Gardening in North Otago 11th December 2010

This week hot and cold, the plants will not know what season it is!
All of a sudden there is so much to be cut back in our garden, plants like tree peony which double in size each growing season. Don't let them swamp your garden and smother other plants, the older woody canes can be cut down to the second bud from the bottom leaving the new green stalks to be next years flower branches. By doing this now seed pods will be cut off as well which if allowed to ripen will pop all over your garden and grow. Other larger plants I have had to cut back are bush lavatera's, English abutilon, ornamental broom, false Valerian,and cat mint these I have mentioned will all grow back, look a lot nicer and flower again.

I have had to continue lifting the branches on trees that were casting too much shade over other plants. It's the lower branches that can be removed without making the tree look as though it has been cut. The upper branches will hide the cuts, so any branch growing downwards with a canopy branch directly above it can be cut back or removed altogether.

Begonias are really pushing through now and I see that I have lost a few of the ones I left in the ground from last year, I am guessing the rain we had in May rotted them. I did dig out and store most of them and have now been planting them out. The food begonias most appreciate is any fish based fertilser, as a folia spray or watered in around their roots.

Hydrangeas are producing flower heads now so it is important to keep the water and food up to them, blood and bone, dry or liquid or slow release fertiliser will keep them happy and flowering well. Remember it's lime for pink and Epsom salts or aluminum sulphate to keep them blue.

Fuchsias are making a lot of growth now as well, if you missed cutting any back do it now, they will flower later than the ones you have cut back but will soon catch up.
Tip cutting can be taken from fuchsias now, if you spot some you like in a friends garden ask for some cuttings.
Tip cuttings from Hebe's will root with no trouble as well right now. Use wet crusher dust or river sand to strike them in, never beach sand.
Fuchsias are on sale right now, they are wonderful in pots for a shady spot and because they put on a lot of growth in one season they soon become bushy and fill a pot.

If you are looking for something non invasive to make a show of colour against a wall why not try Abutilon (Chinese lantern ) I have seen it on offer this week in three Strong colours, yellow, orange and burgundy. I have planted yellow and burgundy together in a large container with nice lime green grass's below them, they are a rather spindly plant so I have been intertwining them as they grow, they are just starting to flower now and look great together. If you do train them against a wall you could leave some longer branches and shorten back others to get a good spread.
Lawns
keep feeding lawns, dry lawn fertiliser must only be applied when we get rain to wash it in but a liquid fertiliser is fine any time. Lawns get really stressed from now on as the hot summer progresses.
If your lawns are inclined to crack when dry they have probably been planted on clay soil. Apply gypsum ,
( soluble lime) and water in, after a couple of years of doing this your lawns will have a spring back in them. Gypsum works it's way through the clay and makes it become more like soil.

Vegetables

The vegetables and fruit are doing well this year, keep the hoe going because the weeds are doing well also. The little skiffs of rain and all the sunshine we have been getting are doing the trick, the days are warm and the nights a little cooler, just right for growing. I am amazed that the white butterfly is still not about in my garden! not that I want them laying their eggs on my veg plants, long may it last.

Tomatoes will be getting taller and fruiting well now, the removal of over half the leaves on a plant will benefit your plants by letting the fruit have more nutrients, and eliminating shade from the ripening fruit and letting sun in to encourage flowering and allowing flowers to become more visible to insects for pollination. Try it and see if you get a better crop.

Cheers Linda