Gardening in North Otago November 18th 2014

Stop wind! North Otago has had enough. I am so tied of dragging hoses about but water must be kept up because growth is still soft and in need of a lot of moisture to develop and harden off enough to cope with the elements. So on I go as I am sure all other Gardeners are, dragging hoses from garden to garden....but I may be the only one who has a small dog named Scruff attached to the end of each hose pulling the other way!

I have been weeding and cutting back heaps of stuff that has finished flowering, alyssum, ground cover phlox, aubrietia, aquilegias and forgetmenot. if you cut them back now they will green up again and look good over summer, same goes for Erica's, cut all the brown spent flower stems back and they will green up again in no time.
After spreading compost, I started filling every gap with flower seedlings like cosmos, petunias, static, blue salvia, natushims, lavatera and lobelia not leaving any room for weeds to grow, hence the need to water often.

All trees have leafed up now, don't be afraid to cut out over crowding branches to let light in to plantings underneath. If there are two branches filling the same spot take the lower one out. Maples and Oak trees tend to grow thick canopies so I have been thinning mine out. I remove heaps but when I stand back and look it is not noticeable and now there is dappled light coming through, however the winds have made this happen without help from me!

This year my dahlias are slower to leaf up than past years, once in bud they can be pinched out like chrysanthemums to encourage bushiness' but they will still get tall so put stakes in now before they get up too far and begin to bend and fall.

If your daffodils did not flower so well this spring, It's a good time to break up large clumps while you can still see where they have been, flowering can be restricted when the clumps get over crowded. Plant out in small groups in about 20cm of compost...plant, feed with blood and bone and mulch so they don't dry out over summer.

There are autumn flowering bulbs in now, like belladonnas, crocuses, nerines, plant in full sun where they will not be disturbed.

Water lilies can be added to ponds now that the water is warmer, if buying one it should be in leaf, as I mentioned not long ago plant into a plastic pot using thick news paper first then some manure and garden soil. Manure first with soil on top, plant the lily in soil then top with a thick layer of stones or gravel. It is important not to let any fertiliser or manure leach out into the pond water because it will encourage the water to go green with slime which is harmful to fish when caught in their gills.
If your pond is stagnating it means that it is not working ... try putting in some old unsprayed straw or hay, weigh it down with a rock so it does not float around on the surface of the water. At first the pond water will not look too healthy but soon you will be amazed at how fast it will clear and stay clear once things start working naturally. To work naturally the bottom of the pond can and should be a little muddy, but the top should be clear, you can easily tell when it is.
Put some oxygen weed in from a pond already filled with fish, fish blow their eggs into the weed so there is sure to be eggs now that water is warmer, these will hatch out in your pond with no big fish around to eat them.You will not have to feed fish in the warmer months, they will get plenty of bugs from now on.

Lawns:  mowers need to be lifted a notch now, try mowing without the catcher now and then, and rake the clippings out over the lawn to add humus to the lawn. Lawns need fed regularly through the growing and cutting seasons but never without moisture to follow to avoid grass burning. Have some fertiliser on hand for the next rain or feed each area when watering. I sprayed the daisies and weeds two weeks ago, and slowly the gaps where the weeds died are filling in with grass.
Being so dry makes it almost impossible for grass seed to germinate. Really good soakings will be needed but with the ground drying out as it is with wind it may be a wasted effort right now. However a patchy strike can be over sown in Autumn with new grass thick and well growing before winter.

Fruit: Check your fruit trees now for over crowded bunches, thin bunches out by snipping small fruits off with sharp scissors. Give each fruiting tree and bush a good root soak now and then in this dry weather.

Vegetables:
The winds ruined my broad beans so I picked and froze the beans then pulled plants out and threw them to the sheep. I now have a space against a wall to plant peas once the ground has been built up again with compost and had a good soaking.
Keep planting all vegetables but not too many of the same at one time.

Cheers, Linda.