- If your magnolias are opening with some badly deformed flowers, the likely cause is a possum with a taste for the buds. It will eat the centre out, leaving the bud looking fine until it tries to open. The best solution we know is high velocity inter cranial lead but if you are in town, you will have to resort to trapping. It is usually only one critter that discovers this morsel. It is not part of their staple diet. If you want to make sure you have caught the offender, you can do an autopsy (as Mark does) and examine the contents of its stomach but this is not compulsory.
- Now is the time to prune deciduous trees of all makes and models except prunus (flowering cherries). The idea is to do this before the sap is flowing, which won’t be long. Cherries get pruned in summer because of the fear of introducing silver blight.
- Slugs and snails are on the move. Remember that slug bait is toxic to dogs and hedgehogs and should not be laid on like fertiliser. One bait can kill a number of the slimy creatures and a little often is a great deal better than a lot in one application. Strategically placed, one bait per plant is all that is needed.
- Harvest remaining carrots and onions now and store in the fridge or a cool place. If you don’t harvest them, they will go into growth shortly and lose their flavour and texture.
- It is all go for planting in the vegetable garden. In sheltered warmer positions, seed and plants of most brassicas and other utility vegies including beetroot, onions, carrots and peas can all be planted.
- Salad lettuces and lettuce mixes can be sown into the garden or, for quicker results, into trays in a covered area like a conservatory for harvesting as micro greens.
- A light application to lawns of a nitrogen based fertiliser such as urea or Bioboost will give a quick fix to tired or yellow grass. “Light” is the key word here – spring is the main time for feeding the lawns. This application is a pick-me-up only.
Author Archives: Abbie Jury
The ever popular daphnes
I have never forgotten nursery colleagues of ours saying that they grew daphnes and lemon trees “because pretty well every garden has at least one of each”. In the case of daphnes, it is a continuing market because they need replacing now and again and there is always room for one more.
For most people, daphnes begin and end with odora – the fragrant and delightful shrub in flower now. In fact there are about fifty different species, although the number commercially available in this country is closer to four or five and there are probably a thousand odora selections sold to every one of the others.
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This week July 28 2006
- Prune and shape sasanqua camellias. These are the autumn flowering camellias which are finishing flowering. The rule of thumb is to prune most plants after flowering. Sasanqua hedges can be clipped now or specimen plants shaped and thinned.
- Rose pruning: those in very cold areas might chose to wait until next month but in most of Taranaki, rose pruning is happening now or has been done already. If you don’t want to fiddle with cutting each branch back to an outward facing bud, a pass over with the hedge clippers is less elegant but reputedly effective. Keep rose prunings out of the compost. They need to be burned or fed through a mulcher. Treat any skin wounds from rose thorns with respect. Major infections are not unknown to unwary pruners.
- For those fortunate enough to have macadamia and avocado trees, watch out for rats who will race you to both if you are slow off the mark. There is nothing worse than finding a rat has beaten you to the last of the avocadoes or that it has drilled though the macadamia shells.
- Carrot seed can be sown directly into the garden. Protect the seed from heavy rain until it has germinated. We use a narrow strip of nova roof. Alternatively, a top dressing of compost will stop the soil caking before the fine seed starts sprouting.
- Now is a good time to sow onions, to be harvested in summer.
- Asparagus divisions are available in the shops. This luxury vegetable is a permanent fixture in the garden and takes three years before you can start to harvest a crop. That said, if you have the space and plan to stay, there are few delights to equal heading out to pick your own asparagus in spring. With our good drainage in Taranaki, we don’t need to worry about putting drainage material (gravel and the like) at the bottom of trench, but the recommendation is to prepare a bed by digging 60cm deep and incorporating compost, then planting the divisions at 45cm spacings with the crown 10cm below the surface. Mark thought he had dug to China when he prepared his trench for our new bed (double digging it all, too) but in fact he barely got more than 35cm so the 60cm recommendation may be a bit over the top.
- Mark is just now finishing pruning the grapevines – even we follow our own advice, albeit a week late.
This week July 21 2006
- If you haven’t planted your garlic yet, (folklore says to plant it on the shortest day of the year) you still have time, but do not delay. Garden Centre garlic should be certified virus free but you will pay more for this. Supermarket garlic should be okay but you are taking a risk because apparently health giving garlic will repel vampires but not viruses.
- Brassica plants (cabbage, cauli and broccoli) can be planted now for late spring harvest.
- Lettuce plants for spring salads can be planted under cloches. It is still too cold to plant them in the open without the protection of a cloche.
- If you have a frostfree spot, new potatoes can be planted for late spring harvest.
- In the home orchard, apple trees should be pruned now along with grapevines. To spur prune grapevines, take them back to two growth points from the main trunk, removing all weak and spindly growth. It looks drastic but grapes respond to heavy pruning.
- Lawn care: it is a good time to oversow bare patches in the lawn or to sow fresh lawns for spring. Ideally they are best done in autumn, but there is still time to get them established before summer.
- In the ornamental garden, now is the time to dig and divide clumping plants. Do not delay this task because they will be going into growth very soon. Summer flowering perennials and hostas like to be divided and replanted into soil which has been freshly cultivated. They will reward your efforts with plenty of fresh vigour.
- Pruning hydrangeas is another task to be finished as soon as possible.
- Daffodils are coming through the ground. Be wary with the Round Up because they don’t like being sprayed at this stage.
- Spring is only about six weeks away. The buds are already swelling on the cherry trees and magnolias, and the snowdrops are in full flower.
Soil compaction
When our children were little, we used to read them a small book called “Noisy Nora”. Her refrain was, ‘ “I’m back again,” said Nora, with a monumental crash.’
I am back again, dear Readers, although perhaps not with the monumental crash.
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Tikorangi The Jury Garden 