Gardening in Waitaki June 25th 2024

Gosh, the weeks are going fast with short days it's Friday before I know it!! The ground being so wet underfoot is giving us a winter reprieve from the garden. In my new garden, I am seeing where water is sitting, I expect this to happen as a clay pan is not far below the soil. Unfortunately, this seems to be the norm with subdivision building. All soil is removed, not just the area for a house foundation, and then you are left with machinery-compacted clay to build gardens on. When planting in clay-based soil I dig a larger hole than needed, and fill it with water to soften the clay, if draining takes too long, pierce the clay bottom with fork prongs then dig more clay out. This should leave you with a sizable planting hole needing to be filled halfway with gravel or river stones to act as a water sump. Then soil on top of the stones and the tree or shrub planted. Such a pain I know but if plant roots sit in water they will eventually drown. A good thing about rain in early winter is that leaves decompose quicker, so pile leaves onto gardens and they will protect roots from frost while breaking down to become humus. This is the time to shift what needs to be shifted, in my past large garden I would give quite a few shrubs a ride in a wheelbarrow, leaving unsightly gaps, and then I would walk around the garden to find other shrubs or plants to fill them. Rose pruning will be in full swing now, a job I don't have now, it used to take me a few weeks to finish this job, and then I sprayed with copper and winter oil mixed to seal up the cuts. For those new to rose pruning get yourself a sharp pair of secateurs and start by removing all branches growing into the middle of the bush. The idea is to keep the inside of the bush open. Cut on a slant on an outward-facing bud at the bottom of the branch. Next, look for cross-over branches and cut back to an outward-facing bud to encourage the branch to grow in another direction. Really old wood should be cut right out, again at a bottom outward-facing bud, don't bother with any spindly branches; they will never produce flowers so just remove them. Make sure the crown of the rose is not covered with soil or compost. This area needs to be clear and needs sprayed along with the rest of the bush. If you have bought new roses they will need pruned because they will have only had the tops cut to make them easier to handle. If going to plant a new rose in the same place where another had been growing you will need to take out the soil and replace it with soil that has not been growing roses. This is the perfect time to plant seeds of the flowers you will want to plant out spring and summer, I have planted delphiniums, snapdragons, all sorts of poppies, sweetpeas, and lupins. Without a controlled glass house they will take a while to germinate but put in a nice warm sunny place and covered at night they will pop up and as soon as the soil warms again will grow strongly. I feel that seedlings planted now and carried through the winter do better than spring and summer plantings After the rain moss and lichen will need to be removed from paths and walkways as both are slippery. There are moss-kill products on sale but you will get a good result from sprinkling an inexpensive laundry powder over moss on hard surfaces while wet and once dry it will be dead and ready to rake off. Lawns: Moss on lawns love the wet, sulphate of ammonia dissolved in water and applied with a watering can will turn it black and ready to be raked out. Veg: With the winter being mild so far here on the coast vegetable gardens will still be producing so keep planting in rotation, root veg where leafy veg has grown and vise versa. Garlic should be in but if the soil is soggy hold off until it is drier, cloves can rot n cold wet ground too long. I am going to try an early sowing of peas and I still have butter crunch lettuce doing well because my new raised veg gardens are in a nice all-day sun location, Butter crunch lettuce likes it cooler and it is such a nice sweet lettuce. Cheers, Linda

Remove moss from paths & Driveways.