Braden

February gardening tips

February in Gauteng, like many other parts of the country is a tricky time of year, being that its too late for summer planting but also too little early for winter planting. Getting advice from your local accredited garden centre would be a great place to start.

Remove dead flowers from summer flowering perennials like Agapanthus and Liliums. Wait for the cooler days of March and April to lift and divide these.

Dead head flowering bulbs, like Dahlias, to extend their flowering time. Feed your  bulbs that have finished flowering with a good quality bulb food – now is the time that they store these nutrients in their little bulbs for winter dormancy and to ensure beautiful blooms in the next season.

Keep your azaleas and camellias well watered this will ensure that you get a good show of flowers in winter and spring. You can also promote lots of blooms by  feeding with 5:1:5 or 3:1:5. Mulch with bark chips to create an acid medium.

Keep an eye out and spray if necessary all your susceptible plants for aphids, powdery mildew, black spot, rust and redspidermite. Snails and slugs are out in full force with the rains, a simple scattering of sluggem or snail bait will sort them out.

Once all your deciduous fruits have stopped producing, shape the tree lightly and be sure to remove any diseased branches. Ensure that all fallen fruit is removed from around the tree as this is a breeding ground for fruit fly.  Feed with a general fertiliser like 2:3:2 fertiliser and water well.

Top up the mulch layer around  your citrus trees and water twice a week, if needed. Feed with an organic 3:1:5 fertiliser.  Check for aphids and psylla and treat appropriately if need be.

For your sure to grow edible winners we would recommend onions, spring onions, some of your leafy greens like spinach and lettuce and on the herb front, rocket, coriander and parsley. If you’ve never had much success with parsley, it’s probably due to an issue with incorrect watering. Parsley doesn’t like wet feet, so don’t overwater it and with the rains we have recieved this month ensure it’s in well-draining soil.

Sweet peas can also be sown now. Prepare a trench with well-rotted kraal manure and add a lot of compost, bonemeal and an organic fertiliser to the soil. The key to successful sweet peas is enriched and well-draining soil. Soak the seeds overnight in warm water before sowing directly in the trench.

When looking at annuals it’s best to go straight for bi-annuals like gazanias and dianthus which will last you through winter.

Do not allow your lawn to become too long and then mow it too short, exposing the roots to direct sunlight. Rather mow more frequently with the blades set on high. Water deeply once a week if it has not rained and feed with a balanced fertiliser to keep it lush and actively growing. Look out for mole crickets, ants and harvester termites within your lawn.

Getting back into it… 🏡

✈️If you’ve been away on holiday, you might have returned to a very weedy garden and hopefully not too many plant casualties. Weeding of all beds thoroughly would be recommended before the weeds switch to seed you can also look at topping up the mulch if needed. Keep weeding throughout the month to stay on top of things.

🌱Deadhead summer annuals, replace spent ones or fill gaps in beds with new seedlings that are not too ‘thirsty’ and will endure the heat. Feed all annuals in beds, baskets and containers every fortnight with an organic liquid fertilizer.

🌹Check on your rose bushes
Keep an eye for any signs of black spot, aphids, red spider mite and chafer beetles and spray fortnightly if needed. Fertilise with a balanced rose fertilizer and water deeply 3 times per week (about 15L per week), unless it rains sufficiently.

🌹Give rose bushes a light pruning this month to encourage another flush of flowers. We have been blessed with much needed rain which, unfortunately with the good rains it also leaches nutrients out of the soil.

🌿Fertilise the whole garden this month with organic flower power for flowering and fruiting plants and 8:1:5 for other foliage plants and lawns.

🌸If you’re adding new plants to your garden, plant them early in the morning or in the late afternoon. Water thoroughly before and after planting. It is best to wait until autumn to transplant existing shrubs and perennials.

🍃Also look at Trimming and shaping your unruly topiaries, evergreen hedges and standards.

🐛Keep an eye out for lawn caterpillar, mole crickets or fungus in the lawn and treat if necessary.

🏡Don’t mow the lawn too short – keeping the grass blades slightly longer as it will protect the roots against the heat and dry winds.

