Cosy up your winter beds in May
Ideal time to nurture in readiness for spring
GARDENING in May is like putting a baby to bed . . . You clean it up by removing all refuse, feed it to make it strong for the cold months ahead, play around a while by planting something new, kiss it good night and cover it warmly with an organic blanket, before putting out the light.
Prime time
THE leaves of heavenly bamboos ( Nandina domestica and N. ‘Pygmaea’) will start turning rusty red. Camellia sasanqua hybrids, which can tolerate more sun than the japonicas, will be in flower. In the indigenous patch you will have much eye candy with wild dagga, ribbon bush, Cape honeysuckle and the very elegant Strelitzia reginae (bird of paradise) – what more can one ask of late autumn?
Food and flower gardens
SOW broad beans, radishes, spinach, peas, kale, broccoli, kohlrabi, cauliflower, leeks, cabbages, carrots and lettuce. Keep on spraying roses against fungal disease to stop the plants from defoliating. Keep a sharp eye on aphids, which will be appearing on new growth, and clear up all fallen fruit and old vegetable plants that have stopped producing.
Keep on spraying conifers against Italian aphids.
Must do’s
CUT back Michaelmas daisies, obedience plants ( Physostegia), penstemons, yarrow (Achillea) and chrysanthemums. If their clumps have become too thick, you can divide and replant them too. Water and mulch (with acidic compost) camellias, azaleas, rhododendrons and magnolias.
The first spring-flowering bulbs should be up now.
Water them well twice a week and start foliar feeding with a water-soluble fertiliser or apply specialised bulb food. Feed sweet peas every fortnight.
Eastern Cape
‘LEKKER’ TREE: New trees establish well here during winter. A perfect choice is the evergreen white ironwood ( Vepris lanceolata), which is a small tree with leaves that are lemon-scented when crushed. Give other trees a last feeding before winter and keep well watered afterwards. Gap filler: What about Dietes bicolor (yellow wild iris)? It can always be trusted on to grow in sun or shade and is both frost and drought hardy. Last sowings: Colour in with African daisies and gazanias. Quick sticks colour: Plant seedlings of flowering kale and fairy primulas.
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