Gardening in North Otago May 6th 2015

The year is marching on! and May is the official beginning of winter for NZ.
For me June is the start of winter because Autumn means leaves and more beautiful leaves which is what we are dealing with right now. In nature leaves are soil food, they fall to the ground creating humus but leaves falling around a garden and on lawns are usually raked up, this is why it is so important to add compost to gardens and lawns to put humus back.
I am adding to my compost daily layering with leaves, grass clippings, soft garden and hedge clippings, manure and established compost. Cold weather has a marked slowing down effect on compost organisms and any insulation wrapped around a bin will help them keep working, I do this on my heaps with a thick layer of straw. I do go on about compost don't I?

The cut back is still going on in my gardens and the compost / mulch is going on to provide food for the plants when they need it which also helps to keep the soil a little warmer for plant roots over winter. Once every plant, shrub and tree has been mulched and watered and leaves raked off gardens the pea straw will go on.

After rain I am finding a lot of snails in the garden, they will find a dark sheltered spot among pots or behind plants growing up against a wall, flax and agapanthus are especially bad for harboring snails to multiply fast and be ready to destroy plants in spring. I have read that it is no good transporting snails to a vacant area away from your garden because they have homing instincts and travel long distances to return to THEIR garden of choice. I cannot bring myself to stamp on them or drown them in a bucket so if you are like me you can gather up as many as you can find and put them in a plastic bag, close it tight and put in the freezer, this way they will go to sleep and not wake up, yes I know "what is she on about"? working with Nature is what gardening is all about with me and snails belong in gardens until you remove them.

Keep planting tulips until the end of this month, plant them deep because they like it cool, if you have a special tulips you would like to multiply plant them against a south facing wall and forget about them they will grow and multiply there for years. Also keep planting and dividing Lilly's now as well and keep them damp, there should be a good range of lillys in the garden centres,

Plan new plantings of deciduous trees and shrubs remembering to allow room for them to grow both up and outwards. Deciduous trees and shrubs will come into retail at the end of June / July. If your ground tends to get wet and sticky in winter it would be a good idea to dig the area up now while the soil is easy to work with. Dig out the soil add peat or compost and blood and bone to it then fill back in again until you are ready to plant. If you know which deciduous trees and shrubs you require order them now from the garden centre and you will not miss out.

Hydrangeas are deepening into rich shades as gardens head towards winter, l like to leave this colour for as long as it takes for them to look faded and untidy, this also gives stems time to harden off and once hardened off they can be shifted if needed. Really large bushes can be dug up and root cut or pulled into several individual bushes. In cold districts don't prune back until spring, leave the tops on to protect the new growth.

A start can be made on pruning very strong rambler roses by cutting out any dead stems and cutting back all side stems on canes to with in 2-3 buds from the main steam. Shorten back vigorous leaders by about 1/3 to promote branching. If the bush is out of control like some of mine reduce the size with a hedge trimmer then cut some canes right out from ground level.

Veg:
If worms are rare in your garden, this usually indicates that the organic content of the soil is very low, worms seem to always find manure but it needs to be spread as a layer low down under a soil bed for them to come up to it. This would be a daunting task to undertake in established gardens, although worth digging into trenched rows as veg is used, defiantly the way to go when establishing a new veg area where soil is dry and has clay content, the introduction of worms will make all the difference.
Fruit:
Continue planting strawberries, raising the beds where drainage is suspect, this year I plan to build up with compost then cover the bed with polythene as commercial growers do, plant out with new runner plants pushed into slits cut in the polythene. This way the ground stays warm and fruit will not be competing with weeds.

Cheers, Linda.