🌿Fertilise lawn now with a balanced fertilizer like 5:1:5 or 2:3:2 to promote a well-developed rootsystem and continue watering twice a week, unless it rains.

•Pests

🪰Regularly check all your plants for aphids, white fly and fungal disease and spray fortnightly with an organic pesticide ie organcide, or organcide plus. Also look at Putting out snail pellets or traps ie sluggem pellets.

🐛Also, don’t let your guard down for lily borers are still on the go. They’re is still alot of pests that can do damage out and about. Spray the affected plants and keep an eye afterwards to see if repeated applications are necessary.

🐜Ants are also out in full force now. Take the necessary precautions to control them.

•Watering

💦Water the garden preferably in the early morning or, if not possible, late afternoon (adhering to water restrictions for your area) and rather water deeply, less often than a quick sprinkling every day. Water plants in pots and baskets every day if in sunny postions, and every second to third day for those that are in shaded areas.

⛈Now is also the perfect time to take advantage of summer rainfall and invest in a rainwater tank to harvest our precious rainwater to be used throughout your home and garden, and to help save on your water bill!

•Fruit & Vegetables

🌽It’s piping hot out there and vegetables and herbs could take strain in the heat of the day. Provide some relief by constructing a simple, portable structure from stakes or plastic pipe and 40 – 50% shade cloth, that can be moved around where needed to protect more sun-sensitive plants like lettuce, brinjal, peppers and most herbs.

🥦Give all vegetables and herbs a quick boost with a liquid fertiliser and follow up with an organic, slow release fertiliser like flower power which should last them through the rest of the season. Water well and top up the mulch layer around plants if necessary.

🥔Harvest your potatoes that were planted in early spring when all the leaves have died down. A second batch of seed potatoes can be planted now for early winter harvesting. Try and Harvest all vegetables regularly to promote production.

🍅Make a final planting of tomato seedlings. You can still plant seedlings of beans, sweet corn, leeks, cucumber and zucchini if you provide protection from the hot sun.

🥬Look at Planting a variety of loose-leaf lettuces in a semi-shade position or amongst taller veg like Swiss chard or runner beans. For your salads to have texture and color.

🌾Remove all spent or diseased vegetables and look at adding compost to the beds that are lying fallow to enrich the soil in preparation for the cooler weather crops of autumn and winter.

🥦Keep an eye out for seeds for the cooler seasons on the shelves at Tuingenoot. Cabbage, cauliflower and Brussel sprouts can be sown now in sowing trays.

🌻Have some fun with your kids and plant some sunflower seeds in the vegetable patch. They will pop up in no time and they grow fast and very tall – just the kind of thing kids like. Birds will also love it when the flowers go to seed.

🌳If necessary, thin out the fruits on your citrus trees and water the trees twice a week if rain is insufficient.

🪰Continue spraying or putting out bait against fruit fly. Collect fallen fruit around the fruit trees and dispose of it in the refuse to prevent fruit flies from breeding.

🌼Start sowing cool-season annuals and biannuals for winter and spring colour. Try larkspurs, foxgloves, aquilegias, delphiniums, pansies and Primula malacoides in seed trays, as they take time to mature into strong seedlings to plant out.

🌺Pull out the old flowering stems of Inca lilies with a firm tug. If the plants have stopped flowering you can dig up some roots and new shoots and replant them in other parts of the garden to spread the flowering cheer of these easy-to-grow perennials.

HAPPY GARDENING FROM ALL OF US AT TUINGENOOT 🌷🌼🪴🌺🌻🌳🥬🍅🌹🌴🏡

🎄December Festive trees – choose a living tree! Many indoor trees are suited for this purpose – or opt for a ‘local is lekker’ indigenous tree that can be replanted into the garden after the holidays is ideal.

🌟Entertaining over the holidays? Solar garden lights are the way to go… Garden lighting remains a big trend – light up pathways, trees and feature plants the eco-friendly way. Easy to use and readily available, it’s time to treat yourself and your garden – or wrap them up as a stunning gift option for friends that have it all!

🌿Add a living touch to festive gifts.

