Gardening in North Otago December 18th

Great growing weather with the warmth and the little rain from time to time through the week, I was out in the rain with the fertiliser for the gardens and lawns on Tuesday morning because the dreaded rooster woke us at 5am!!! He is getting a holiday for Christmas: When it gets dry again soak hoses are great for deep soaking, they drip away continuously there is no water waste, the water goes where it is needed. This week has been another cutting back time for me, late spring and early summer perennials and annuals that are past their best. Once they have been cut back I am left with gaps which I have been topping up with, yes you guessed it, sifted soil! . The plants which I have cut back are already starting to bush up again with fresh new growth and will soon fill out, enjoy the new soil and cover the unsightly gaps. My delphiniums have grown so tall and strong this year they pushed over the supports I put around them, its hard to stand them up again with out breaking them and ending up with them looking a bit wonkey. I have been just cutting them back to the point where they have broken and I guess they will put out the smaller flower heads they send up once the main bloom has been taken. A dressing of blood & bone or slow release fertiliser and a good soaking will help them last longer looking good. Well it is count down time now for Christmas and the end of another busy year for most.The garden I am sure will be taking a back seat for everyone. If you are going away pop all your indoor plants in the bath with a little water to keep them going and baskets and manageable pots around to the shady side of the house until your return. Dead head as many roses as you can so they can get going on their second flowering, deep water and mulch if you have the time. Then let the garden look after it's self while you have a well deserved break. Vegetable garden: So much is ready for picking in the veg garden right now, cover the black current and raspberry bushes from the birds if you are heading off for a few days maybe someone you know could use what you cannot from your garden. How wonderful it would be to be able to fill a basket of fresh produce at Christmas / New year Gardening by the moon FULL MOON Friday, 28 December 2012 Flower Garden: Remove seeds pods from sweet peas to keep them flowering Layer carnations Plant bulbs in garden beds orchard or pots Dead head dahlias too keep them flowering Veg Garden: Water as required, especially just around the full moon as the plants are really wanting to grow Foliar feed three days before full moon Keep up tomato and pepper maintenance Spray neem oil for bugs. Spraying now will stop the next generation hatching Orchard: Watch for water stress Spray neem oil on any young trees that need protection Make a careful notes of when all your fruit ripens so that you know where the gaps are for future plantings That's it from me for this year, our tree is ready and waiting for the pitter- patter of tiny feet on Christmas morning and not one of them will need to hunt for Nana in the garden. I wish everyone a very happy Christmas and all the very best for 2011.

Gardening in North Otago 12.December 2012

We are very close to Christmas now and gardening will be on the back burner soon for most I am sure, including me,Ya! Not much watering had to be done this week after the rain, but the heat of the sun when out soon has those hoses out again. I have had the hedge trimmer on the go again and yes the plants and shrubs did shudder to their roots when I come their way! If it needs it, it gets it! Trimming with secateurs is not practical with such a large garden and at this time of the year you can not do too much damage, the grow back rate is pretty quick. I am still lucky enough to have the help of a busy Pete who loves trimming hedges, the box hedges have had a good go over this week with Pete doing the back breaking trimming and I the clean up. The overcast afternoons have been perfect for them to recover without the sun scorching them too soon. Scorching of newly cut box hedging in the hot summer sun is unavoidable but they soon grow through scorching and harden off. My buddleia's also got a good cut back, they are a great fill in bush. I cut them back by half, when they have finished flowering when young and right to the ground once at the stage of getting out of hand. Buddlea push up new growth very quickly and look attractive with their blue green foliage even without the flowers. Shades of blue /purple, pink & white make this an attractive plant for a back border. and can be grown from a cutting. Catmint can be trimmed back now, I know it is still showing heaps of colour but trim the long growth back by half and in no time at all it will re-grow into a neater clump and continue to flower. The same applies to aubrietia, it will stay in a neater clump after a trim back. Most gardeners pull out forget-me-not when it has finished flowering, I cut it right back to almost nothing and it returns in nice green clumps stronger than ever and becomes a perennial which will flower for years every spring. As a woodland plant you can't go past forget-me-not as a pretty sea of blue in the spring. Many more branches were lifted on large trees this week, I hire chain saw which is small on the end of a very long handle, just perfect for reaching up and removing long branches and thinning out to let light onto gardens below. . Anemones for winter flowering can be planted in the next two weeks, you will need to put a stick in where they are planted at this time of the year it's so easy to forget the spot and dig them up.Pop some in pots to replace all the Summer & autumn pots when finished flowering. Lilies are flowering now, large clumps can be divided up and shifted straight after flowering and planted into good compost but they must never dry out so keep an eye on them through the dryer months. I have had clumps of Christmas lilies completely disappear and have not noticed until I miss them flowering at this time of the year. It takes ages for lilies to grow from little pup bulbs and seed so they are worth looking after. Lawns: If you don't like using sprays and you have a few flat weeds in the lawn try spot spraying them with vinegar, Most people would have vinegar in the kitchen. I was told about this recently and it works! I used white vinegar. It is also great for pathways and drives and leaves no dangerous residue to leach into nearby plants.. I am pretty sure it dose not kill clover, browns it off a little, but I am still watching to see how much it knocks it. The vinegar needs to be applied in dry sunny weather. Keep mounding up potato rows to encourage bigger shores, corn likes to be mounded up also when it gets to about knee high. They have a shallow rooting system and the mounding helps to keep them upright in strong winds. I have been faced with a great crop of weeds in the vegetable garden, like most other gardeners I am sure. How fast they appear and grow, one thing is for sure you can put off doing what you should but you cannot put off what nature wants to do when it comes to weeds, and ripening of fruit and veg, Nature will have it's way and if you are too late to respond the weed seeds pop, the fruit over ripens and the veg bolts. Fruit: It is time to shorten back fruiting leaders on grape vines, the growth is needed for the grapes that have started to form. If a leader has produced too many bunches remove some with shortening back. I was told years ago that offal or a dead animal is what a domestic grape vine likes to have buried down around it's roots, too much nitrate fertiliser will produce leaves and leaders. like most fruiting plants a little pot ash to encourage fruiting is beneficial in spring. NEW MOON From Thursday, 13 December 2012 Veg Garden: Water carefully, using fingers to make sure that the ground is getting wet where you need the moisture. Harvest garlic and onions, if ready Weed and prepare beds, aerate surface of all un-mulched beds with hoe, Sow late crops of cucumbers, courgettes, beans and basil Sow peas, rocket and corriander in shade plan and sow seed for Autumn crops like cabbage, broccoli, cauliflower, silverbeet, spinach, celery, carrots, beetroot, brussels sprouts, kale swedes, turnips and radish. Continue regular foliar feeds of gross feeders with liquid comfrey or liquid manure, and foliar feeding with fish, seaweed or growth foliar transplant leeks into garden for Autumn, Winter use Flower garden Sow seed for late Autumn / Winter / early spring flowering - snap dragon, calendula, marigold, sweet William, hollyhock, granny's bonnet (aquelegia) Orchard: Pinch growing tips out on your fig trees to encourage growth to go into fruit Net and harvest ripening fruit Watch moisture levels carefully - especially young trees Cheers, Linda.

