Garden goals to carry into winter
Gardens across New Zealand benefited from people’s time on lockdown and now many people will be looking to carry forward that progress through winter.
It is a tougher time of year for many plants but a little care and planning goes a long way.
First, the cold months are a great time to top up the nutrients in your soil. Blood and bone will add nitrogen for healthy growth, as well as phosphorus for strong roots.
Chicken or sheep pellets also enrich soil with the bonus of helping retain moisture in sandy environments.
Adding a treatment of liquid seaweed at least once a month will help plants deal with frost and other shocks such as from transplanting, pests, and diseases.
Replenishing the soil is especially important if you want to to keep up the resilient lifestyle of lockdown by growing some vegetables of your own this winter.
It’s a good time to sow seeds of beetroot, broccoli, broad beans, cabbage, carrots, onions, radish, spinach, silverbeet and turnips. Garlic bulbs can also go down.
Plunging temperatures, however, could require some shelter for crops and container plants. The latter can be relocated to an area not exposed to frost – a nice way to liven up a patio – while plants in open areas may need some frost cloth.
Snail and slug pellets can be spread out every 7-10 days, or after rain, to help control uninvited visitors.
If you’re more of a summer vegetable person and won’t be using your patch over winter, sowing blue lupin or mustard seeds is an easy, natural way to add nutrients and improve soil structure for spring.
More substantial additions to the garden can be made at this time by planting deciduous fruit trees. A quality planting mix will help them thrive and a sturdy stake will keep them upright in gusty weather.
For existing trees, it is time to prune. Trees hunker down in the cold months by pulling back the energy from flowing sap to their roots, making it the least harmful time to remove branches that are overgrown or blocking light.
Spraying a copper fungicide on fruit trees after pruning will help promote budding come spring.
You should also prune grape and kiwifruit vines, as well as autumn crops like raspberries back to ground level.
Pruning roses will encourage strong new growth later, and new roses can be planted; a highquality rose fertiliser will help them settle in and is a good idea whether they are bare-rooted or potted.
Colour can also be added for winters to come by planting azaleas, camellias and daphne, all of which look great when the rest of the garden isn’t flowering.