🪴Fact – plants make thoughtful inexpensive gifts and are typically well received! A simple pot of seasonal colour (seedlings or indoor plants) can easily be transformed into gifts for grannies, aunties and even teachers. Succulents (like the gorgeous green and red crassula), bonsai and trees are a safe option for grampa’s and uncles. Herb gifts are loved by ‘almost everyone’, as are bird feeders, trendy garden tools and DIY kits.

🌹Roses are long lasting and meaningful gifts. With a multitude of special names and colours to choose from, you can add perfume and colour with favourites like ‘My Granny’, ‘Forever Friends’, ‘Peace’ and many, many more.

🏡Outdoor entertaining is at its best in South Africa! Garden furniture and hardware can make all the difference if you’re home for the holidays… from a small bird feeder to a large hanging garden chair – all of which can be found at your chaos-free, calm local GCA nursery!

🍃Feed the lawn to turn it green fast

💦The key to greening up your lawn is nutrition. All lawn fertilisers are specifically blended for this purpose. Watering is essential after all fertiliser applications, so make sure you plan the monthly fertiliser application to co-incide with your watering schedule. Be informed and aware of the watering restrictions in your specific area – most regions only allow watering between 6pm and 6am. Schedule accordingly.

🌾Tidy up the edges

🌸Neaten the borders of your flower beds with edging materials such as cobblestones or wooden poles. Edging is available at Tuingenoot in a range of different lengths, heights, colours and styles. so there is sure to be a style that suits your style!

☀️Summertime is pool time and an inviting pool is a tired mom’s best friend! Maintain your pool program and nip algae in the bud at the first signs of infection. Busy kids are happy kids and when it comes to pools, the louder and more raucous the better… Add to the festivities and replenish flowering containers with bright red flowers. Invest in floating candles to add sparkle to an ordinary evening (and extend the play time)

💧Ponds, water features and bird baths need to be replenished more regularly in the heat. Consider ‘aquaponics’ – water plants act as natural filters AND they look great! (PS. water lilies bloom from December!)

🌹Take a moment to… smell the roses.

🌙On a peaceful summer’s evening, with the crickets chirping in the background, sit down quietly in your entertainment area and admire your efforts. If you see anything that looks neglected, hide it away with trellis panels or bamboo screens – Tuingenoot has many options in stock to hide any unsightly thing.

🍂Weed the garden

🍂Weeds are of ‘particular evil’ in times of drought. They utilise unnecessary water, outcompete desirable plants and are quick to seed and spread. Control weeds manually (ie. dig them out) or treat with the appropriate herbicide. Mulching is highly recommended after weeding, and here’s why:

•Conserves moisture in the soil
•Maintains soil temperatures
•Reduces weed growth
•Prevents soil erosion
•Organic mulches (like bark chips, peach pips or macadamia shells) improve soil fertility
•Reduces garden maintenance
•Beautifies the garden

🌼Colour your garden this December!

🌼The quickest, easiest way to add colour to your garden is with annuals. Summer flowering annuals are available in all shapes, sizes, styles and colours… The options are endless and exciting. Visit your local Tuingenoot for advice and choose your favourites from the selection on offer.

💚Trends for Summer 2020 vary… single bold colours, in mass remain popular and red traditionally dominates over the holidays. For a colour display that extends into the new year, buy mixed trays of seedlings and opt for mixed plantings in containers, beds and borders.

🪴Hanging baskets add cheer! If you are planting up your own, remember to add water retention granules or vermiculite to the potting soil. Full sun during December and January can be really intense, so opt for hardy colour options such as zinnia, marigolds, portulaca and alyssum.

🌴Light it up – string up some fairy lights all over the garden. Wind them around tree stems, around planted pots, and any other place you can think of.

🏡Go knock on your own front door to check if this important area makes you feel welcome! If not, clean it up and add some beautifully planted-up specimen pots at the door. Hammer a lovely festive wreath made from plant material out of your garden onto the door.

💚Go “Green” with real-life festive trees

🌳There is something very special about living trees being used for the festive season. The holiday season is all about that ‘feel good’ feeling… and opting to go ‘green’ somehow just makes you feel great! Plus, you can plant your tree in the garden after the holidays and use it in next year’s festivities! Some of the options for daring and different festive trees include: wild gardenia (Gardenia thunbergia), Henkel’s Yellowwood (Podocarpus henkelii ), or a thorny number like a well-branched fever tree (Vachellia xanthophloea). If you are a traditionalist, trust on conifers like Cupressus macrocarpa ‘Gold Crest’, for that gorgeous green and gold touch.

