The year is marching on! with May being the official beginning of winter for NZ but I think of June as the start of winter because May often produces warm Autumn days along with the beautiful leaves. 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 where trees grow.
I am adding to my compost daily by layering 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.
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 and it also helps keep soil a little warmer for plant roots over winter.
Rain has encouraged a lot of snails into the garden, my bantams are great slug and snail hunters but I can still find them in dark sheltered spots among pots or behind plants growing up against walls, 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.
I am adding to my compost daily by layering 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.
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 and it also helps keep soil a little warmer for plant roots over winter.
Rain has encouraged a lot of snails into the garden, my bantams are great slug and snail hunters but I can still find them in dark sheltered spots among pots or behind plants growing up against walls, 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.
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 outlets 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. 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 have deepened into rich shades, 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 they can be shifted if needed. Really large bushes can be dug up and shifted, root cut and 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 manure into trenched rows, 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 beds where drainage is suspect, last year I covered half the strawberry patch with polythene to keep weeds down, it worked, I was forever weeding the other half which will be covered in polythene as well this year. The added bonus is that polythene keeps ground warmer.
Hydrangeas have deepened into rich shades, 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 they can be shifted if needed. Really large bushes can be dug up and shifted, root cut and 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 manure into trenched rows, 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 beds where drainage is suspect, last year I covered half the strawberry patch with polythene to keep weeds down, it worked, I was forever weeding the other half which will be covered in polythene as well this year. The added bonus is that polythene keeps ground warmer.
Pruning:
Apples and pears can be pruned when all fruit has been picked.
Feijoas, olives, figs can also prune when harvest finishes.
Leave thinning out citrus until after frosts have passed.
Grapes and kiwifruit - prune in winter, back to 3-5 buds and tie back any long new branches or canes to train into shape.
Nectarines, peaches, almonds plums, cherries and blueberries get an early autumn prune. winter pruning of these can spread the spores of silver leaf. Cherries and blueberries only require shaping if needed as they fruit on the same wood for years.
Cheers, Linda.
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