Gardens don’t take holidays
No respite for gardeners at this time of year
THERE’S no doubt that this time of year can be quite a bit more hectic than the rest, what with holidays and, of course, Christmas Day tomorrow!
Horticulturally speaking, in most regions, gardens will be reaching their zenith of growth, and gardeners will be extremely busy performing all the usual gardening tasks during this time.
This week, let’s take a brief look at a selected list of summer gardening tasks that will help your garden attain its peak now, and assist it to be ready for the upcoming cooler months.
Lawns will be reaching their peak growth rate right now, if they’ve managed to snavel a bit of soaking storm rain lately.
Thunderstorm rainfall contains higher than normal levels of nitrogen, so you should see strong, green growth in lawns after a good summer shower.
If not, apply a high nitrogen, slow release fertiliser now in anticipation of it being washed into the soil profile by the next summer downpour.
To aid infiltration, broadcast soil wetting granules at the same time (these will only be needed every six months).
If you’re really keen, do your lawn a favour, and use a coring machine beforehand (hire one for half a day!).
Coring a lawn twice a year and adding fertilisers and other soil improvers will benefit the turf no end.
In the garden, keep an eye out for the usual onslaught of pests and diseases that accompany warm, humid conditions, and delight in eating new growth and attacking young fruit.
Powdery mildew will be visiting a range of plants (roses, cucumbers, crepe myrtles, zucchinis) so try a milk spray (1 part organic full cream milk to 10 parts water) to control this moisture-loving disease.
Black spot on roses will also be about, so keep overhead watering to a minimum, top up mulch to about 50-70mm deep, and spray if needs be (2 teaspoons bicarb, two drops of detergent and seaweed tonic to 5 litres of water).
Rust is another warmth and humidity-loving disease. You’ll see raised brown pustules on the underside of pelargoniums, roses, and vegies such as beans, which can disfigure the foliage and reduce growth considerably.
Try one of the new organic fungicides on the market containing potassium bicarbonate for control of this ugly disease.
Pests such as whitefly are prevalent now. They usually live on the underside of plant leaves (mostly vegies), and will fly away in clouds when disturbed. A simple pyrethrum spray will control these little sap-suckers.
Caterpillars are also on the march. They’ll get stuck into tomatoes, capsicums, corn and beans.
Try one of the organic controls firstly, such as neem, Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt) spray, or mix 1 tbsp molasses in 1 litre warm water, with a tsp of pure liquid soap and spray the little chompers.
Watch your potted plants at this time of year, as they’ll dry out very quickly.
Terracotta pots are the worst, losing moisture through the sides of the pot as well (ensure the inside surfaces of terracotta pots are sealed, otherwise use plastic look-alikes).
Mulch your potted plants with either chopped lucerne or a decorative gravel.
Sprinkle some soil wetting granules on the surface of the mix (not too much!) to aid water penetration should the mix dry out.
You can lightly prune your roses now. Remove spent flowers and only cut back branches and foliage by no more than one-third. Other flowering plants that will respond well to pruning now are salvias, hydrangeas, lavender, and crepe myrtles (only when they have finished flowering!)
If you have some spare space in the vegie garden, you can start to prepare the soil for autumn plantings of cool season vegetables.
Dig in manures and composts, rock dusts and organic fertilisers. This should build the soil up nicely for planting around March.
Warm season vegies that can still be planted now are sweet corn, beans, cucumbers, zucchinis, tomatoes, capsicums, and melons.
If planting from seed, you’ve got about 12 weeks of warm weather in which to produce from these plants. Other year-round vegies to plant are carrots, beetroot and silverbeet.
Finally, take a drive or walk around your area and enjoy the range of annuals, shrubs, trees and climbers in flower at this time.
Thanks to Sungrown Nursery for allowing me to photograph some of their flowering plants this week. You’ll find them at 17 Prescott St, Toowoomba.
I’d like to take this opportunity to wish everyone a safe and happy Christmas, and a very horticultural New Year!