🍓Be Happy-ier and Merry-ier with healthy home grown goodness…

🍉The value of an edible garden is best appreciated during the holidays!

🥙Somehow ‘cooking’ is more fun when the regular routines of our busy lives are forgotten. The holidays lend themselves to entertaining and we are more likely to experiment and to try ‘impress’ when guests are around.

🌿The simplest, easiest way to enhance the appearance, flavour and nutritional value of your meals, is to incorporate fresh herbs. When planning your festive fair incorporate your homegrown:

Mint – Mint sauce accompaniment for pork
Rosemary – adds flavour to lamb
Thyme – the ideal companion for chicken & turkey dishes
Chives – as garnish for your starters
Rocket – add to the sandwiches made with your left overs!

🍅Almost all your salad components can now be harvested fresh – Tomatoes, lettuce, cucumber and celery. Butternut, spinach, carrots and sweetcorn offer a stunning range of vegetables from which one can choose.

🍉Also remember to add a touch of ‘sweet’ to the home growing goodness. Strawberries, Watermelon & Sweetmelons are all at their best in summer!

🍓PS: Strawberries should be ready for harvesting. Plant your own if you have not done so yet!

🌼Top annual colour this month:

🌸Shade loving: Impatiens, New Guinea Impatiens, Begonias and Coleus

🌺Sun loving: Dahlias, Lobelias, Marigolds, Dianthus, Carnations and Petunias

💐Go on a perennial spending spree with bright summer colour which will give you blooming pleasure for many months. Top of the tops in the garden and in the vase is Alstroemeria – especially the many extremely pretty and floriferous dwarf hybrids on sale now. Also add swathes of Gaura, Angelonia, Cuphea, lavender, Plectranthus ‘Mona Lavender’, Bacopa, perennial Verbena and Pentas – none of these need excessive pampering or watering!

🪰Be aware of Whitefly infestations as it could be a problem on Fuchsias. Spray regularly against this pest – ask your Tuingenoot nursery for advice on spraying sequences (to break their fast life cycle) and the right product.

🌷Special touch: Gather mixed flowers from your garden and tuck them into everyday objects like glass bottles in a variety of shapes and sizes. Group them in masses on a window sill for maximum impact.

🍃Sow or plant a final summer crop of carrots and beetroot, tomatoes, fennel, dill and sweet peppers. Cut rocket back to encourage new leaves.

HAPPY GARDENING FROM ALL OF US AT TUINGENOOT

It’s summertime and life is, or should be a garden in bloom! Spend time this month to keep on feeding fast-growing plants and lawns, and adding lots of summer colour to your garden beds. Make it a priority to pretty up your entertainment area or patio with containers filled with beautiful specimens and flowering plants.

•Marigolds are surely the most cheerful and easy to grow summer annuals. They love heat and full sun and do not require a lot of water. Fertilise them monthly to induce a mass of blooms.

Use dwarf French Marigold varieties as companion plants in herb and veggie gardens to add colour to the foliage and to fend off bugs.

Other annual seedlings to look at adding.
Shade lovers : New Guinea Impatiens, Beacon Impatiens and Begonias for shade, also Sunpatiens.

Sun lovers : Vincas, Dianthus, Petunias, Salvias, Zinnias, Gazanias, Gypsophila, Alyssum, Celosia, Calibrachoa, Verbena and Portulaca for sun.

Plant more of the all-time favourites like Lavenders, Cupheas, Gauras, Angelonias, Agapanthus and Alstroemerias (Inca lilies) – especially the dwarf and extremely prolific hybrids of the latter, which are perfect for container-growing too.

Dahlia tubers should go to ground now, for late-summer and autumn display.

•Going to the coast? Weed all of your beds, feed them with a general fertiliser, water well afterwards and then add mulch – this will keep your garden ticking over until you return. Also check that your irrigation system is working perfectly and covering all of your garden areas.

