Garden Advice › Garden Tips of the Month
Garden Tips October 2014
Planting Now
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Everything: All summer vegetables can be planted out now. The soil is nice and warm and still moist. (Digger prefers to save beans until November, doesn't seem to matter if they're sown later, they still catch up).
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Happy Herbs: It's full steam ahead for planting all those delicious summer herbs - coriander, dill, Italian parsley are all appreciative of regular watering; basil not so. Other exceptional flavors include French tarragon, sage, sweet marj-oregano and pizza thyme. An excellent tea infusion can be made with leaves of lemon balm, lemon verbena, sliced lemon and mint - relaxing…..
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Edible flowers: Save yourself a heap of money by increasing your knowledge of what's edible in your own garden, starting with the flowers. In particular, apple or citrus blossom - if you want to thin the fruit off your trees you can eat the flowers. Plus nasturtiums, pansies and violas, calendulas, carnation and daylilies are not only edible. but the more flowers in the garden, the more bees!
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Summer shrubs: Get planting while there's still moisture in the soil (and a bit of rain around) to assist good plant establishment. We have a cunning new mulch product see below - to layer around new and existing gardens that'll really help them start off.
To Do in the Garden
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Plant Protection: Look for the first signs of aphids on roses and other ornamentals, not to mention the vegetable garden. Digger likes to squash the first aphid colonies, but if it's widespread Pyrethrum sprays do the trick and are safer to use on edibles. Spray in the early mornings or evenings, or you might kill the bees. Snails - fresh new leaves are yummy foraging for slugs and snails - go looking for them on the undersides of leaves that have holes in them and collect and dispose of the little blighters. Otherwise use a pet friendly bait, such as Quash
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Blue Hydrangeas: The appearance of pink blooms on the hydrangea you bought labelled blue can be corrected over the season by regular applications of Aluminium Sulphate around the base. By autumn the new flowers should have be changing colour. Works in reverse for blue to pink, if you sprinkle lime.
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War on Weeds: Get in early and pull out weeds by their roots while the ground is nice and soft. Don't forget to bang the roots of the weeds to remove any nice quality soil that may have come away with them. Spending an hour removing onion weed with the bulb intact is one of the most satisfying activities Digger knows.
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Lacklustre perennials: Plants that don't look too sharp after a hard winter such as lavenders, daisies or coprosmas benefit from a cutting back by one third, preferably to where there is still foliage. With a good cut the shape returns and the plant begins to grow healthily.
Announcing the NEWEST Living Earth product EXCLUSIVE to Central Landscape & Garden Supplies:
BLACKGOLD Mulch
A new generation product that gives you more, while you work less in the garden. Containing Living Earth's organic certified Compost mixed in with naturally dyed recycled untreated wood chip, this mulch feeds as it locks in water to the plant roots - and it keeps the weeds down. Why wouldn't you sit back and relax after applying BLACKGOLD Mulch?
PLUS….Buy BLACKGOLD Mulch in October and November and go
in the draw to WIN a $2400.00 holiday for TWO at the Black Swan Boutique Hotel
& Spa, Rotorua
See in-store or on our website for more
details
Lawn Care:
Now is the perfect time for sowing new lawns and maintenance and restoration
of existing lawns. Living Earth Ultra Lawn Mix in bulk and bags (exclusive to
Central Landscape) is available at all of our yards. See our website or click
on the following links for helpful information on lawn care:
How do I sow my new
lawn?
How do I keep my
lawn looking great?
Great NEW Grass Seed: Coastal Blend
Not only for coastal situations, but as the name suggests this
blend is ideal for hot sandy sites.
Coastal Blend contains Fine Fescue and Kikuyu which complement each other
perfectly. The Kikuyu gives you a tough heat and drought tolerant grass for
those hot months while the Fine Fescue comes through to dominate over the
cooler months ensuring a good lawn year round. Best sown in
Spring/Summer.
Ask for the NEW Prolawn Lawn Guide at any of our yards for more
information.
Garden Thought of the Month:
"You can cut all the flowers but you cannot keep spring from coming." Pablo Neruda