Gardening in North Otago 8th December 2012

Another week with so much to be cut back in our garden, plants like tree peony which doubles 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,these I have mentioned will all grow back and look a lot nicer and some flower again. So keep on cutting back anything that has finished flowering, add compost and fertiliser then fill the gaps with summer flowering annuals like cosmos, statice, begonias, salvia, marigolds, lobelia and petunias etc 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 rotted them. I did dig out and store most of them and have planted 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 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. They 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 cuttings 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. 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. I have also seen lillies growing in containers and water lillies in water on offer to buy this week. Plant the lillies (pot and all) into the ground in a sunny place to carry on growing. Once finished flowering dig up, remove the pot and replant. Plant the water lillies into a pot lined with old thickish fabric a good amount of stones on top, then garden soil with general slow release fertiliser or a little old stable manure for the roots of the water lilly to tap into. Lastly a good amount of stones on top to stop fertiliser leeching out into the pond water. Roses are well in flower now so keep the water and food up to them to keep them healthy. Remove spent blooms and any leaves that show signs of rust or black spot and they will keep producing blooms from now until the beginning of winter. 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. 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 in them. Gypsum works it's way through the clay and makes it become more like soil. Vegetables I have had to keep the water up to my veg garden this week, the pumpkin leaves soon let me know when it is needed, a few more night showers would be much more beneficial than hosing. But the vegetables and fruit are doing well so far this year, keep the hoe going because the weeds are doing well also. The days being warm and the nights a little cooler is 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 beginning to fruit now, the removal of over half the leaves on a plant will benefit your plants by letting the fruit have more nutrients, eliminating shade from the ripening fruit and letting sun in to encourage flowering. With less leaves flowers to become more visible to insects for pollination. Try it and see if you get a better crop. Gardening by the moon Thursday, 13 December 2012 Garden: Water carefully, using fingers to make sure that the ground is getting wet where you need the moisture. Harvest garlic and onions, if ready Weed and prepare beds, aerate surface of all unmulched beds with a hoe. Sow late crops of cucumbers, courgettes, beans and basil Sow peas, rocket and corriander in shade plan and sow seed for Autumn crops like cabbage, broccoli, cauliflower, silverbeet, spinach, celery, carrots, beetroot, brussels sprouts, kale swedes, turnips and radish, Continue regular foliar feeds of gross feeders with liquid comfrey or liquid manure, and foliar feeding with fish / seaweed foliar food. transplant leeks into garden for Autumn, Winter use Sow flower seed for late Autumn / Winter / early spring flowering - snap dragon, calendula, marigold, sweet william, hollyhock, granny's bonnet (aquelegia) Orchard: Pinch growing tips out on your fig trees to encourage growth to go into fruit Net and harvest ripening fruit Watch moisture levels carefully - especially young trees Cheers Linda