•Beware the lily borer (a black caterpillar with yellow bands), which bores into the hearts of clivias, agapanthus and arum lilies. Signs of activity are decaying leaves and dying plants. Treat early or preventively with a registered insecticide containing cypermethrin.

•Veggie Gardens:

-Spray fruit trees when the fruit is still small and green to prevent damage by fruit flies. Treat the kids to something other than the traditional radishes and spinach by planting watermelons, sweet melons and sweet corn for a change.

-All pumpkin types are sown in November, but you can also sow seeds of French beans, climbing beans, mealies, sweetcorn, cucumbers, and melons in situ.

-Plant seedlings of sweet peppers, chillies and tomatoes and remember to do follow-up planting of favourite cooking herbs such as sweet basil, coriander and parsley.

-Keep leafy veggies like salad and spinach healthy with frequent feeding and watering to strengthen them against pests. Use lots of companion plants such as rosemary and chives in the veggie garden as they can help to repel pests.

-Fruiting plants like blueberries, gooseberries and raspberries will be readily available. Plant them in containers or in the veggie garden, feed with a slow release fertiliser and water regularly.

•Semi-shade and acid loving plants like Hydrangeas, Gardenias, Fuchsias and Plectranthus should be at their best now. If not, feed the plants with an acidic foliar feed and mulch around the base with bark chips. Remember to check out the garden centres for new Hydrangeas which should be in flower or bud now – the best time to choose the colours you want!

•Looking for a shrub with bright foliage? Choose Duranta ‘Sheena’s Gold’. Use it as a bright contrast plant in mixed shrubbery, as a formal hedge, or pruned into topiary shapes in containers.  

•Plant out new basil plants to get a crop going and also sow seeds of it too, to ensure an abundance of fresh and aromatic leaves. Remove all flower buds to ensure good quality foliage and do not allow them to set seed.

Also plant some of the pretty perennial basil hybrids that should be allowed to flower, as their blooms are quite pretty. They combine well with other garden favourites like Gaura ‘Belezza’, ornamental grasses and perennial Salvias in a pretty meadow-like border.

•Lawn care
Pamper your lawn by feeding it with lawn fertiliser and water well before and afterwards. Maintenance includes regular mowing, taking care not to remove too much of the leaf blades. Continue to use selective herbicides to treat persistent patches of broad-leaf weeds if necessary.

•Gravel areas
If your gravel garden looks a bit worse for wear, top up the gravel with a fresh load of stone after you have weeded the area first. Use different grades of stone, as well as smooth pebbles to create interesting floor patterns with different textures and in different designs, such as spirals.

•Going potty
Elegant containers are not only strong design features or focal elements in any garden, but also give those with very limited planting space a chance to garden in over-drive. Remember, the road to success relies on a top quality soil medium for plants to grow in. Do not dig it up from the yard to save a few bucks! Rather use commercial potting soil which is free of weeds and soil pathogens included. So, if you are going for some container gardening, stock up on bags of potting medium, drainage chip, decorative mulches, slow releasers and water soluble fertiliser to keep your plants in top shape afterwards.

🌿 Rose-coloured Glasses
It is during October when your roses should be putting on a marvellous display! It is wonderful to decorate your home with roses that have been picked from your own garden, however, remember not to pick more than 50% of the roses off any particular rose plant as this will seriously set the plant back. Don’t worry too much about aphids – they are not harmful to your roses and provide great food for ladybirds and birds alike. Water your roses at least twice a week in the warm weather.

🌿 Clivias
Enjoy the last flowers of clivias. If they need to be lifted and divided, do it after the flowering phase at the end of the month.

🌿 Seeds & Plant Seedlings
To ensure that your summer garden is full of flowers and bursts of colour – now is the time to sow seeds and plant seedlings. Easy flowers to grow from seeds include alyssum, asters, celosia, cosmos, lobelia marigolds, nasturtiums, zinnias and sunflowers. Summer seedlings to plant now include impatiens, begonias, bedding dahlias, dianthus, gazanias, petunias, salvias and verbena. Also, to keep your summer-flowering shrubs such as hydrangeas, hibiscus and fuchsias in good form, it is a good time to fertilise them now with 3:1:5 of 5:1:5 fertiliser. Be sure to prune back any spring-flowering shrubs that have faded, and you can also fertilise these, such as camellias and azaleas, with 5:1:5 to keep them looking at their best.

