- Clematis are rocketing away. Make sure they have something to climb up, especially the more rampant varieties which may smother an inadvertent host plant. The same applies for other strong growing climbers, particularly wisteria and tecomanthe speciosa which have the potential to rip the spouting off your house if you turn your back for too long.
- If you are laying mulch on your garden, it pays to get rid of the weeds first. Mulch has to be super heavy duty to kill weeds which are already growing.
- Continue deadheading rhodos.
- Watch for nasty greeblies on your roses, ranging from blackspot to aphids. If you don’t spray roses, you need to ensure they have good air circulation around them and remove diseased foliage and slushy blooms to stop disease and insect infestation getting away on them.
- Last chance to plant celery this season in order to have it ready for winter.
- Now is the time to plant out brussel sprouts, either seeds or plants. Brussel sprouts are one vegetable which is significantly nicer picked fresh from the garden rather than them making a long detour from grower through the supermarket to your kitchen. They do better in a cold climate where they would have been sown in September but in our warm(ish) conditions there is still time to establish good strong plants.
- Plant leeks now if you want good strong plants for next winter. It is the last chance for starting them from seed. If you leave it any longer you will end up with micro veg or baby leeks (which are possibly easy to cope with than baby brussel sprouts).
- Now is the time to plant those kumara plants you have already started under cover.
- Spray grapes now for mealie bug. Confidor and oil appear to be the recommended spray. Orthene is very good if you still have it but you now need a chemicals licence to buy it.
Author Archives: Abbie Jury
This week 10 Nov 2006
- If, like us, you have had your garden open take some time out to drink coffee, tea or wine and enjoy your own garden. You can pick flowers now without feeling you are stripping the display. My celebration is usually to pick an armful of roses.
- Start deadheading rhododendrons. It makes them look tidier but also stops them setting seed and encourages them to set flower buds for next season instead. They set their flower buds on the new growth. If you want to prune old plants back very hard to rejuvenate them, now is the time to do it but you are unlikely to get flowers next year.
- Deadheading perennials, annuals and roses encourages the plants to extend their flowering season.
- If you are still planting trees and shrubs, try and plunge the whole rootball into a bucket of water (with or without the pot on) and leave it until bubbles stop rising. Despite the rain, some end of season plants can be a bit root bound and once they dry out, it is very difficult to get them to absorb water.
- If you are growing strawberries, they need to be netted in if you want any sort of harvest. As soon as they start showing red, the birds will find them faster than you.
- Continue picking asparagus but you only have a few weeks left.
- Successional planting of summer vegetables such as lettuces, peas, dwarf beans and corn should be continued but you are probably too late now to get peas in for Christmas dinner.
This week 3 Nov 2006
- If you are planting hostas, try laying a circle of sand, sawdust or crushed egg shells around each plant. Slimy slugs and snails don’t like crawling over gritty material so it delays their forays for fresh foliage.
- Slug bait is not pleasant material for the birds or for dogs. If you don’t like using it, you can try cheap bran flakes instead. Spread it liberally around plants which are getting attacked. Slugs and snails appear to find it irresistible and they can’t stop eating it. It doesn’t kill them but they lie there in an over stuffed and comatose state and the birds will pick them up in the morning and not be poisoned.
- Early flowering narcissus can be trimmed or mown now. Apparently as long as they have had 65 days of growth, you can trim the leaves off. This gem came from a visiting commercial grower. Cutting off the leaves and laying mulch deters the dreaded narcissi fly which is starting to hatch now. These nasties lay their eggs in the crown and the larvae hatch and eat out the bulbs.
- As far as we can tell, spring has been exceptionally cold and late this year and climatically this weekend is the equivalent of Labour Weekend so it is still all go for planting out in the vegetable garden. If you failed to plant out your corn last weekend as instructed, you can take some pride in getting it right and getting on to it this weekend. Of course it is not that you missed the recommended time. You knew that this was a particularly cold season. But be prepared for it to warm up quickly now.
- The vegetable garden rakeover is really important at this time of the season. Mark is determinedly grabbing quiet time to rake the vegetable garden as weed seeds are determinedly germinating after the recent rain. Remember the creed: “one year’s seeding, seven years weeding”. Raking now minimises the amount of hoeing needed later.
- If you are tempted to buy trees and shrubs in this week of garden visiting and plant buying, plant them as soon as possible. Summer may come soon (we hope). Alternatively, heel them in to your vegetable garden or similar well cultivated soil for autumn planting in to their permanent spot.
This week 27 Oct 2006
- If you have not got your own garden open to the public, then forget about staying at home this weekend and get out and gather ideas and enjoy those gardens that are open.
- Alternatively, if you have got over the shock and disappointment of Labour Weekend’s weather, continue all the planting out in the vegetable garden which was meant to be done a week ago.
- Pumpkins can be started on a mound comprised of layers of soil and lawn clippings. The decomposing grass generates heat which speeds up germination and initial growth considerably. Don’t make the heap too big or you may cook the seeds. A metre wide by 60cm high is about the right size.
- Start deadheading rhododendrons as they finish flowering. This is important to stop the plant putting its energies into setting seed instead of new growth and next year’s flower buds.
- Grape and tomato plants are very susceptible to hormone sprays at this time of the year, so be very careful if you are still using these types of sprays on your lawn.
- If you want to grow watermelons and rock melons, this is really your last opportunity to start off seeds. They should have been started earlier but you may manage to force them under cover for planting out in six weeks time.
- If you want seed from your clivias, you will get far more if you hand pollinate now. Find flowers on two different plants that stand out as good and use a child’s paintbrush to transfer the pollen from one flower to another on a different plant. They don’t self pollinate readily so you need more than one clone to be effective. Clivias are an extraordinarily useful plant for harsh, dry shade but must be frostfree.
In praise of vulgar flower power
With the excess of open gardens and garden events this weekend, we thought of putting up a poster: “Caution. Endangered species. Garden Visitor.”
Some of us remember the heydays of the late 1980s and early 90s when garden visiting ranked very high as a preferred leisure activity. While other garden festivals throughout the country have flowed but mostly ebbed in the time since, our annual Rhododendron and Garden Festival has managed to hold on and to gain a pre-eminent position as a premier garden event despite the overall decline in visitor numbers.
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Tikorangi The Jury Garden 