The Curious Gardener’s Almanac tells us that the apple can grow at the highest latitude of all fruits. Apples need about 40 days of cold to produce their flowers which is why they can not be grown in the tropics. Raspberries, however, can allegedly be grown anywhere between the Arctic and the Equator.

If you wonder why we rarely see blackcurrants or redcurrants in Taranaki, it is because we are not cold enough for them. They need a chilly winter to thrive and fruit. Gooseberries also prefer colder conditions but can be grown here. However you need to keep refreshing the plants to keep them going in our soft climate and mildew can be a problem. The home gardener can, however, get enough to have a pie or two and to combine with rhubarb.

As spring bulbs finish flowering, a light feed will encourage them to build up strength for next season’s performance. After exhausting themselves with their floral display, the period immediately after is the most important time for fattening the bulb again. Never remove the foliage until it starts to die off naturally and even tying the long leaves into naff little bundles affects the natural replenishment process.

• Dahlia clumps can be lifted and divided now. They perform much better if the clump is tended to every few years so will reward you for your efforts. Congested clumps tend to fall apart too easily when they put on all the top growth.
• Grasses may be used as low maintenance plants but it doesn’t mean they are no maintenance plants. They can start to look very scruffy and unkempt and develop dead patches in garden situations unless you lift them and split them up occasionally, replacing them in soil which you have dug over and cultivated. Dividing now means that they will spring into healthy fresh growth immediately. It also helps to groom them once a year, pulling out the dead foliage either by hand or with a rake.
• Don’t delay on pruning and feeding feijoa bushes. They will produce larger fruit if you take a little care with them and keep the bush reasonable open.
• Make sure you have your old raspberry canes cut off and cleaned up before the new growth gets away any further. It is time for their spring feed.
• If you have young strawberry plants, it is usual to remove the first round of flowers so that the plants can build up strength and size before they pour all their energy into fruiting.
• You can still plant onions, carrots and beet direct into the garden. The onion family goes beyond the usual brown skinned variety (Pukekohe Long Keepers are the most common variety here though goodness knows what the cheapies that are imported from China are, let alone what chemicals they have been exposed to). Try shallots and red onions as well. Onion thinning can later be used as spring onions.
• Sow corn, courgettes and tomatoes into containers to get the leap on the great Labour Weekend plant out tradition. It is a little early for planting green beans direct into the garden unless you have a really favoured position, but they too can be started in containers if you want early crops.

If you are planning a new garden, you may wish to take notice of the dictum from Philip Miller from 1724:

The area of a handsom Garden may take up about thirty or forty Acres, not more.

While the rain has returned, last week was a good reminder of how fast we can dry out. If you still have plans to relocate trees and shrubs in your garden, don’t delay any longer. Move the largest ones first because they are likely to suffer the most stress.

• If you have deciduous perennial material (in other words it hides underground in winter – plants such as hostas) be careful where you walk on the garden or you may find you have just snapped off all the new shoots.
• You are running out of time to sort out your lawns. Oversow bare patches if you haven’t done so already. Don’t delay on getting new lawns sown. The false bed approach to laying a new lawn is to cultivate the ground to its final tilth, let the first crop of weed seeds germinate, then recultivate (to kill the weeds) and sow the grass seed. This technique works well in the vegetable garden too. If you feel you must fertilise your lawn, use a natural product such as Bioboost.
• Camellias can be shaped and pruned as flowering finishes and do not delay any work you want to do with shaping conifers as they will making their spring flush shortly.
• If you have mixed or herbaceous borders which are relatively self maintaining, it still pays to fork over the soil between the plants to stop compaction and to lay mulch. Fertilise with blood and bone.
• It is more of the same as last week in the vegetable garden. This is the most important time of the year to start your early crops and to prepare the beds for the planting of main crops in a month’s time. Keep on top of the weeds, cultivate the soil, add compost as a mulch. Research has shown that compost does not have to be dug in but does the double job of suppressing weeds as well when laid on top. There is now enough heat in the sun to hoe weeds and leave them to dry on top.

While on the topic of hoeing, we have a quote from American humorist Henry Beard this week (this one is for you to quote, Valmai).

Hoeing: a manual method of severing roots from stems of newly planted flowers and vegetables.

