Gardening in North Otago 23rd June 2020

Frost at Rockvale Gardens

Hard frosts but clear sun filled days make us able to spend productive time getting gardens ready for spring. Who ever said winter was a time for keeping warm inside while the garden rests??  With a small garden this can be achieved but a large garden needs attention through all the months of a year. I enjoy the work being carried out through winter here in our large garden because the rewards are many come spring.  


Continuous frosts are great for breaking down clay soil and dealing to pest cycles but planting comes to a stand still apart from bare rooted trees and roses. Planted at the dormant stage they settled in before spring. Tall, grafted bare rooted trees need staked for at least three years to avoid root movement as they take hold in the ground.  

Cutting back  continues on here, now that deciduous trees are bare I get a good look at the shape, height and width of branching and also discover the rouge trees growing up through shrubs that need to be removed before they put on more growth. It is too late in the year to trim soft trees and shrubs but huge over grown ivy and out of control evergreen climbers can be tidied up. Ivy is like wisteria  if you are too kind to it, some of those twining soft leaders will grow as thick as tree trunks if left.

Trees make the most change to a garden, they can turn a light sun filled garden into a shade garden with in a few years if the Gardener allows. This is the best time of the year to bring a wayward garden back in line by cutting out trees and shrubs that have out grown spaces. Conifers displaying woody bare growth at the bottom  usually become that way because they have grown too tall, they never regrow at the bottom. Very large removals can be achieved by an experienced  arborist who will complete the job with the least disturbance to your garden in mind, then leave you with a good amount of tree mulch once all branches have been shredded. Once unwanted trees and shrubs have been removed you will have gained light in areas once shaded, the soil will need building up with compost and left to settle before replanting something that will enjoy being in a light sunny area. The whole look of a tired garden can be changed by doing this, if a huge gap is left with the removal of a tree or shrub, fill the gap with a section of manuka screening placed behind the smaller replacement plant, it will give the plant protection and you privacy, once the plant has reached the desired height and width the screening can be removed.  If a shrub or tree is Spring flowering it will be well in bud now so leave cutting back until straight after flowering, it will recover very quickly with new spring growth. 

Fruit: summer fruiting raspberry canes fruit on second year wood, cut those brown canes that fruited last season right down but leave the new green canes to fruit. Autumn fruiting raspberry canes fruit on new seasons growth so all canes need to be cut to the ground.

Vegetables:
In the vegetable garden where green leafy vegetables and onions will be growing next growing season give a dressing of 250 grams per square metre of dolomite lime. If you follow a regular rotation this will ensure that most of the garden receives lime once in three years, permanent crops like rhubarb should be limed every three years as well. In gardens fed with compost rather than chemical fertilisers the PH tends to rise gradually eventually making regular liming unnecessary. 

-- Cheers, Linda

Conifers out grown their space being taken down at rockvale Gardens.