Let’s all root for Arbor Week
Spring is here! Now is the time to create a rainbow of early spring colour with lots of exciting plants which are in flower now, and to start working on your summer vegetable harvest, such as sweet potato
NATIONAL Arbor Week from now until September 7 gives you an excuse, if you need one, to plant trees.
The official tree for Arbor week this year is the Buffalo Thorn ( Ziziphus mucronata) – an attractive, small to medium size deciduous tree, reaching up to 9m in height. It produces a fairly dense spreading canopy. The young trees have sharp, paired and dissimilar thorns, one being straight and the other hooked.
The flowers and fruit of these trees are sought out by birds and bees. This pleasing little shade tree withstands drought, is moderately frost resistant, and succeeds in most soils and conditions.
If that is too large for your garden you could also consider the Pomegranate “Wonderful” ( Punica granatum ) a leading cultivar with a resistance to adverse conditions and a high yield potential of huge blush red fruits. It is a small deciduous tree (2.5 m high), for climates with cool winters and hot summers.
Olive varieties – these hardy, but beautiful trees with their dull green leaves with the silver reverse – can tolerate very cold (and hot) temperatures and wind. Good varieties are “Manzanilla” and “Mission”. Olive trees are not only functional, but become really pretty shade trees that blend well within any planting scheme or garden design.
Fine-tune roses for a spectacular flower flush next month. Pinch-prune about a third of the shoots, start increasing watering to at least twice a week. Fertilise again at the end of the month and spray fortnightly against pests and disease.
Remove weeds (they compete for moisture in established garden beds), build up the soil with lots of organic matter like compost, feed with a slow release fertiliser, then water, and add a final layer of mulch. Commercial mulches in store include coarse compost, composted bark, peanut or other nut shells, crushed peach pips, wood chips, pebbles and stone.
Powdery mildew needs to be treated preventatively with a fungicide. Once there, it can only be controlled so as not to spread further. If the fungal infection is serious, remove all infected plant parts and destroy them. Do not compost any infected plant parts. Eradicate sucking insects such as aphids by a seasonal soil drench with a systemic insecticide.
Train your lawn to be water wise by watering it well only once a week – this will encourage deeper root growth. Never mow too short as this keeps the roots near the surface where they are more likely to dry out. If weeds are a problem in large lawn areas, treat with a broadleaf herbicide. For smaller lawns, use a convenient ready-to-use broadleaf herbicide.
Commercial lawn dressing is perfect for levelling and smoothing out a lawn, and to encourage new growth. Use a quality product from a reputable supplier, as it will contain sterilised, finely sieved organic materials which will improve drainage and water-holding capacity. Apply it no thicker than a 3cm layer to a fairly dried off lawn. Level it out by means of a flat board tied to the end of your rake.
Plant sweet potatoes and seedlings of green peppers, eggplants and parsley. Sow cucumbers.
Prune hibiscus and poinsettia, and other winter-flowering shrubs.
Plant gerberas and gladioli bulbs.
Create a pretty spring border with the following indigenous flowering plants: gazanias, arctotis, blue felicias, scabiosas, and Plectranthus ‘Mona Lavender’.
Start planting dahlia tubers. The flowers, which are available in most colours except blue, vary in size from miniatures of less than 2cm in diameter to huge, soup plate sizes.
Spring-flowering annuals should be deadheaded on a continuous basis in order to prolong their flowering season.
Plant a row of young Cupressus macrocarpa ‘Gold Crest’ for that gorgeous green and gold flush. Stake their main stems well and straight, and keep on removing all the side growth from the bottom two thirds of the plant. As soon as a height of about 1.2m is reached, you can start shaping the top growth into balls. You will soon have your own golden-yellow lollypops.
Refresh, top-up or replace pebbles and gravel around the garden. Especially between paving stones where dust and mud accumulate to spoil the effect.
Check for algae and moss on paving. Scrub down with a solution of copper sulphate or use a moss killer.
For more information on bringing Life to your Garden and others stories on this page, visit website www.lifeisagarden.co.za or join the conversation on Facebook page: www.facebook.com/lifeisagardensa.