What a lot can change in a week. Spring really-o truly-o has arrived and for us, the garden visitor season has started. There is a sense of slight panic as we tackle the tasks which we had hoped to get completed in winter. Do not delay any longer on winter pruning (all deciduous trees except cherries and related family members such as flowering peaches and almonds). And if you plan a hard prune and shape on evergreen trees and shrubs, including rhododendrons and vireyas, do it now. The plants will be ready to put on their spring growth and that vigour will help them recover from hard pruning or bad pruning.

• If you have rhododendrons which are looking a little sad, taking out all the dead wood can improve their appearance quickly. If all or most of the leaves are silver, you had a problem with thrips last season (nasty little leaf suckers). You can not turn the silver leaves green again though the new growth will appear in green, to start with at least. In a small garden, you might as well take the whole plant out and replace it with something which is going to stay healthier and not need spraying. In a larger garden, open up around the plant to allow more air movement and light (thrips do not appear to like drafts) and give the plant a heavy hair cut. You can cut back to bare wood on a strong growing plant, to rejuvenate it. Sacrifice the flowers this season for a better looking, bushy plant next season.
• If you are inspired by vegetables, get hold of the Kings Seed Catalogue (also available on line, we are told) for the most interesting range in the country. But shun the strawberry spinach which should be on every regional council banned list and soon.
• It is a critical month in the vegetable garden. Get the ground ready for the summer crops which will be planted out in four to six weeks time. Dig in green crops, clear weeds, cultivate the soil, incorporate compost and generally get the soil rich and friable if you want good results.
• If you are after early harvests, start tomato seeds, corn, melons, cucumbers, capsicums, courgettes and all the rest. But do it in pots under cover. A cloche placed on the intended site now will warm the soil faster for planting out your tender seedlings. It is much cheaper to grow from seed than to buy small plants.
• Keep planting peas and potatoes from now on to ensure a succession of crops. Early salad vegetables can be grown under cloches to give them the additional warmth and protection they need.
• If you have a glasshouse, you need to remember that a sunny day can overheat your tender seedlings remarkably quickly.

 Henry Mitchell summarised the panic of spring when he wrote:

There is nothing like the first hot days of spring when the gardener stops wondering if it’s too soon to plant the dahlias and starts wondering if it’s too late.

If you have been meaning to move any established trees and shrubs, do it as soon as possible. Take as large a root ball as you can and prune back the top to reduce stress on the plant.

• The optimum time for fertilizing plants is just as they are starting to go into their main growth period. So feed sasanqua camellias now but wait until the others near the end of their flowering (when they will put on their new season’s growth). Feed deciduous trees and shrubs when they are breaking into leaf. Don’t waste money on the expensive plastic coated slow release fertilisers which are designed for use in growing container plants, not for topdressing garden plants. Bioboost, nitrophoska blue, blood and bone or similar are much cheaper and all that is needed to give garden plants a boost. Fertilisers do not condition the soil. That is achieved by adding compost, leaf litter or humus.
• With September looming, it is all go in the vegetable garden with planting for spring and summer. Dwarf beans can be started in containers or, if you have a warm, coastal position, you could even sow the first crop directly in the soil. Get new potatoes in, if you haven’t done so yet, as the fear of frost is over for coastal areas at least.
• Peas can be sown now on a fortnightly basis and should be a compulsory addition to any garden with children. They will probably eat the entire crop but what lucky littlies to learn that peas actually grow in the garden rather than in a plastic bag in the freezer. As the peas germinate, they need a support to twine their way around and climb. You can use criss-crossed branches or bamboo if you don’t want to put in a more solid wire or netting frame. Sparrows in particular will take out the young shoots so having some netting to spread over them while they get established will hold the birds at bay.
• Never underestimate the usefulness of a large patch of parsley, especially at this time of the year when the price of fresh vegetables is skyrocketing. Parsley is fearfully good for you and chopped and scattered in quantity on top of meals otherwise lacking in fresh greens can make you feel virtuous. It is also a useful addition to make-do salads if you are lacking in much that is fresh or green. Parsley is biennial – in other words it goes to seed in its second year so you need to establish it two years running to ensure continued supply and to always let one plant seed. Otherwise it looks after itself.

Apparently (according to the Curious Gardener’s Almanac) baseball legend, Babe Ruth, used to wear a cabbage leaf under his cap to keep his head cool in games. This is a fashion which appears to have been slow to catch on amongst our sporting and farming fraternities.