All posts by Matt

Is Your Swimming Pool Green?

While I am not a pool expert I am asked more and more often to work on pools in gardens I maintain.

And most calls come about because the once inviting swimming pool water has turned a bilious shade of green.

The usual knee-jerk reaction to this is to dose the pool with a couple of shock treatments and crossed fingers.

In my experience the real problem is not the level of chlorine in the water.

The secret to clear pools begins with a maintained PH level. It’s my base point and nothing else gets done until that is stabilised and I like 7 to 7.2 as a base line. Algae enjoys higher ph levels and ph levels tend to drift upwards if not managed. Adding huge doses of chlorine to the water simply accelerates that upwards trend and so actually helps the algae flourish.

So bring the pool water into the right PH range and keep it there before throwing money into your pool water.

Wild Pomegranate – Sunbird Magnet

Burchellia_bubalina_flowers

If birds in your garden bring a smile to your face then adding a Wild Pomegranate to your landscape will pull Sunbirds from all around.

The shrub – which enjoys dappled shade and filtered sunlight – is a fairly neat looking 2-4 meter shrub/tree that will bear bunches of flowers though-out summer. Towards the end of summer the wild pomegranate develops small pear shaped fruits which will attract all the fruit eaters.

The wild pomegranate is an attractive ornamental shrub/tree
that is also used to attract nectar-feeding birds. The combination of its bright red
flowers with the glossy, dark green leaves, creates a beautiful display in the small garden,
both in shade and in full sun.

The wild pomegranate has a smooth, grey-brown bark that becomes rougher with age.
The tree bears new twigs that are always covered with hairs. The dark green, glossy,
opposite leaves are hairless above and paler below, with fine soft hairs along the vein.

Leaves are soft when young, becoming thickly leathery as they age.

In early spring to mid-summer, the tree bears bright red to orange flowers in dense
terminal clusters, and are followed by green, urn-shaped fruits that are also borne
in dense clusters. The fruits are crowned with distinctive horn-like calyx lobes.
The fruits turn brown as they ripen and then become woody, remaining on the tree for
many month

Wild Pomegranate Shrub - sunbird delight
Wild Pomegranate Shrub - sunbird delight

More info at http://www.dwaf.gov.za/Events/Arborweek/trees/WildPomegranate.asp