Limit young lemons
Give flowering citrus a boost
If you planted new citrus trees over the autumn and winter that are flowering or setting fruit now, remove all (or at least half) of the blooms or fruitlets. New trees need to put their energy into developing a strong root system.
Young and established oranges, lemons and limes alike will appreciate a dose of citrus-specific fertiliser this month while they are flowering and setting fruit. Citrus are heavy feeders, so give them a dose of citrus-specific fertiliser every six weeks from the start of spring until mid-autumn. (With citrus in pots, feed them slowrelease fertiliser in September and in summer, plus a monthly application of liquid fertiliser.)
Hungry plants will grow poorly and the leaves will yellow and drop off. Weaker plants will also be vulnerable to aphids, scale, mealy bugs and white fly. So a feed now will stop problems later on.
Plant beans
Dwarf beans are quicker than climbers, with some varieties ready to pick in as little as 50 days. They don’t need support either, as the compact plants grow only 45-60cm high.
However, dwarf beans typically produce their pods all at once. That is an advantage if you want to fill your freezer with a few preserving sessions. It’s also handy if you don’t want beans getting old and stringy on the vine while you are away on holiday. You can get a few more beans from the plants once you’ve picked the main flush, but for maximum production it’s best to sow a new batch every 3-4 weeks through to late January.
Climbing beans usually have a much longer harvest period.
Regular picking of early pods stimulates more flowers and more beans.
Keep beans watered over the warmer months. If beans dry out they will stop producing. Heatstressed beans are also far more vulnerable to attack from various sap suckers, including green vegetable bugs and aphids.
Beat clematis wilt
Large-flowered clematis begin their showy parade this month. They enhance trellises and archways, and provide another season of colour when grown through climbing roses and shrubs.
If you’ve lost vines in the past to the fungal disease clematis wilt, try these planting tips. Put big stones around the roots so they stay cool in summer and if you’re growing clematis up a trellis or other plant, place it behind the support, so it can grow towards the sunshine.
To get good coverage over a trellis when planting a new clematis vine, lay the stems along the ground, pushing them in and out of the soil from one side of the frame to the other. This is known as layering, and causes the stem to send down roots. The following year, you’ll have a row of vines, rather than a single plant.
– compiled by Barbara Smith