This week 29 Sept 2006

  • Evergreen azaleas are a shrub which will take heavy pruning, almost back to ground level, yet still come again. The time to do this is as they finish flowering because they will then put on their growth spurt.
  • Vireya rhododendrons can get very leggy. Where they have put on a single shoot, if you cut that back, the plant will usually respond by putting out three new shoots which gives a bushier shape. As they are just starting to put on new growth, now is a good time to go around and rub out single leaf shoots. You can prune back vireyas hard but it will set back flowering for the following year.
  • Like evergreen azaleas, most camellias will accept cutting back to ground level and shoot away again. If you have an ugly old bush and feel the need to rejuvenate it, you can resort to this drastic action at this time of the year. However, do not cut back to ground level with a grafted plant, a very weak plant or with reticulata camellias (the ones with blooms the size of a lunch plate). Roundup does not touch camellias so you can spray right up to them, but you can’t kill out an unwanted camellia stump with it unless you use it undiluted.
  • Ideally, September is the last month for planting trees and shrubs. We know most of you will ignore this and continue planting well into summer and we are lucky in Taranaki that we don’t dry out too quickly and you can get away with late planting. But the sooner you can get them in, the better.
  • If you have a really warm and sheltered spot, you can plant out tomatoes and courgettes which have been started under glass.
  • Corn can be started in pots under cover to be planted out at the traditional time of Labour Weekend. (When we lived in Dunedin, Mark did this and it snowed two days later. We put the house on the market and moved back north).
  • If your broad beans are well established and setting, take the tips out to stop them getting too leggy. The tips are delicious to eat when treated like fresh spinach or used in stir fries. Those who live in nice sheltered places will no doubt be starting to pick their first broad beans. Homegrown fresh broad beans bear no resemblance to the tough specimens you may buy at the supermarket or the frozen varieties. They are simply delicious when young and tender.
  • Now is the time to start sprouting kumara plants if you want to start your own. They can be sprouted in damp sawdust in a sunny, warm room.