Greenfingers’ - 14th January 2002 Seasonal Tips for Adelaide, South Australia

South Australia - 14th January 2002

There are two Mediterranean fruit fly outbreaks in the Adelaide metropolitan are at present at Millswood and Walkerville, with most likely source being fruit entry from Western Australia. If you suspect fruit fly due to any sort of maggot in your fruit ring the 24 hour hotline 8269 4500 and place some of the infected fruit in a sealed container by your front door.

If that is positively identified as fruit fly maggot, the Primary Industries officers are empowered to strip the affected trees of all fruit and take it away. They then spray all your fruit trees and those of all trees within 400 metres as well as on the ground underneath and set pheromone traps every 1-2 weeks for six weeks. That’s how serious this pest is. So simply do not bring any fruit in from any state. Ever. At risk is a billion dollar fruit and market garden industry as well as your well-loved fruit trees.

With our recent warm weather, Palm trees are growing very fast, so good time to feed them. Use a high nitrogen fertilizer, either water soluble or controlled release, but if using the later make sure it’s a six month release, since a 12 month formula will leave salt residues in winter when they are not growing.

Most citrus are keen to flower right now, but that takes a lot of courage in hot weather, so feed them also. Use a mix of organics and balanced water-soluble fertilizers, specially formulated for citrus trees. Remember they are gross feeders and on large trees you’d be surprised at how much nutrient is recommended on the packet to use. Put the fertilizer into a trench at the drip line under the foliage and flood irrigate, then mulch.

Oleanders are flower well at the moment, so it is often overlooked that it is also a good time to pollard them if you are trying to contain their spread. They can be cut back almost to a stump and they re-shoot or make coppice growth, but won’t flower again until next year. Make sure you don’t get any white sap on your arms or neck as some folk are quite allergic to it. Put the green material into your council green organics bin, since it can be composted, but it’s generally too woody to home compost.

If you have a water feature at home keep it topped up as they evaporate quickly and greatly reduce the volume of oxygen rich water for your water creatures. Use tank water if you have some or the concentration of salts gets a bit rich by summer’s end.

Remove the woody fruit capsules from your Sasanqua and Japonica camellias now so they put all their energy into new foliage rather than seed. Feed with blood meal laced with potassium sulphate and then apply a kelp or seaweed extract generously. The combination of these three makes for new foliage and good flower set later in the year.

Order your Alstroemeria tubers now for delivery in February. Unfortunately they often get left until the spring bulb orders are placed and get supplied in March, which is too late to plant them. If you are dividing some existing Alstros in your garden get ruthless and only replant he outside young thick tubers, leaving at least three tuber eyes to each clump.

There are two Mediterranean fruit fly outbreaks in the Adelaide metropolitan are at present, with most likely source being fruit entry from Western Australia. If you suspect fruit fly due to any sort of maggot in your fruit ring the 24 hour hotline 8269 4500 and place some of the infected fruit in a sealed container by your front door.