🌿 Aquilegia, Campanula & Delphinium
Buy tall annuals like aquilegia, campanula, delphinium and digitalis in colour bags to fill up bare spots in mixed beds. Border flower beds spectacularly with Carex hachijoensis ‘Evergold’ a clump-forming ornamental grass with narrow yellow and white, green-edged leaves.

🌿 Petunia Hot Tip
Petunias are insanely popular as a summer bedding plants, but can it be planted in the same place every season? The answer is no! It is better to rotate certain annuals to prevent the build-up of dominating pests or soil pathogens.

🌿 Lawn care
If you need a new lawn, sod it with instant lawn sods, but do not take short cuts with soil preparation. Dig the area over to remove all weeds and stones. Add copious amounts of compost and bone meal and rake smooth and level. Water the soil lightly before laying the sods tightly together, filling any cracks with fine compost or commercial lawn dressing.

If you had laid down lawn dressing during the early spring months, your lawn should be looking green and lush by the time October arrives. To cater for the warmer weather, let your lawn grow a little longer, as the length will help shade the roots and this will reduce the amount of water it will require. If the new growth has a yellow tinge, then fertilise it with some 5:1:5 and water well after fertilising.

🌿 Delicious Summer Veggies
This is the time to sow seeds of summer vegetables into prepared beds, such as carrots, beetroots, beans, pumpkin, marrows, cucumbers, rocket and radishes for example. For tomatoes, eggplant, chillies, green peppers and lettuce – it is easier to sow the seeds into seed trays and wait until they germinate before you plant them into the beds, or even simpler, buy already grown seedlings from your nursery. Putting a thin layer of straw over the sown seeds will help prevent the beds from drying out in the warm weather.

🌿 Herbs
Try out different chilli varieties – always fun to grow! Plant all the mints for cooling summer cordials. As mints are invasive, rather plant them in pots. You can sink them pot and all, into the soil as the mint will not mind being kept prisoner. This is a good time to plant annual herbs such as, sweet basil, coriander, dill and oregano. You can also plant herbs that your pets will love, such as dog grass, catnip and borage. To keep the herbs growing well, pick them regularly and feed them twice a month with a liquid fertiliser at half the strength.

🌿 Garden Pests
Continue spraying and baiting against fruit fly and codling moth. Put out snail bait amongst strawberry plants and provide a mulch of straw, course clippings or weed matting to keep the fruit off the soil. Picking the fruit frequently to encourage more.
Watch out for insects such as white fly, aphids and mealybugs on soft new growth and control with the correct insecticide for example Margaret Robert’s organic insecticide. Inspect all members of the Lily family such as agapanthus, crinum, clivia, nerine, amaryllis and haemanthus. For lily borer a caterpillar with yellow and black bands around the body. They are most active at night and can be treated with a contact insecticide.

🌿 Repotting Ferns
Repot ferns into fresh potting soil and start feeding them every two weeks with a liquid fertilizer mixed at half strength. Place house plants like orchids or ferns that love humidity on pot trays filled with gravel and a little water. Don’t let the base of the pot stand in water or the plants will rot.

HAPPY GARDENING

Make it a spring resolution to bring back easy-to-grow garden flowers to your garden in September. We show you what you need to do with our spring garden tips.

Get down and dirty start by preparing the soil with compost and bone meal. Follow the instructions on the back of seed packets for each type of seed. The soil should never dry out after sowing. If necessary, give a light sprinkling of water twice a day. As soon as germination is completed and the first true leaves show, you can give less water.

The clivia is king of spring and it is definitely the plant of the month. Gardeners all over will probably agree! It is easy to grow, great for shade, uses water sparingly, and if protected from the worst winter cold, will warm the cockles of one’s heart with its glowing flowers, later turning into very ornamental seeds in a warm, rusty-red shade – the one indigenous plant that reassures us that there is something like gardening ubuntu out there!

•There’s no need to replace frost-damaged bedding begonias with new plants. Simply cut them back to remove the damaged parts and dose back to health with a water-soluble fertiliser.

