximise our efficiency and get your garden in shape as quickly as possible.

We also provide a 24-hour emergency service so you never need to worry about the dangers of your garden threatening your home or your family’s safety. And with over twenty years of providing garden services to garden-loving Sydneysiders, we can guarantee that we’ll provide you the very best arborist services.

Still thinking about having that pesky tree removed from your garden? Get in touch with us for our advice. Prices can vary greatly, so we’ll provide a tailored quote based on your unique situation; or, for a quick estimate, send through the photos of your problem tree to [email protected]

Let us help you create the green space you’ve always wanted!

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