| The succulent red-stemmed weed
popping up all around the garden after the hot weather and cooler spell is
"Purslane" Portulaca oleracea, which is used by herbalists as a salad
vegetable. If this weed thrives in your garden
consider planting some seedlings of its ornamental relative the Portulaca
‘Cocktail’ (very strong colour range) or ‘Mango’ its muted tangerine
cultivar. As far as annual groundcovers go, they don’t come much tougher. It loves a
hot spot even a container in full summer sun.
Annie and I often eat at T-Chow in Chinatown and we love
their "Chinese Broccoli", well Yates have just released seed of
‘Kailaan’ or "Chinese Broccoli". I sowed some two weeks ago and it
germinated in 4 days and it seems to be growing really well, in spite of the warm to
stinking hot weather.
The Adelaide Botanic Gardens herb garden in the north west
section of the gardens, has a wonderful display of mature onions and their shallot
relatives at present. It’s worth a visit, them rush home and sow your spring onions.
It’s time to feed your lawn too. Any sort of
fertilizer will be well received. On any sandy loam soil, spread plenty of organic pellets
raked in, so your mower doesn’t collect them all and then when you do mow make sure
top compost the clippings in case you collected pellets. Then at least you get the
nutrient latter on.
On clay soils spread gypsum first at 300grams per square
metre and then add a water soluble fertilizer, like Thrive Lawn Food® or even plain old
every day garden variety Aquasol®. Even superphosphate at this time of year will be
welcome and especially if you have mature trees that also feed from your lawn root area.
See trees thrive on super in warm weather and they often get overlooked. Conifers love it
and so do citrus, but keep it away from Camellias, native plants and flowering daisy
plants like Coreopsis and Zinnias.
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