Gardening guru entertains in PA
CANDICE BRADFIELD
EDITOR of Die Tuinier, Anna Celliers, had the audience in stitches from the start to finish of her entertaining talk about gardening at Red Leaf Nursery last Friday.
Surprisingly for a gardening guru, she warned that one should not take gardening too seriously.
She has discovered was she calls the seven deadly sins of gardening.
| GARDEN KNOW-HOW: Owner of Red Leaf Nursery Adele Steck (left) hosted gardening guru Anna Celliers who gave a talk last week. Celliers has just released her latest book, "Tuinprojekte met Anna en Tanya” Picture: CANDICE BRADFIELD |
Before she got into gardening, Celliers was a coffin sales lady, a job she said her dad got her out of spite.
At the age of 29 she started studying horticulture. There are no rules for gardening, she said.
She told her all-women audience to "relax your brastraps” and they will find gardening much more pleasurable.
"It's passion that makes a plant grow,” she said.
The second sin is not getting all the help available. Nurseries are a good place to get help. Books such as "What can I plant” which she co-authored with Tanya Visser and describes as the "soft porn” of gardening, is another place to get good tips.
The third sin is to try and fight Mother Nature, which Celliers advises against.
She told the story of her mother who had put a shade-loving plant in the sun. When Celliers told her the plant was going to die, her mother explained that when that area got sun in the afternoon, she would just put an umbrella over the plant. And if she went out at that time, then the neighbours should do it.
Another sin is keeping a plant even when you are bored with it.
"A plant is like a disposable nappy. If you are tired of it, get rid of it and get a new one,” said Celliers.
She said you cannot expect everything in your garden to last you a lifetime, which is also why you should have variety. She said that one way to be a "fuzzy, happy” gardener was not to look at a dead plant, but to find a new one.
The fifth deadly sin is to put a R100 tree into a R2 hole. Caring for the soil is very important in order to have "happy soil”.
Celliers warns against turning the soil too often as it causes weeds to surface and moisture to be lost. It is also important to use compost.
Not knowing how to milk the buffalo is another sin, she said, pulling out a R100 note.
She said that you need to be clever when you go into a nursery and not go for bargain plants but rather see what you can divide. Good examples are ornamental grasses and flaxes.
The last sin is being afraid of biting off more than you can chew. Look at your garden and see what can be changed, she said.
"Forget about yesterday, don't think about tomorrow and be happy about what's growing today,” she said.
