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Our Matilda Poppies will flower for the first
time this week, if the rain leaves them standing, but that’s three weeks later then
someone in Annie’s office, who takes my weekly advice. Annie wants to know why.
It’s not good enough that they flower for four months, but they now have to be first.
So I need to explain... save face if you like. Well I
fertilized them with superphosphate to get rapid root development, then when the first
buds appeared (2 weeks ago), I fertilized with a water soluble foliar spray rich in
potassium (actually Cultisol™, but Thrive™ or Aquasol™ would have done the
job too). Now that buds have formed, I will foliar spray every two weeks until the soil
warms then use organic pellets and foliar spray fortnightly. So there, maybe not first,
but there for the long haul!
Annie pruned her roses under limited direction last
weekend, using the ‘Half & dead method’. That’s remove half the wood
and all the dead wood. It’s simple and effective. She also needed me to re-locate a
few, so she pruned them first and I lifted them with a fork and replanted them. No
fertilizer at this stage, we’ll wait until they appear to be making some growth.
The soil is very workable at present and with the least
effort imaginable you could roughly fork over your vegetable patch or some area that
hasn’t been dug for a while. Leave it roughly dug for a few weeks, that way the rain
soaks in and gives clay soil a chance to breathe. Then before you knock it down and rake
it out, add fertilizer, and then rake, That way the nutrient finishes up at the root zone
of annuals.
Time to spray your citrus for a scale deterrent, control
aphids and reduce citrus leaf minor. You can get pretty good control of all three using
just PestOil™. If aphids are already thick and they are already moving on leafy
unpruned roses, you will need an insecticide first, but the synthetic PestOil™ causes
them considerable irritation.
If you have grown the sweet white-flowering Tuberose in
past years, it’s now time to plant them. The bulbs come with one big one and a whorl
of smaller ones around each large bulb. The large bulb can be discarded since it will not
flower again. The small offsets can be divided two to each planting hole and just plant
them 5cm deep, with their long necks near the surface. |
