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NATURE’S ANTI-DEPRESSANT IS COLOUR
NATURE’S ANTI-DEPRESSANT IS COLOUR
✦ We hear from Greenbourne Nursery on bringing flower power in bright colours.
While we are all spending a lot more time at home (because of lockdowns) there is a way to bring instant joy and happiness into our lives by planting nature’s antidepressant… COLOUR. Now just as we need it, the perfect season for garden colour presents itself, Spring, thank goodness for Spring!
Apart from just general happiness, scientists have found that the vibrant colours which can also be accompanied with scent is responsible for triggering an endorphin release within the body. Studies suggested that people were naturally calmer when in the presence of various colour groups and ultimately had a longer and more restful sleep at night. The studies even found that people had positive emotive responses even when they planned on attending a flower market or nursery.
Let’s hear from Greenbourne Nursery on bringing flower power in bright colours.
Petunias
Petunias will provide you with an absolute abundance of colourful trumpet shaped flowers. Gone are the days of simple pinks and reds, Petunias come in nearly every colour imaginable. Some have stripes and some have speckles.
Marigolds
Marigolds are a cheerful, easy-to-grow annual plant with daisy or carnation-like flower heads that are produced singly or in clusters. Don’t forget to deadhead your marigolds to keep the blooms coming. These flowers are the spendthrifts among annuals, bringing a wealth of gold, copper, and brass into our gardens. Also, the underground workings of the marigold are known to repel harmful nematodes (microscopic worms) that attack the roots of garden vegetables.
Perennial power
Plants that give you colour year after year and by definition live for more than two years. They’re easy to grow, and once you plant them, they’ll keep on coming back every spring to fill your landscape with their beautiful flowers and foliage. Plants range in size from ground-covering and clump-forming varieties just a few centimetres high, right up to statuesque giants a couple of metres tall.
Many perennials make good cut flowers and the more compact varieties that have long-lasting appeal are excellent for growing in pots.
Lavender
They grow in a well-drained, sunny position. Do best protected from frost and are quite drought friendly. They are available in an amazing variety of new and different forms that include both single and double flowering varieties. The scent is universally familiar and the delightful blooms are an absolute magnet for the bees. Keep them regularly pruned and you will be rewarded year after year.
Daisies
Plant them in full sun for the best and most rewarding blooms all season long. Bright, cheerful, and easy to grow, the flowers are readily identifiable and are mainstay for gardens. Gone are the days of the old, overgrown daisy plant sitting in the back corner of Grandma’s backyard. The new and improved varieties on offer at nurseries now are well and truly worth planting in your garden today.
Azaleas
Azaleas do well in full sun or part shade. Planted in full sun, azaleas will be more compact and produce more flowers. When planted in part shade, they will stretch toward the sunlight and form a more graceful habit. Most varieties look best in a shaded or woodland border, or in pots. This is another species that has come a long way in recent years. Specific varieties that are more compact and that flower more consistently over the season. They are now certainly worth a look at your local nursery, if you haven’t been a fan, they will be certain to win you over.
- Daniel ‘Chook’ Fowler
Check out Greenbourne Nursery for all your gardening needs:
+61 2 6585 2117
greenbourne.nursery@midcoast.com.au www.greenbournenurserywauchope.com.au
239 High St, Wauchope NSW 2446