•Feed and start watering the lawn regularly, and fix bare patches in the lawn with a top-dressing of fine compost or commercial lawn dressing. Feed lawns with Lan Kan, fertilawn or 6:3:4 fertiliser to promote root growth; tidy up uneven edges. Reduce watering where lawns were over seeded with cold season grasses; then cut them low to make it easier for the runners of your summer grass to come through.

•Plant charming perennials in your spring garden, like columbines, gauras, carpet geraniums, bearded iris, giant statice and sweet violets.

•Tip: The flower power of some tall-growing perennials that are dormant in winter can be increased by pinching out the main stems in spring, when they have emerged again and are about 20cm high.

•Clivias are in flower! Visit your local nursery to buy more plants to brighten up your shade garden. Don’t be tempted to divide existing plants too often as the clumps prefer to be left undisturbed for years.

•Start spraying fruit trees against fruit fly and codling moth once about 75% of the blossoms have dropped off. Spray every 10–14 days.

•Try growing asparagus — seedlings are available in punnets nowadays. Crowns will form about 12 months after sowing seed, but the wait for spear production is about three years. Provide richly composted soil, water and fertiliser in summer.

•Prune mayflowers and banksiae roses as soon as they stopped flowering. Pinch out the growing tips of shrubs that are showing new life to encourage branching and bushiness.

•Start planting dahlia and other summer-flowering bulbs and also divide and replant overcrowded perennials that did not get the ‘treatment’ in autumn.

•Revamp your patio and outdoor areas with pots and colourful bedding plants like petunias, dianthus and the floriferous calibrachoas.

•Sow seeds of green peppers and aubergines in seed trays. Plant seeds of herbs like basil, coriander, borage and rocket in situ in a warm spot. Sow beans in situ once the soil has warmed up; in cold areas start them off in seed trays kept in a warm, sunny sheltered place.

•You can sow and plant most vegetables and herbs as long as you can keep those that is tender to late frost or need time to grow up in seedling containers first, protected, moist and warm. Good companions and pretty plants in general for a veggie garden are calendulas, lavender, marigolds, nasturtiums, parsley, thyme and wild garlic.

•Choose your summer bulbs now. Look out for the exotic Tigridia pavonia, tiger lilies, yellow-flowering chlidanthus, flame lilies, our indigenous watsonias and tall, lilac liatris which make perfect cut flowers.

•Repot cymbidium orchids that have outgrown their pots.

•If your spring bulbs haven’t died back and you need the space to plant something else, lift them out with some soil and replant them out of the way in a corner where they’ll continue to grow.

Please visit us at Tuingenoot, our friendly staff, always ready to help. You can find us on the corner of Lyttleton & Old Johannesburg Road, Centurion. Telephone: 012-6600103

Remember we deliver!!!!!!! Open 7 days a week!!!!!

*Photos for advertising purposes

In August some places will be miserably cold, windy and dry, while others will be miserably cold, wet and still dark when you wake up. But take heart – this will soon be a thing of the past! August is not a hot favourite with gardeners, but the promise of spring is already in the air with the sweet scent of jasmine. If you tackle the mundane but necessary tasks now, you will have time for lots of really ‘amazing’ planting later.

•Clear the garden of weeds, down to the last seedling growing between the cracks of the paving, and get the soil into prime planting condition by adding copious amounts of compost to new and planted beds. Do not dig it in as this will just encourage new weeds to germinate. Just leave it on top!

•Give lawns the spring treatment, which means a sharp cut (scarifying); severe raking to remove the old, dead mat; spiking with a garden fork to allow air, food and water to reach the root system; generous feeding with a lawn fertiliser and, finally, a bit of levelling out and covering with an organic blanket, called lawn dressing.

Note that this treatment should only be applied to runner-type lawns like Kikuyu and some of the tougher Cynodon grasses. Do not scarify cool-season lawns like Kentucky Blue, tuft-type perennial grasses or blended mixes like All Season’s Evergreen or Shade Over.

•Tie all standard roses and young plants securely to their stakes to prevent wind damage. Do not throttle them though. A relaxed tieback in the form of a figure eight around the stake and the main stems, which allows some movement, works fine.

