Now is the time to plant leeks
Christmas day is almost here and I trust that you all enjoy yourselves on the significant day with family and friends. Here are a couple of jokes to ponder when you are in the garden.
When weeding the best way to make sure you are removing a weed and not a valuable plant is to pull on it. If it comes out of the ground easily, it is a valuable plant.
Gardening is a matter of your enthusiasm holding up until your back gets used to it.
Midsummer is almost here and many gardens reach their full beauty. Flower beds and borders are ablaze with colour as summer flowers come into full bloom. English Lavender bushes should be in full bloom with their blue tones bringing refreshment to the summer garden. Christmas and other lilies are in flower and their fragrance wafts through the garden.
The longer summer evenings give us a chance to get the garden in order and is a very pleasant time to be outside.
Now is the time to plant leeks which will come ready in the autumn and winter. They are available from garden centres now. January will also bring an abundance of vegetables; lettuce, tomatoes, cucumbers, beans and as the month progresses more summer vegies will come ready for harvest.
The first plums should also be ripening on the trees now. You may also be lucky to have fresh apricots, loquats and fruiting cherries ready. They need protection from the birds if you are to get many.
Applications of a suitable fertilizer such as 'Novatec' will help increase the size of fruit on fruit trees, as well as ensuring that the tree is strong and healthy generally results in far less incidence of pests and diseases.
Pick and eat strawberries and raspberries now as they come ready and any other berries that your grow. Keep those fruiting plants protected from invading birds with bird or wire netting covers.
With tomatoes some gardeners like to pinch out the tops of tomato plants when they have set five trusses of fruit and pinch out all the laterals or side shoots. This does not apply to grafted varieties. Keep up regular feeding with tomato fertiliser and watering underneath as necessary. Look out for weeds throughout the garden and keep on top of them with your hoe or weedkiller spray.
Spray only when there is no wind blowing to avoid damage from spray drift.
In the flower and shrub garden dead head roses and other flowers regularly. This is particularly necessary for petunias, pelargoniums and daisies. It is time to prune rambling roses when their flowering is over. Some may have become quite tangled and present a pruning challenge.
Bougainvilleas are one of the showiest and popular climbing plants and are now just beginning to provide their spectacular brilliant vivid colour. The actual flowers are tiny and insignificant and it is the brilliant bracts surrounding the flower which provides the very flamboyant display.
They are best situated on a warm sunny wall where there is little colour competition. Planted on the warm sunny side of a building or old tree they make fairly rapid growth building up a mass of twiggy stems and tropical colour. Alternatively you can prune and train them to keep within the limits of a patio wall, trellis or fence.
They can be grown in containers and even hanging baskets. They have a long summer flowering period and if in a container should be moved to a sheltered spot for the winter. Bougainvilleas are lovers of heat, rich fertile soil with good drainage and regular feeding.
Gareth Carter is General Manager of Springvale Garden Centre
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