Category Archives: Seasonal garden guides

Weekly garden guide, In the garden this week, In the Taranaki garden

November 9, 2007 Weekly Garden Guide

Now is the time to prune rhododendrons, including vireyas, which may have become leggy and woody. You can try the kill or cure approach of cutting back very hard to bare wood but only at this time of the year when the plant is in full growth. Feed and mulch the poor mutilated victim and hope it will reward you by springing into fresh growth. Do not expect flowers next year, however.

  • Deadheading rhododendrons should be taking place as they finish flowering. You want the plant to set flower buds for next year, not seed.
  • Apparently coffee grounds deter slugs and snails so you may like to try this around hostas although we have not tried it ourselves yet. Rimu leaves, sawdust, sand and crushed eggshells will certainly discourage newcomers. Do not forget cheap baker’s bran as an environmentally friendly option. It doesn’t kill them but they end up so stuffed that they are lying comatose in the morning for the birds to pick them up.
  • Pot up colourful annuals to give a summer display around outdoor living areas.
  • Get on to sowing melons right now if you want a harvest. They have a long growing season and we can be marginal in our climate.
  • Plant kumara runners.
  • Continue successional sowings of dwarf beans, corn and peas. All are much nicer fresh from the home garden than off supermarket shelves or out of the freezer.
  • Get the push hoe out. The weeds are having a party and you want to interrupt it as quickly as possible to prevent ongoing problems. Push hoeing on a sunny day means you can leave the weeds on the surface to shrivel, as long as they have not already set seed.

November 2, 2007 Weekly Garden Guide

While we have had next to no time in our own garden this week, it is alarming how fast we can start drying out after a week of warm, sunny weather. Get mulch onto garden beds, preferably after a good dousing of rain. Keep an eye on container plants too. Daily watering is now required.

  • If you calculate that your early flowering narcissus have had 65 days of growth (in other words they were coming through the ground by the end of August), they can be trimmed or mown now. Cutting off the leaves and laying mulch deters the dreaded narcissi fly which is starting to hatch. These nasties lay their eggs in the crown and the larvae hatch and eat out the bulbs. Mark has seen his first of the season.
  • If you have been tempted into buying plants this week, make sure you soak them well in a bucket of water until air bubbles stop rising before you plant them. It is late in the season for planting trees and shrubs so if your conditions are harsher (ground which is not well cultivated or friable, very exposed or coastal), you may be better heeling the plants in to well cultivated conditions such as a vegetable garden for planting out next autumn.
  • Aphids have found many of the hellebores. Deadheading will reduce the aphid infestation in your garden.
  • Continue the Labour Weekend plantings in the vegetable garden. If you have early strawberries, it is time to look at laying netting over them. As soon as there is a hint of red, the birds will spot them and they are not likely to wait until they are ripe enough for you to eat.
  • It is now full steam ahead on main crop potatoes, zucchini, pumpkin, squash, corn and even kumara in warmer areas. Plant everything now. It has been a cold spring so we are running a little later than usual but it would be really bad luck to get a frost now.

October 26, 2007 Weekly Garden Guide

Those who have their gardens open to the public for the next ten days are unlikely to be doing any serious gardening themselves this week.

But others who read this column should try and get out to see a few gardens. If nothing else, visit two – one that you have always intended to get to and one which you think sounds as if it has some good ideas to inspire you in our own garden.

  • Pieris (commonly referred to as lily of the valley plants though they are not related at all to that cool climate perennial) are best dead headed. If you let them go to seed, they tend not to set flower buds on those stems next year. As rhododendrons finish flowering, try and dead head them too so that they put their energies into setting fresh flower buds not seed. Rhododendrons set next year’s buds in their spring growth each season so it is a long way ahead of when they flower.
  • While the seventies may have been the era of conifer gardens, the eighties of cottage gardening, and the nineties brought us the horrors of the minimalist garden, there is little doubt as to what is the fashion of the new millenium. It is the vegetable garden, the more organic the better. If you have never grown your own vegetables, avoid being too ambitious to start with. Remember that vegies need full sun and very well cultivated soil. Lettuces are a good crop to start with. Radishes bring a quick return for minimal effort. Micro greens or mesclun salad greens can be rewarding. Sweet 100 tomatoes are a good, easy care crop for a beginner.
  • If you are in the habit of buying the fresh herb plants from the fruit and veg section of the supermarket, you can extend their cropping by buying the smallest grade of plants on offer and either planting them out in a garden border out from your kitchen or potting them into a larger pot with some quick release fertiliser. Water well.
  • 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.
  • 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. Magnolias are similarly vulnerable so keep sprays well away from any specimens in or close to your lawn. Better still, put the hormone spray away at this time of year.
  • If you want to grow watermelons and rock melons, this is 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. Mark did this last week.
  • Don’t delay on planting out trees and shrubs. It is getting late in the season and they are best established before summer.