•Apply fertiliser with a high potassium content to your bulbs that have completed their flowering. This will induce the development of next year’s embryo flower within the bulb. Do not cut off their dying leaves as they still feed the bulb.

Divide clumps of overgrown perennials, replant them with compost and feed with 3:1:5 fertiliser. As the weather warms up, cut back fuchsias by a third, mulch with compost and feed with a high-nitrogen fertiliser to encourage new growth.

Repot container-grown plants into a pot one size bigger. Towards the end of August, start pinching out the growing tips of shoots as soon as they develop two pairs of leaves, as this will result in a bushier, more floriferous plant.

Hydrangeas can be pruned now and you can start feeding them towards the end of August. For intense blue flowers, sprinkle 25g of aluminium sulphate around the root zone of the bush and water very well.

•Peaches, apricots, plums, nectarines, apples and pears will be coming into flower this month. Feed with 3:1:5, allowing 100g for young trees and 200g for more mature trees. Give a dose of magnesium sulfate to any citrus trees with yellowing leaves, along with a general feed. Also feed pineapples, pawpaws, granadillas, figs, mangoes and strawberries with 3:1:5 granular fertiliser. Seeds of Cape gooseberries can be sown now, and asparagus crowns planted.

Sow beans and a row or two of carrots in situ. Leeks, beetroot, radish, parsnips and turnips can also be sown in the latter part of August. When the main flower head of broccoli has been harvested, feed the plants with a high-nitrogen food to force production of secondary shoots.

Please visit us at Tuingenoot, our friendly staff, always ready to help. You can find us on the corner of Lyttleton & Old Johannesburg Road, Centurion. Telephone: 012-6600103

Remember we deliver!!!!!!! Open 7 days a week!!!!!

*Photos for advertising purposes

Don’t let the cold keep you indoors: there’s plenty to do outside!!!

It will not only feel good to get outdoors, but some groundwork now will go a long way to brightening your garden for when spring and summer arrive.

For a burst of colour in late winter and spring

Plant and sow:

• Plant pansy and viola seedlings now in well composted beds – the rewards are a welcome splash of colour to warm up the winter blues.
• Sow the following seeds for colour in summer: alyssum, linaria, Shirley poppies, impatiens, vygies and calendulas.
• Winter veggies ready for planting are cabbages, leeks, peas, turnips, carrots, radishes, beans, broccoli, Swiss chard and Asian greens.
• There’s still time to plant lilium bulbs. Get them into the ground before the end of July.

Feed:

• Feed all flowering plants with 3:1:5 to boost flower production.
• Water camellias and azaleas and deutzia regularly to prevent bud drop. Also remember to keep the soil around these plants well mulched.
• Feed spring and summer flowering bulbs with bulb food once every two weeks.
• Fertilise hydrangeas with an application of 3:1:5 and compost.

Prune:

• It’s time to prune your roses. Aim to get your pruning done between the last two weeks of July and the first week of August.
• Prune and shape deciduous fruit trees like peaches, apples, pears and apricots. Spray with lime sulphur a few days later.
• Summer and autumn flowering climbers and shrubs like cassia, clematis, golden shower, barleria, ribbon bush, wild dagga also need pruning now

Indoor colour – Perfectly pretty primulas:

Primulas are excellent indoor potted plants for winter or spring blooms. They are commonly known as English primrose or common primrose and are the ideal way to add a bit of brightness and cheer to any living area.

Available in a variety of bright colours in single and double blooms, they are inexpensive, easy to grow and long flowering. The flowers grow in tight bunches and are ideal for any potted container.

Primulas needs plenty of light, but not direct sunlight and moderate to cool temperatures. Water regularly, as the plant prefers soil that is consistently moist, but not soggy. Fertilise with a liquid fertiliser during growth and flowering season.

Primroses are sturdy plants that seldom have any insect or disease problems, but it is always advisable to look out for them.
Please visit us at Tuingenoot, our friendly staff, always ready to help. You can find us on the corner of Lyttleton & Old Johannesburg Road, Centurion.
Telephone: 012-6600103

Remember we deliver!!!!!!! Open 7 days a week.