Gardening in Waitaki July 2nd 2024

Prunning a bush rose:

We are well into winter now but spring bulbs are being encouraged to burst through the ground on milder days. I noticed jonquils flowering this week. In my former garden, I always had a big job about now on milder winter days cutting back deciduous shrubs, and dealing with convolvulus roots while I could still see where the top growth had been. In one smallish patch of garden where convolvulus was growing up and smothering shrubs, I dug out a wheelbarrow full of roots, I kid you not!!, long white roots that crisscrossed a patch of ground had spread through plant roots and along fence wire. It is so satisfying to start at one end of a convolvulus root and remove it without a break. Because I never use weed spray in the garden, digging and pulling it out was the only way to beat it. Pruning: Understanding how something grows is helpful before pruning, does it flower on new or old wood, There is a right time to prune any plant for it to respond and produce new flowers, fruit, and foliage. But sometimes it is best just to do it, the worst that can happen is that you will lose a season's flowering and learn a useful lesson simultaneously. Rose pruning: Rosewood will have hardened now so getting stuck into giving roses a good hard prune now will produce nice new growth come spring. In cold areas rosewood will still be too soft, the time by which rose pruning should be completed varies by several weeks from the warmest to coldest gardens, pruning should be done and dusted by the time buds break. Bush roses, concentrate on clearing the bush's center, remove all inward-facing branches at an outward-facing bud, prune height back by two-thirds always at an outward-facing bud, and remove any old and damaged branches. Brush old gnarly rose centers with a wire brush to stimulate and encourage new budding. Floribunda bush roses have several blooms on one stem and need a few older branches taken right back each year to encourage new strong branching and newer branches taken back by two-thirds. Hybrid tea roses the roses that grow a single exhibition bloom on a stem, they can be pruned back quite hard to an outward-facing bud. Standard bush roses: Same as bush roses. Climbing roses flower at their best when the branches are trained horizontally along a fence or wall, they will then develop small branches along the length to carry flowers. After several years a main horizontal branch will become unproductive and need to be removed, and replaced with a new branch to be trained to take its place. Pillar roses are the best type to climb up and be trained over an arch or pergola. I cut the old growth back from these with a hedge trimmer Fairy rose and flower carpet roses: can also be cut back with a hedge trimmer but opened them up by removing branches from the middle with secateurs. Hydrangeas and lavender are best left now with old growth remaining to protect new growth. Bare-rooted trees: The bulk of new season's bare-rooted deciduous trees are arriving at retail shops now, plant when the soil is soft and moist, and avoid times when the ground is frozen or excessively wet. Don't be in a hurry to plant Evergreen trees and shrubs at this coldest time of the year because you will not gain any new growth until spring, so choose and buy now but keep them in their bags or pots outside in a sheltered place to acclimatise through winter. If planting trees or large shrubs along the side of a house, ask for advice, and read labels to know how high and wide a shrub/tree will grow, I have seen some plantings that will create problems if left to grow full size. Vegetable garden: Rain will have made veg gardens a bit soggy to work in, young veg will sit now without growing because they dislike cold wet ground. I plan to spread aged pig manure over the vacant ground in my raised gardens for worms to work down into the soil in readiness for spring planting. Early seed potatoes can be left in the dark to sprout long translucent sprouts but put them in a frost-free brightly lit place and they slowly develop knobbly green-purple shoots that are ready to grow quickly when placed in the soil, this is called chitting. Fruit: Plant deciduous fruit trees and bushes in a sunny site, avoid frosty hollows for early starters such as plums and pears. Prune. early to Late Spring Peach and nectarine trees to maintain an open center (only if needed), in early spring the wounds will close as growth begins. Cherries need summer pruning as well for the first 5 years and only on a sunny day to avoid silver leaf. I have found If I prune an apple tree hard each winter it will make a mass of new growth but no blossom, hence no fruit. So now any tree or shrub that is growing too vigorously I wait until summer to prune hard, when leaves are fully grown and before roots start to store food for winter, cuts heal over without pushing out new growth. This is a good rule of thumb for cordons (espaliered trees) only cut back any weak growth in winter to encourage vigorous new shoots in spring and leave the removal of thick branches until summer. Cheers, Linda.

Chitting early potatoes gives them a head start.