- If you are planting ornamentals with established root balls, make sure you plunge the whole root system into water and hold it down until the bubbles stop rising, to make sure that you don’t have dry patches. It is risky planting this late (summer may make an appearance one day soon) and you will need to water any plants in thoroughly and to keep watering a couple of times a week to give the plant a chance to establish its roots.
- Dampening down soil by hosing really only prevents dust. Worse, it can encourage plants to keep their roots very close to the surface which makes them more vulnerable if you don’t water for a while. Effective watering needs to be able to penetrate well below the surface and a slow soaking is more effective than a quick sprinkle. Watering soon after rain such as we had on Wednesday will help get the moisture deeper if you have dry areas.
- Divide nerines now. Bring autumn flowering, they will be going into growth soon so don’t delay. Nerines are one bulb where the crown is above ground and the base plate below. They tend to flower better if they are a little congested in a clump, but established clumps can get too large.
- Early spring bulbs such as daffodils, snowdrops (galanthus), snowflakes (leucojum) and bluebells are all dormant now so can be lifted and held to be planted out in March or April.
- Plant winter brassicas, leeks and winter spinach as you make space by eating the summer veg.
- It is very important to keep successional planting going of practically everything. Succesional sowing is the key to ensuring continued supply and avoiding having a feast or famine.
- After this moist, humid weather, tomatoes will need spraying with copper to keep on top of blight. Keep pinching the laterals out on the tomatoes and keep plants to one or two main stems only. The reverse applies to melons and pumpkins where you pinch out the terminal buds to encourage the laterals to grow on which the fruit is set.
This week 5 January 2007
- If slugs and snails have decimated your hostas, it is possible to cut the foliage off, feed and water them well and they will spring into fresh growth which you can resolve to keep free from munching critters. This approach only works when plants are still in full growth and is the principle behind cutting back hybrid clematis which have finished flowering and roses past their first flush.
- Containers of gross feeding annuals or perennials need liquid feeding, preferably weekly, and watering on a daily regime. Hanging baskets which are crammed with overcrowded flowering plants to gain effect may need twice daily watering as well as weekly liquid feeding to keep them looking good. These flowering plants are putting so much energy into putting on a display that they need the horticultural equivalent of the energy drink to keep them going. Deadheading will extend the display.
- Containers planted with shrubs usually just need watering regularly because they should be getting their sustenance from slow release fertiliser in the potting mix and shrubs are more vulnerable to fertiliser burn from over feeding.
- Stay on top of the weeding. Vigilance is the key to stopping an explosion of weeds.
- Spray for thrips on rhododendrons if you have a problem with silver leaves. Fresh infestations can be seen on the underside of the foliage. Adult thrips are black and new ones are white.
- Flowering cherries are one tree that gets pruned in summer, not when dormant in winter. So if you need to prune cherries or to take out witches broom (identifiable as strong growing, very leafy branches which fail to flower) plan on doing it over the next month or so.
- In the vegetable garden, January is traditionally the time to plant out for winter although it may be a tad early for us. Some of the cabbages might be ready before winter if you put them in now. Winter vegetables do their growing in summer and autumn and then hold in the garden for you to harvest in the colder months. The key is to get the timing right so that they do not go to seed before winter.
- Harvest garlic. It can be lifted now even if it is still green, and left to lie on the ground while the foliage dies off. Not so onions. Leave them until the tops are bent over.
- Keep successional sowings of sweetcorn and other summer crops going. You have until the end of this month to ensure they get through before cold weather strikes. Although some of us might be wondering whether warm weather will ever actually arrive this summer.
The New Zealand gardening style
It was straight back to work here as soon as the statutory holidays were over. And by work, Mark and I refer to the nursery. We don’t generally describe gardening as work – that is our leisure and our pleasure (mostly). The nursery is the bread and butter which earns the money to keep the garden and the family going. And it is the time for cuttings. Usually we aim to have all deciduous cuttings in by Christmas (we rarely make that deadline so the over run is early in the new year) but several factors conspired against that this year. Not that it has mattered – the season is so late and so cold so far that we are effectively dealing with cuttings of the same maturity as usual.
