Grow glorious gloriosa lilies

For years my gloriosa lilies languished in a large terracotta pot with, I’ve got to admit, rather lacklustre results. Each summer there would be a few flowers and, as gloriosas are winter dormant, the pot looked bare for months.

Last autumn I tipped out the old potting mix and discovered over 50 skinny, fingersized tubers, which I planted among other climbers. The result has been, well, glorious! Each leaf has a tendril at the tip that clings to anything they touch so the lilies have hauled themselves skywards by hitching a ride on their neighbours. They look particularly good with dark, glossy foliage.

Lynda Hallinan grows hers on a bean frame where they are the perfect companion for the bold orange flowers of ‘‘Scarlet Runner’’ beans. Order from Te Oranga Gloriosas, NZ Bulbs or Bulbs Direct.

EAT, FREEZE & PRESERVE PLUMS

Don’t let your plums get away on you. Patrol trees daily and gather any that are close to ripe in order to beat the birds. They’re experts at finding fruit and will peck your crop to pieces if you’re not quick enough.

It’s a tricky task to cover large trees with netting, so consider using Protect Your Crop bags to save fruit within reach and leave fruit on the topmost branches to the birds. Bags come in several sizes – some big enough to enclose a whole branch.

Plums do ripen off the tree though, so if birds are a problem, pick fruit when it’s showing just a blush of colour. They’ll soften and sweeten in your fruit bowl in a couple of days.

Eat as many as you can while they’re fresh and then turn your hand to preserving and make them into jam, sauces and chutney – or just wipe them clean with a damp cloth and freeze, freeflow, in freezer bags so you can just defrost what you need when you’re baking cakes and puddings later in the year. It saves lots of thawing time and means you don’t have to deal with frozen lumps of stucktogether fruit!

If you have plum trees in need of a trim, now’s the time to do it. They are vigorous growers and respond to winter pruning with effusive growth, which is not the objective of the exercise, so summer pruning is how unruly trees are restrained.

Plum trees pruned now will stay that way, keeping to their reduced height and vigour, at least for a while.

KEEP TOMATOES HEALTHY

Tomatoes are hugely productive but unfortunately growing them can lead to many trials and tribulations. The good news is that early detection can reduce the effects of pests and diseases and dreadful looking plants can still produce fruit.

Blight starts as a few brown leaves at the base of the tomato and, before you know it, the whole plant withers before your eyes. Remove any diseased foliage as soon as you spot it. Don’t splash the leaves while watering. Feed well.

Strongly growing plants are more disease-resistant. Copper sprays or a general fungicide can slow down the spread of disease.Don’t compost any diseased plants. Burn or dispose of them in the rubbish. Clean up any debris on the ground as well.

There are plenty of pests that like tomatoes as much as we do.

Keep green vege bugs, tomato/potato psyllids (TPP) and tomato fruit worm (actually a caterpillar also known as the corn ear worm) off your plants by covering them with horticultural mesh from Biological

GET GROWING

This column is adapted from the weekly e-zine, get growing, from New Zealand Gardener magazine. For gardening advice delivered to your inbox every Friday, sign up for Get Growing at: getgrowing.co.nz

Husbandry Unit or garden centres.

Protect Your Crop bags stop birds pecking tomatoes and keep insects away, too. An unexpected bonus is that ripe cherry tomatoes collect in the bottom of the bag instead of falling to the ground.

Erratic watering can lead to nasty, sunken black spots, called blossom-end rot, at the base of the ripening tomatoes. Blossom-end rot is not a disease and only affects individual fruit.

Remove damaged fruit and water evenly, not too much or too little, so the rest of the crop can ripen. Soaker hoses provide deep watering to the roots with no risk of the leaves getting wet.

Don’t plant tomatoes in the same place next season and give plants plenty of space for air circulation.