• Keen veg growers will be starting to think about winter vegetables. If you use small plants, you have plenty of time but if you start from seed (which is of course much cheaper), you can be looking to sow most winter seeds (particularly brassicas) from now on. You have missed the boat on Brussels sprouts from seed. Winter vegetables grow through summer and autumn but you don’t want to get plants in too early or they can bolt to seed before you are ready to eat them. You can still sow a late crop of carrots.
• Many of the summer flowering clematis can be cut back hard if they have finished their flowering flush or are succumbing to mildew badly. Water them, feed them and they will romp away and start flowering again in about six weeks time.
• Rhododendrons, camellias and most flowering shrubs and trees (excluding roses, michelias and vireyas) have done most of their growing for the season so you are too late for heavy pruning this time around. Leave them for another six months unless they are fruit trees or flowering cherries. Otherwise you will be cutting off all the spring flowers.
• From the school of do as we say, not do as we do, the best time to prune raspberries is when the crop has just finished. Take out all this year’s fruiting canes. Next year’s fruit will come on the new growth.
• Try not to neglect container plants. They really need watering daily at this time and pots of annuals or perennials will benefit from a liquid feed. Hanging baskets are usually grossly overplanted so will need your TLC twice a day with water as well as a weekly liquid feed.
• Keep removing the laterals from tomato plants and grape vines and get a copper spray on the tomato plants to prevent blight.

• The gentle rain this week is likely to cause an explosion of fresh weeds. Nothing beats vigilance on this battle frontline.
• Do not delay on dividing autumn flowering bulbs such as nerines, colchicums and cyclamen hederafolium because they will be starting to go into growth. Nerines are best with their necks above ground and cyclamen are planted to a shallow depth only.
• It is the last chance to get deciduous cuttings in. Hydrangeas and some viburnums root easily for the home gardener. So do grape cuttings and willows.
• Deadheading and tidying up renga renga lilies makes them look a great deal more presentable now that they have finished their season of glory. Tidying around the bases may also reduce some of the snail infestation that can afflict them.
• Keep trimming back wild and wayward wisteria shoots.
• If you have not pruned your flowering cherry trees yet, then schedule it in. Now is the time to remove dead wood and witches broom. The latter is a fungal ailment, recognisable by much denser leaf growth and it needs to be cut out. These branches will not flower and can take over the tree. Cherry trees are not long lived in our climate. We are too damp and they suffer from root problems. If you have one in major decline which needs removing, do not plant another cherry tree in its place or it too is likely to suffer from root disease. This is probably the single best reason why avenues of matched cherry trees are not a good idea in Taranaki.
• Take advantage of the rain this week (which soaked in to dry ground nicely) to keep your vegetable garden moist over the next month. It is easier to keep moisture levels up than to get water to penetrate bone dry ground.
• If you have not yet summer pruned your apple trees, then do it now. Shorten the non fruiting branches back to half a dozen leaves which will encourage the formation of flower buds.
• You have until the end of this month to continue planting corn and peas for late harvest. You can continue planting green beans into February.

It has been a great season for roses with low humidity and rainfall. I summer prune roses constantly, both deadheading and cutting back long stems to a leaf bud. Roses put on a phenomenal amount of growth and if you keep pruning them, they stay bushier and will respond with new shoots which counteracts the defoliated look of leggy black spot infested bushes as the season progresses for those of us who don’t spray our roses.

• Roses carry some pretty nasty fungi and bacteria. Take wounds from roses more seriously than other minor afflictions lest you find yourself hospitalised with cellulitis (not to be confused with the late Princess Diana’s puckered cellulite). It does happen – ask any hospital nurse.
• Don’t scalp the summer lawn. Set the level higher on the lawnmower. Leaving more length will keep your lawn greener and healthier. Using a sprinkler to water the lawn is probably as unacceptable as driving an SUV these days and if you are still indulging in this practice, it may be time to question how necessary it is.
• You can still plant pumpkins, runner beans and tomatoes for a late crop but do not delay.
• Seed sown vegetables such as carrots need watering daily in the early stages to prevent burning off at the base in the sun. They need a little assistance to get well established.
• Keep up the successional sowings of corn and green beans and you can still plant main crop potatoes. Keep a few of the early maturing varieties back to plant in autumn for a winter crop of new potatoes.
• If you buy plants from garden centres at this time of the year, take note as to whether they are being held in the full sun. Often annuals and seedlings are displayed on a shady side of the building and you are going to have to harden them off before planting them out in the full sun or they will fry. Hardening off involves giving them an hour or two only in full sun to start off with.
• Keep watering container plants daily.

• Check out and see if thrips are starting, particularly on your rhododendrons. They build up more in shaded areas and also where there is little air movement. An insecticide spray now is well timed to kill off most of the little critters (look for dark and dirty threads on the underside of the leaves). If you don’t want to spray, at least open up around the plant so it is not crowded and if it is a variety that gets badly affected (you can tell by its silver foliage), consider replacing it with a healthier option better suited to your conditions.
• Keep copper sprays on tomatoes to prevent blight. Once your plants succumb to the dreaded blight, it can be too late to save them. If you are just starting to develop it (look for black spots on leaves which then wither and shrivel) then remove any affected foliage well away from the plant. Don’t put it in your compost unless you manage to make a hot mix which will kill the spores.
• Keep successional plantings going on brassicas (cauli, cabbage, Brussels sprouts and broc) as well as leeks, peas, corn and most other vegetables.
• Most seed sown vegetable crops will need thinning at an early stage and these thinnings can be eaten as micro veg.
• Make a New Year resolution to stay on top of the weeding and to avoid letting weeds get to the seeding stage. Weeds with seed heads are a real problem. Few people manage compost heaps that will generate sufficient heat to kill the seeds so all that happens is that you spread them far and wide when you use the compost later. And you can’t leave seeding weeds to shrivel in situ if you push hoe because all those seeds will take this as an invitation to grow then and there. Better by far to cut them off before their prime.
• Grapes need to be thinned – one bunch per runner, if you want good sized fruit. Stay on top of the laterals too, to prevent the foliage from shading and crowding the fruit too much.
• The only other piece of advice from the House of Jury this week comes not from either of us, but from a Christmas resident who advocated recommending that readers at least sit out in their gardens (between showers) to drink their Christmas booze and to eat their festive fare. You can then make plans for how to improve the outdoor scenery.

If you have left your run this late preparing the outdoors for impending visits by sometimes critical relatives, at least mow the lawns. If you can manage more, then remember that first impressions count so tidying the stretch from the letter box to the door is a start. Neat edges and swept paths have more immediate impact than a weed free garden. You have left it too late to spray weeds with glyphosate (Round Up) before Christmas (it takes from 10 days to three weeks to work) but boiling water will instantly kill pesky weeds in paved areas.

• If you are not a tidy or enthusiastic gardener, do not apologise to visitors. Practice throwing away airy comments such as, “We think matrix planting is the way to go, don’t you?” “We are trying a more natural way to manage our garden, organic almost.” “A weed is just a plant in the wrong place.” “We are working on a meadow garden.”
• Heed the rumblings about rubbish, burning and the environment. If you have never had a compost heap, it might be timely to suggest that a compost bin would make an acceptable last minute gift.
• There may not be a great deal of intensive gardening going on over the next week but if you want some quiet time, deadheading and weeding are never ending tasks.