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- 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 my wife Annie’s favourite bold coloured "Matilda Poppies"
last week and was told they have been late germinating this year and won’t be
saleable until mid May, due to the hot weather back in February-March. Still they are
worth waiting for!
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