Gardening in North Otago August 2nd 2011

The start of another new month!! and a lovely week for working out in the garden this week for me, all the rose pruning now completed so will spray all this weekend with winter oil.

The wisteria is next to be pruned, All the long slim leaders growing out in all directions will
be removed.
Once your wisteria has reached the length you require with a chosen leader, or maybe two going in opposite directions all other leaders can be removed. If allowed to grow, a wispy new leader will eventually become as thick as a tree branch, and too many of theses become a tangled mess and very heavy if being trained along a balcony.Don't prune any other part off a wisteria at this time of the year because you may remove the flower buds being formed right now. Reduce the size of large established wisterias once flowering has finished.


Clumps of hellebore's are looking fantastic in our garden right now and with the sun we have been blessed with the bee's are out and about pollinating them. once pollinated the center of the flower changes with the forming of seed pods, when this has taken place the stems become firmer and will last in water when picked. Hellebore's seed down very readily growing masses of baby plants beneath the mother plants. These seedlings can be transplanted or potted up in the second year when they have developed two strong leaves, but will not flower until around the forth year.


I notice Marguerite daisies here that have been badly damaged after the snow, I will leave the damaged growth on top to protect the growth
below and cut back to hard wood when frosts have finished. Marguerite daisies like geraniums grow rapidly back to being bushy when the climate suits them.


Ordinary garden soils that missed a good conditioning in autumn would still benefit from a layer of Compost spread on top. It can be dug in around August once the temperatures begin to rise. Before then the worms will work their way up towards this new layer of organic matter
bringing the compost down into the soil for you!




Vegetables & Fruit

These lovely mid-winter days we are experiencing here in North otago seem perfect for planting at a time when we usually don't. There are edibles that go into the ground when it is cold and damp. But remember none of these will survive in boggy soils.I planted broad beans and peas three weeks ago and they are now well up.
Garlic and Shallots are available to plant - dig compost through your soil or fill a container and plant separated cloves of garlic approximately twice the depth of the clove. Take care not to damage cloves when separating out the bulb. You could get up to 20 cloves per bulb!

Strawberries are easy to plant in all kinds of containers or straight into sunny/raised garden beds along with slow release fertiliser. Strawberries also seem to do very well in a hanging strawberry bag, but it would pay to wrap it with bird netting once the fruit starts turning red.

I got really stuck into my gooseberry bushes this week, cleaned the middle out of cross over branches and took off the branches skirting the ground which lifted the bushes up enough for picking underneath, many of these lower branches had grown roots into the ground so I have potted these sections up, they will develop into good size bushes in a couple of growing seasons.

Cheers, Linda.