Gardening in Waitaki June 9th 2021

Short days and Frost is as it should be to do what nature intends for growing and freezing Gardeners hands and feet along the way, but once the sun is up Waitaki is usually bathed in warm winter sun. Deciduous fruit trees benefit from winter chilling, and cold snaps turn starches into sugar in crops such as parsnips, improving their flavour. Frosts can also disrupt pest and disease cycles, and improve soil structure. If you have vulnerable plants in your garden cover with frost cloth that allows sunshine through to recharge the heat source for the next night.  keep an eye on tender plants like fuchsia, daphne, borgenvillia and young seedlings. Now that deciduous trees and shrubs are bare, inspection is a must to spot any sprouting of new growth beneath the graft on a grafted tree, it makes all the difference to the look and health of a tree if it is kept to grow as it was intended. For many years now formal, deciduous trees are grafted onto stronger and more manageable root stock than their own. Trees such as flowering cherries, magnolia, silver birch, ashes and oaks. Any large well grown specimen tree bought today will have been grafted and sometimes the root stock will push growth out and up to compete with the grafted section. This root stock growth must be cut out before it becomes established. I have seen a few mature flowering cherry trees left unattended and the result is not good, a display of  beautiful pink blossom on one side and insipid root stock white blossom on the other spoils the originally chosen tree. I have also noticed young weeping specimen  trees with root stock growing straight up through the middle of weeping branches. Cull out all of these rogue branches now while trees are dormant along with all branches crossing over, don't just shorten a branch back because it will regrow from that point, take it right out, cutting on a slant leaving a short collar against the trunk. Prunus, (flowering cherry) crab apple and silver pear trees are bad for producing over crowding branches which tend to rub together encouraging disease if not removed. To avoid spreading silver leaf in prunus trees, do this pruning on a fine sunny day, keep equipment clean from tree to tree, wipe with methylated spirits as you move from tree to tree.  With the help of an arborist, if needed tidying up established trees like rowan, hoheria, silver birch, ash and oak. A tree that really needs attention each year is standard kilmarnotck willow, these small ornamental willows are a ground cover willow species grafted onto a standard becoming a Man designed upright small weeping tree that nature had no plan for. Growing along the ground as it should the dead undergrowth would rot and break down but in the upright form each seasons growth dies and builds up under new growth. Past growth is brittle and easily removed by working under the new growth canopy. Attending to this annually is best, unwanted build will make the tree top heavy, two of mine fell over in overly wet ground. Robinia mop tops need the same annual cut back, they have also been grafted onto a standard but these trees put out fresh new growth each spring so all past growth needs to be cut right back to retain the round growth habit. Weeping silver pear is another ornamental needing annual attention, don't let it get over crowded in the center and remove branches intent on growing straight up. Vegetables Frost on veg gardens will be breaking down clods and zapping pests left from summer, frost also draws up moisture so keep moisture (early in the day)  up to winter veg if looking dry, moist soil stays warmer. Keep planting out seedling veg plants, board beans, garlic and here on the coast rhubarb and asparagus crowns. 

Remove all growth below a tree graft.