Gardening in the Red Sea Riviera 3

How to get your garden in good condition

But you can say, no I don't want a dessert garden, they are dull, I want a real garden, a so called cottage garden, with loads of flowers, fluffy grasses, all kind of colors and all kind of plants.

Well, I proved that it is possible even here in Hurghada, with all the harsh conditions, like lack of rain, dessert sand as soil and the sun and the wind, whole year around, almost every day.

O, you might say, if you can do it, I can do it too. Right, off course you can. But it will cost you a lot more than a dessert garden. More money, more effort, more time and more water of course. The water is they easiest to overcome. You can have a boab, a houseboy or gardener to do it for you. Or else you have to make time to water your garden properly, at least every day and maybe even two times a day. Depending on how big your garden is and specially when you are not connected on a pipeline that will give you water whenever you need it, you need tanks to store water. If some plants are not watered every day, they will not do what you really like and it is so hard when you see your garden friends dry out and eventually die. Always think of the fact that most of the plants in this kind of garden are original from a much wetter environment and you will know why they need water, water is the transport for food and keep their leaves and flowers like you want them to show off. Gardening is much about go back to the origins and you will understand why things are as they are. The plants and flowers will be grateful and pay for your effort with colors, perfumes and the joy of walking, sitting and relaxing in a garden like that.

If you want to use the hotel water, keep in mind that they normally come with a big hose with a big power behind it and if you do not protect your delicate plants, they will be washed away. So either you have to make an irrigation system where the main stream will be divided in many small waterways or you have to store the hotel water in a tank and water from this tank with a hose into your garden. Be sure to have good appointments with the people who deliver the hotel water, about the quantity, the quality (well filtered so you won't find all kind of ugly things in your garden from the toilets!) and how often you want to have it delivered.

Off course you have to improve your soil, you will need clay to keep the soil most, special sand so the water can go to the lower layers (where the roots of the plants are), improvers for the soil, and not to forget food. No, not for you, but for your lovely plants. How much you need from all of these things is depending on the original soil you have now, the space and the conditions of your garden. You can do it yourself by using your common sense, but if you don't dare to do that or you do not have the time to figure that all out, we can help you with that, and advise you. Even we can try to get the stuff for you in the right quantities for your garden.

To protect your plants against the sun, there are different solutions. You can use trees, especially for the summer sun and bushes or shrubs. There are beautiful trees and bushes, all kind of shapes, flowers, colors and even sentence, so that you want anyway I guess. Creating a garden most of the time starts with deciding where the trees will have their place, it is also called 'designing the frame of the garden'. Trees will give height and depth in your garden, next to all other goodies, like flowers, shadow, fruit etc.. Trees and bushes have another habit; they protect you for unwanted viewers if you need some privacy in your garden! If you want to have two flies in one stroke, you also can use pergolas for your terraces, to keep the terraces cool and, they will create shadow....


Quick growing and shadow and privacy providing trees	Flowering bush	shadow from pergola's

Realise that you best buy trees that have leaves in summer because then you need most of the protection. You also can make use of fences, well placed in your garden they can create different bits of garden, so you can have flowers arranged by their colors, garden with plants that spread perfume, tropical plants, vegetables, fruits, or what ever you like to have in your garden. In gardening this is also called creating garden rooms. The fences will give plants shadow and also the possibility to grow climbers.

Garden fences, trees and bushes that will create shadow and garden' rooms'

Another solution is specially shadow fabrics that are available in all kind of percentages for letting the sun get trough. Personally I prefer to work with natural materials and nature.....

click here for page 4, Small Gardens

questions, comments or ideas: e-mail