| If you grow Chrysanthemums, it’s still
not too late to feed them with a potassium rich fertilizer, to swell their flowers over
the next six weeks. I’d recommend potassium sulphate rather than a water-soluble
balanced fertiliser, because that might put on too much leaf growth and that’s the
last thing you want. A Glenunga reader asks for a
recommended "Cypress" to form a long wind-break on a property with 600mm
rainfall and frost. I’d recommend Cupressus arizonica var. glabra ‘Canny’s
Gold’, (syn. C. glabra ‘Canny’s Golden’) which appeared as a chance
seedling at the old Belair Woods & Forests Nursery up in the Belair National Park,
when Jack Canny was O-I-C back in the 1950’s. It’s the best variegated golden
type conifer for this climate and it seems resistant to Cupressus Borer, which C.
macrocarpa is not. Like all conifers it needs good drainage.
Aphids are still lapping it up on your roses, well they are
on Annie’s! I’ve taken to spraying them off with a solid jet of water. It keeps
them down for a day or two, but they come back, but I’m loath to spray, because the
little green honeyeaters also seem pretty happy to eat them. They just don’t eat
enough!
Hibiscus bushes seem riddled with Aphids at present and
unless you spray with Rogor™, which is systemic, they will stop flowering pretty
soon. The cold weather stops them anyhow, but this Indian Summer might go on for a few
weeks yet. Spraying with water the masses of lofty flowers on large bushes like Hibiscus
is not all that practical.
Check your plant labels to see that you’ve written
them with a 4B pencil or Chinagraph™ or Plast-o-mark™ and that they have not
faded over summer. Also check to see that the bloody blackbirds haven’t re-arranged
them. They have a kicking good time these mornings chasing all the tiny creatures under
the leaf litter in our garden, but they have no respect for our labels.
I went to buy Annie’s favourite bold coloured
"Matilda Poppies" last week and was told they are no longer available. Seems
only the woozy pale coloured ones sell. Anyhow seedling nurseryman Michael Smart tells me
that the best bold coloured Poppy this year is ‘Spring Chorus’. |
