The good soil: Gardening expert shares her best advice

One of Toowoomba’s top gardening experts has shared her best advice ahead of the 2021 Toowoomba Chronicle Garden Competition.

SUPER SOIL: Garden support officer for Searles Gardening, Jillian Coomb said she couldn’t stress enough how important it was to always b working on improving your soil quality and said when it came to gardening quandaries, there’s no questions too silly to ask. Picture: File

Most gardeners will know that when it comes to creating an award-winning garden, at the very root of it all, excellent soil health is the secret to everything coming up roses.

Searles Garden Products garden support officer Jillian Coomb said plants are just like people, they require the same amount of love, care and nutrients to keep them alive and thriving.

Entries now open for The 2021 Chronicle Garden Competition

“Searles has been a family-run Queensland business for more than 40 years,” she said.

“With our head office based in Kilcoy, Searles is practically rellies with Toowoomba and we’re very excited to be sponsoring and supporting this year’s Chronicle Garden Competition.”

Garden support officer for Searles Gardening, Jillian Coomb says it’s vital for all gardeners to get their soil health up to scratch. Picture: Contributed

Ms Coomb explained why soil health is so vital to maintaining a healthy garden.

“It’s so much easier to keep a plants healthy if it’s in good quality soil,” she said.

“Plants really are just like people – we both suffer without the right care and rich, good nutrition is everything when it comes to your soil health.”

Ms Coombs has been involved with just about every garden related job you can imagine for the past 40 years from head groundskeeper roles to a nursery indoor plant carer, she’s done it all.

“40 years ago when I was a junior and Searles was just a young company starting out we had a much more limited understanding of how soil quality and nutrients affected plant life,” she said.

“Now we know how important it is to add compost, regularly mulch, go organic wherever possible and try and see plenty of worms life.”

Ms Coomb said stressed soil tends to become hydrophobic, making watering a

complete waste of time.

“One of my favourite jobs is to answer all the questions gardeners have on our Facebook site,” she said.

“I always like to tell gardeners the only dumb gardening question is one that’s not asked so I encourage anyone out there with a gardening query to send it in to us via Facebook messenger or ask it directly on our Searles Garden Products Facebook page.”