October 19, 2007 Weekly Garden Guide


With the open garden high season upon us, owners will be relieved to hear that the terror threat in gardens is low this year.

While just about every activist group in the country has been implicated in the para military training in the Ureweras (peace activists, Maori sovereignty advocates, animal rights activists and environmentalists), there is no suggestion that active gardeners in horticultural societies have been recruited yet. However, vigilant garden openers may like to keep their eyes peeled for Latvian ex-KGB agents who are easily identified by their bad hats and the notebooks they carry.

  • If you have naturalised annuals which self seed year after year (thinking particularly of pansies but there are many others too), pull out plants with inferior flowers or yukky colour mixes before they seed or you will find that increasing numbers of plants have these undesirable characteristics in future seasons.
  • When we said last week that serious inorganic gardeners will use Orthene to combat white fly, we were in fact advocating that home gardeners look to a more environmentally friendly option, of which there are several. You need to be a certificated, card carrying chemically qualified person these days to buy Orthene.
  • Labour Weekend is the traditional time for major plantings in the vegetable garden but the cold wet weather this week may deter all but the most hardy of traditionalists. It won’t matter if you delay a week or two before starting to sow your corn or to plant out your tomatoes, cucumbers, pumpkins, melons and courgettes. Or corn can be started in small pots if you are too cold and wet to direct sow. It is a crop best planted in succession to ensure a longer harvest season. Don’t delay on getting your carrot seeds in, however. It is also time for planting main crop potatoes and kumara runners can be planted in warm areas. Keep successional sowings of peas. All grandparents should sow peas as part of their duties to young grandchildren. It doesn’t matter if none make it to the pot. Pity the poor child who misses out on the pleasure of eating peas fresh from the pod in the garden.
  • Once you have garden borders weed free, laying a good thick layer of mulch (around 10cm) will deter the next crop of weeds from germinating as well as adding structure the soil and feeding the plants if you use compost mulch. Just make sure that the mulch is free of weeds or you will multiply problems ten fold.
  • Keep pruning in between showers. Despite the dripping foliage, this is the best time of the year to prune most plants (but not cherry trees which are summer pruned).

October 12, 2007 Weekly Garden Guide

  • It is 3P1F this week. That is Panic, Plant and Prune. And Feed. Get woody trees and shrubs into the ground as fast as you can now so they can settle in before we start to dry out. We are only a few weeks off the time when temperatures can start to rise dramatically.
  • Most plants are best pruned straight after flowering. This is particularly true for rhododendrons, including vireyas. As soon as they have done their seasonal spurt of flower power, get in with the loppers if they need it. Rhododendrons only put on one growth spurt in spring so you need to prune before that happens so the plant can grow in the right places and channel its energies where you want it.
  • It is important to allow bulbs such as daffodils and bluebells to take their own time to die down and become dormant. Do not cut off their green leaves and tying the foliage in knots is pretty tacky. If the splayed foliage worries you, tying a clump loosely with a narrow thread of flax leaf looks greatly preferable to knots.
  • If you grow lilies, watch for aphid infestations now. These nasty little suckers may be responsible for spreading virus in lilies and are best eliminated. Serious inorganic growers will use Orthene but there is a range of pyrethrum based aphid sprays which are less heavy duty.
  • It is full steam ahead in the vegetable garden preparing for L Day (that is Labour Day planting, a time honoured tradition). Corn can be started in little pots to be planted out in three weeks time.
  • Thin out early sowings of vegetables.
  • Earth up potatoes and keep a copper spray on them to keep blight at bay. Broad beans also need a copper spray every few weeks to stop rust.
  • If you want to boost growth in the vege garden, a light sprinkling of blood and bone is a good move at this time.