Spring is officially here though for most of us, the advent of spring came last month. While cooler inland areas will continue to get a few frosts, in coastal areas we would be unlucky to get frosted now.

• A reminder to hard prune rhododendrons (including vireyas) now if you are planning to do so. Don’t delay. Prune, feed, mulch then cross your fingers and hope.
• If you have had enough of winter pruning, you can lift and divide dahlias now. In colder parts of the world, these get lifted every year and wintered under cover but here we tend to plant them once and leave them. Overcrowding can cause the plants to fall apart in full growth so thinning out the tubers every few years is helpful.
• If you haven’t lifted and divided evergreen grasses, at least give them a brush up to take out the unsightly build up of dead foliage in the middle. You can use a sturdy leaf rake, small fork or your hands – but if you are using your hands, wear gloves to avoid leaf cuts (the equivalent of paper cuts.)
• There is an open verdict here as to whether the failure of daffodils to flower is due to growing them in ground which is too fertile (so they put on lots of leaf and no flower – also a sign of too much nitrogen in the ground) or whether it is the effect of the narcissus bulb fly laying its eggs in the crowns of the bulbs last year. If you find hollowed out and rotting bulbs at any stage, or if you dig them when dormant and find large white maggots in the centre, then you have narcissi fly in your garden. They are difficult to beat, though I have seen Mark, like his father before him, stalking them in the rockery.
• Potatoes, peas and carrots can all be sown directly into the vegetable garden. It is the very last chance for onions, be they red, brown or shallots, if you want a good crop. Last chance also for garlic. Green crops must be dug in now to give them time to start breaking down before the Great Labour Weekend plantout. Experienced veg gardeners are starting with seeds of summer crops such as tomatoes, cucumbers, melons, pumpkins and the like to get a jump start but you do have to sow these in trays and pots and keep them under cover for a while. Inexperienced gardeners will probably buy the baby plants they need from the garden centre late next month.
• Early aphids are appearing already. Get onto them early with pyrethrum or an organic soap spray to avoid an exponential population growth. Flyspray does at a pinch. It is pyrethrum based though made synthetically these days rather than from the daisy. Dead head hellebores to stop the aphids setting up home in the spent flowers.

• Members of the “Living Art” bonsai fraternity know that early spring is a critical time for repotting many of their little treasures. Bonsai is a highly specialized area of plant management and if you want to know more and to see how it is done, they will be at Cedar Lodge Nursery on Egmont Road all day this Sunday from 10.00am to 4.00pm. This is a particularly good hobby for those people who can not have outside gardens for whatever reason. Generally you can take your bonsai collection with you when you move.
• If you are not into bonsai, you should still be heeding the advice to see to container plants at this time of year. It gives them time to settle in before summer. Trees and shrubs in containers should generally be repotted every two years. If you have them in rather small pots or slightly tortured states, repot annually to keep the plant healthy. For trees and shrubs, buy decent potting mix with controlled release fertiliser. Keep the cheap stuff for annuals. You get the quality you pay for with potting mixes and they are by no means all equal.
• If you are not repotting your plants this year, feed them. Remember more is not better. Follow the recommended dosage rates, erring on the conservative side. Too much fertiliser can burn the plant.
• The rule of thumb for fertilizers is that the expensive controlled release ones (mostly the coated balls of the Osmocote, Nutricote, Acticote type) are designed for container plants but cover them under the top layer of potting mix for maximum effect. Slow release fertilizers are primarily designed for topdressing container plants. These are different to controlled release and usually come in powder form. We favour one we buy in commercial quantities as Triabon (also known as Compo) which we call magic dust – albeit expensive magic dust. We only use it on containers for a three month topdressing feed. There are other brands which will be comparable – seek advice from your local garden centre but you need to understand a little first so you are buying the right fertiliser for the right use.
• The cheap and cheerful types like Nitrophoska Blue, blood and bone or Bioboost are what you use to broadcast all over the garden where exact measurements are not needed. Liquid fertilizers are used for hanging baskets and pots of hungry annuals or top dressing fast growing vegetables where you want a quick feed and you are watering often. Compost tea, worm farm product, seaweed mixes – these are all in the quick feed liquid application group and you use them up to once a week.
• If you plan hanging baskets for summer, get them planted up now. Don’t hang them in the full sun to start with.
• It is still pruning, feeding, lifting and dividing, mulching and planting time in the ornamental garden.
• At this time of the year, fruit and vegetable prices tend to soar. It is all about supply and demand. As quick turnaround crops to keep the food bills down, sprout beans at home and sow micro greens in seed trays. Swathes of parsley are a versatile standby at this time and will keep scurvy at bay.
• If you are planting peas, the pesky sparrows may beat you to the germinating shoots unless you drape some temporary netting to discourage them. Peas can be sown on a regular basis to get continual harvests in a 90 days time.
• New potatoes can be planted now in all but the coldest areas. Last call for planting garlic.

