- Planting of spring bulbs can continue but time is starting to run out.
- Start the autumn clean up round. Big floppy perennials which have started to fall apart and smother surrounding plants can be cut back hard if they are now past their best. Many perennials will grow true from seed so you may want to gather ripe seed for sowing in seed trays. Splitting up large clumps to get divisions is a faster means of getting instant plants but if your clump is small, seed may be the way to go.
- Practically all annual and perennial flower seeds, from ageratum to hollyhocks to pansies to wallflowers, can be sown from seed in trays now for planting out in winter. It is a great deal cheaper to start from seed than to buy in plants but you need to be organised and to have bench space. It is safe to put trays in the glasshouse now that the heat of summer has gone.
- With the autumn rains having arrived, it is the optimum time for dig and divide. This gives plants time to establish before winter. Grasses, clumping perennials which are past their best and herbaceous plants such as astelias will all benefit from some renovation. Thinning out the congested clump and tilling the surrounding soil gives them renewed vigour. Polyanthus can also be divided and replanted now for spring display. The rule of thumb is that these types of plant material will benefit from such treatment every three years or so.
- The rains mean renewed activity from slugs and snails. Be vigilant.
- Keep spraying your tomatoes with copper every couple of weeks or after heavy rain to keep blight at bay until the fruit has ripened.
- Beat the birds to autumn fruit harvests such as pears and apples but it is a fine balancing act between getting tree ripened fruit and letting the birds discover it before you do.
Category Archives: Seasonal garden guides
This week 23 March 2007
- Gardens can start to look a little tired at this time of the year. Clipping hedges and maybe the occasional clipped feature plant can create a sharp contrast to the late summer blowsiness. Ensuring you have some seasonal autumn plants also adds a fresh note. If you like bulbs, colchicums (autumn crocus), cyclamen hederafolium, belladonnas and nerines are delightful. In the perennials, asters are flowering and there are range of autumn annuals which will also add fresh points of colour. Garden chrysanthemums are an autumn flower and tree dahlias are coming in to their own while shrub dahlias continue to flower.
- Do not delay on planting spring bulbs. If you are trying to achieve the look of a natural drift, the usual approach is to scatter the bulbs and plant them where they fall. This can be a problem, as a friend found, if you have a hill. The Kew method is to take an area, remove all the turf, scatter thousands of bulbs and then replace the turf but this may be a little extreme if you plan a drift of 30 bulbs only.
- Feeding the lawn immediately before rain is forecast will help green up tired looking areas. As the autumn rains have arrived, new lawns can be sown now or bare areas can be renovated. Rake over old lawns and fill dips and hollows with weed free soil before oversowing. A mix of fescue and fine leafed ryegrass gives a reasonably hardwearing but lush lawn.
- It is still an important time for planting winter vegetables while they have time to grow before the cold temperatures set in.
- Keep pinching out laterals on tomatoes.
- If you have a grape crop (our fruit set this year was terrible) remove all the leaves from around the bunches to allow them to be exposed to the sun and to air movement. If you haven’t covered them with birdnetting, it is probably too late but if you still have fruit left, then netting will allow you to eat what crop there is rather than feeding the birds. If you can keep the birds out, it greatly reduces the wasps as well because it is the pecked fruit that attracts the wasps.
This week 16 March 2007
- Summer has well and truly ended early and while we should expect more fine weather (for Womad this weekend, one hopes), we will not achieve the same heat and strength in the sun. So it is all on for the new planting season. Continue reading
This week 9 March 2007
- A distinct lowering of temperatures and the first of the autumn rains signal a change of season. While March may give us an Indian summer, the full heat of the sun has almost certainly gone until next year now. This means you can start planting again. Continue reading
This week 2 March 2007
- It is planting time for spring bulbs so check out garden centres now to buy them loose in the pick and mix style of shopping. Don’t delay lifting and dividing clumps in the garden which you may have marked last season as due for renovation. They start to move into growth surprisingly early (lachenalias are already making root growth). Continue reading
Tikorangi The Jury Garden 