But while I have been out in the nursery doing tasks which require little brain power, I have been pondering what makes New Zealand gardens different. At this time of the year, we get a trickle of overseas garden visitors and several of late have come because the British Royal Horticulture Society published an extended article on New Zealand gardens recently. It is with some pride that we note that on their top ten list of NZ gardens, they rate three of us in Taranaki.
Continue reading
This week 29 Dec 2006
- It is time for cuttings. Some plants root much more easily than others (camellias and rhododendrons are difficult without a propagation set up). But perennials, fuchsias, hydrangeas and vireyas are very easy. Find new season’s growth which has just hardened (in other words it does not snap easily when you bend it). Make a clean angled cut across the base, take a sliver off the outside of the stem for a couple of centimetres (two sides for vireyas), cut the leaves in half with a pair of scissors (it prevents excessive drying out) and stick in a pot filled with a free draining potting mix. Place in the shade and water gently on a regular basis. Rooting hormone will help but is not absolutely necessary for easy cuttings. Handle rooting hormones with care and make sure you wash your hands thoroughly afterwards.
- If you have an accident with spray at any time and get it on your skin, wash it off with copious amounts of cold water. Hot water opens the pores of the skin and increases the risk of absorbing the chemicals. So remember the cold water rule.
- You can still sow seed of practically everything in the flowering line from ageratum to marigolds to zinnias to give you late summer and autumn colour.
- Otherwise it is a maintenance time in the ornamental gardens – deadheading, weeding, staking but it is not likely that watering will be required.
- Summer feed roses. In case you haven’t noticed, roses have pathetic little root systems considering the terrific amount of seasonal growth and the mass display they put on so a bit of feeding assistance helps them. If you are into spraying roses, they will almost certainly need a dose of Shield now.
- You can still sow most plants from seed in the vegetable garden, from beans to tomatoes. The tomatoes will develop and crop through the autumn and into winter in mild areas. Keep successional plantings of sweetcorn going. Corn is another vegetable that is infinitely superior picked from your own garden – all the sugars have not turned to starch and it is sweeter and more tender than cobs picked days before for market.
- It is the important time to spray citrus trees with copper and to fertilise if you haven’t done so already. Copper prevents all sorts of nasties on citrus trees.
- Powdery mildew is the dominant disease at the moment on tamarillos, citrus, apples, even clematis. If you have to spray, there are several sprays which are the equivalent of Bravo and Topsin mixed – Taratek (a Taranaki product) or Greenguard are two to look for.
This week 22 Dec 2006
- Sit back and enjoy the garden and visitors and family who may be around.
- If you want the garden to look good for visitors and have left your run rather late at least mow the lawns. If time allows for more presentation, in descending order of importance the following tasks will make your place looked cared for: define path and garden edges, sweep or blower vac sealed areas, leaf rake soft surface tracks, trim hedges in prominent positions and prune sludgy rose blooms. Removing any junk or large debris also helps. That is about all you can plan for in a short space of time.
- When bonding with family and friends gets too much, you can retreat outdoors and cut back spent flowers on annuals and perennials, water container plants if we get three days in a row without rain (faint hope), or thin out overcrowded spring bulbs while you can still remember where they are.
- Stay on top of the weeding. It pays to have a bucket or barrow beside you to put the weeds in, especially if you have that nasty little cress which can explode and spurt out seeds over a wide radius. Don’t put seeding weeds in your compost unless you manage it as a hot mix. Otherwise you will be spreading the seed next season with the compost. Putting seeding weeds in a black plastic bag in the sun to bake them first is a good precaution.
- If you have a hybrid clematis that has finished flowering, it can be cut back hard, fed and watered and it will take about six weeks before it delights you with a second flowering season.
- There will be no fresh raspberries in this household for Christmas. Despite best efforts, the cold spring just has not encouraged ripening in time. We have eaten all the fresh peas, dug all the first crop new potatoes and the strawberries are past their peak. Mark is feeling a failure and we will have to resort to the fruiterer or supermarket. He says we will at least be able to have rhubarb pie.
- This is peak time for pests in the garden. If you can’t be bothered making your own concoctions out of rhubarb leaves and soapy water, garden centres sell organic alternatives which are often safer or kinder than manufactured chemical sprays. If you use chemical sprays, watch out for the withholding period before it is safe to eat produce.
Tikorangi The Jury Garden 