• What a difference some glorious early spring weather makes. The worst of winter is indubitably over and we can celebrate rising temperatures and longer days, safe in the knowledge that our winters are very short by international standards. But do not be lulled into thinking summer is just around the corner. We can and will get relapses to cold and dreary weather.
• But it is countdown now and the pressure is mounting in the ornamental garden and as far as the winter pruning goes. If you have been planning on moving any established trees or shrubs, stop procrastinating and get on to it as soon as possible. It can be very stressful for the plant and you want to give them time to settle in to their new location. Move as large a root ball as possible and prune back the top structure to reduce stress levels.
• You have not run out of time yet for safe planting out of trees and shrubs generally, but the sooner you can get it done the better. If you garden on sandy or light soils near the coast, you will dry out quickly as spring advances.
• Kiwifruit should have been pruned by now. Select out last summer’s long canes to be the fruiting wood for the coming season. Cut out all the weak and old growths and confine the plant to a limited number of strong fresh canes. It is usual to tie these down to a wire or similar support. The same pruning principles apply to raspberries, which should also have been pruned but your top priority should be grapevines if you have not yet done them. The bleed and leak badly if you prune them once the sap has started moving again – which it will be doing soon.
• Get right onto digging in green crops to the vegetable garden so they have time to break down and start decomposing before you embark on the big planting for summer harvests. If you let your vegetable garden go over winter, you can dig all the weeds in as a green crop but take the time to go round first with a bucket and remove seedheads. The leaves and roots will rot down and add goodness to the soil but the seeds won’t and you will be encouraging a harvest of them if you fail to remove them.
• You can be sowing carrots, peas, summer spinach, onions and broad beans directly into the garden at this time. Give the onions and garlic top priority in planting. New potatoes can be planted safely.

• Heed the news story in our local paper last Saturday. Despite the fact that most of us feel that winter is wet here in Taranaki, we are in fact well below normal rainfall levels and entering some reasonably serious moisture deficit territory. For gardeners in areas which dry out quickly, this means getting a good layer of mulch onto your ornamental gardens before the soils dry out. The mulch will help conserve existing moisture.
• When planting trees and shrubs, spread a layer of mulch on top of the soil but keep the area around the trunk or stem clear to avoid collar rot.
• If you are new to vegetable gardening, stockpile leaf litter and get compost bins underway. You can not mulch vegetable gardens once in late winter and leave them for the rest of the summer as you can with some ornamental beds. You need a constant supply of mulch to use in the vegetable garden.
• We are strong advocates of mulching with compost which adds natural nutrients and allows the build-up of beneficial microbes, insects and bacteria while it enriches the soil. It is also pleasing to the eye, or at least to our eyes. If you don’t have plenty of compost, organic materials such as leaf litter, pine needles, bark chip, wood shavings or, at a pinch, sawdust (if not tanalised) can all add a layer on top to conserve moisture, nourish the soils and to suppress weeds. You need a maximum depth of about 5cm. More is not better.
• If you are doing a feeding round, spread the fertiliser and then put the mulch on top. It may discourage the dog from ferreting out the blood and bone, stop powdery fertiliser from blowing away, suppress the aroma of the Bioboost and it does get the fertiliser closer to the roots which is where it is needed.
• Those die-hard lawn fanatics who are still of a mind to use hormone sprays on the grass (and we don’t expect any of you to own up to us), get onto to it now to minimise the potential damage to fresh spring growth on trees and shrubs. No matter how careful you are, the slightest drift will cause considerable distortion and damage to new leaves, particularly on magnolias so get in before such plants break into leaf. Hormone sprays are used to take out flat weeds and broad leaves.
• The clock is starting to tick on the pruning of deciduous plants. Don’t delay any longer on these.
• You won’t achieve much by rushing into planting out vegetables and annuals too early. Despite the glorious spring weather last weekend, we will have more cold snaps and early plantings will just sit in the ground awaiting the right temperatures. You are better to start these plants early in pots and trays and keep them in a protected spot for a few more weeks before planting out. However you can keep sowing hardy winter vegetables such as peas, brassicas, carrots and onions.
• Stay on top of freshly germinating weeds and on terminating the spring crop of slugs and snails.

• Temperatures are inexorably creeping upwards and that means an explosion of slugs and snails. Waitara gardener, Alathea Armstrong reports that she caught no fewer than twenty of them partying and feasting on her emerging delphiniums. If you choose to use slug bait, remember that one bait can kill several. Reduce the danger to birds and hedgehogs (nature’s controls) and to pets by never spreading it thickly like fertiliser. Placing a bait or maybe two under a shell or a lid will keep the bait active and out of the way. Slug bait is designed to attract the targets which is why you do not need to carpet the garden hoping they will trip over it. Keep your packet of slug bait somewhere safe too and don’t leave it on the door step. Always wash your hands after touching it.
• To avoid using toxic baits, get out with a torch for night time sport and reduce the population. Use a thick spread of cheap baking bran around special plants. Mulch with pine or rimu needles. Create a circle of sand, sawdust or egg shells around vulnerable plants. Place hollowed out citrus shells to provide a house for them (and don’t forget to do a terminator round each morning) or leave a partially buried, half empty can of beer to attract them. Stay on top of the problem from the start, which is now.
• As sasanqua camellias finish flowering, it is time to trim and shape them. If you want to have a go at some creative pruning or topiary, sasanqua camellias are a good starting point. If you make a bad mistake, fresh foliage will hide it within a fairly short space of time. If you get it right, a shaped and trimmed mature camellia can be a wonderful feature plant and act like a punctuation point in the garden.
• There is evidence that marigolds can repel some of the pesky insect infestations in the vegetable garden, although it is unlikely that one or two plants will do much. You probably need lots of them. However, they will feed good butterflies like monarchs and can be dug in as a green crop later so it is worth a try. Sow them from seed now. It is miles cheaper than paying for a nursery to produce a punnet of half a dozen plants for you. Tagetes are the recommended marigold family for this purpose though there is some evidence that calendula will work too.
• If you are wanting to plant fruit trees, don’t procrastinate. While there is plenty of time left for planting, garden centres will have their largest selection available now and if you hang about too long, sure as eggs they will sell out of the ones you want. Hawera Plum, Apricot Fitzroy and Monty’s apple are all local(ish) selections.
• In the veg garden you may like to get fennel seeds in now for an all round useful and long lived new vegetable. It is not bullet proof as a crop but its harvest is certainly useful. Dig in green crops.