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- A reader at Springfield is considering an avenue of the
‘James Stirling’ Pittosporum and had heard that they could be
susceptible to a fatal virus. After asking around the nursery trade, no one
can confirm that, but several agreed that ‘James Stirling’ had a rugged
summer and did not cope with the heat back in February very well.
- This ‘James Stirling’ is a New Zealand Pittosporum
cultivar and a fine screening plant but you need to incorporate a few bags
of ‘Plugger’ into the soil at planting time to ward off the effects of
our hot dry summers. ‘Plugger’ is a commercial peat mixture, available
in big bags and Heynes Nursery on The Parade at Beulah Park stock it. I
mention them by name, because I have not seen it anywhere else.
- Have you noticed how stunning the Japanese Sacred
Bamboo (Nandina domestica) looks this year. It’s a real misnomer in that
it is not a bamboo and the red berries on them at present prove that. They
are easily divided over the next few months and they make ideal container
plants as well as a highlight plant up against a wall. Even buying a really
pot bound specimen at your local nursery right now is a good buy if you
divide it to plant.
- If you scored a potted chrysanthemum for Mother’s
Day, them plant it after you have enjoyed it indoors and in a months cut it
back to the ground to let it make suckers. Then strike those suckers in
sharp sand in July and make them your display next May. They flower better
than just letting the clump grow on.
- Time to plant Lisbon White spring onions (when isn’t
it really?) Also silverbeet, garlic chives and early onions such as SA Globe
White, Cream Gold and Californian Red. All these need a spread of
superphosphate or colloidal calcium-phosphate for the organic growers. If
that’s a new product to you check out
www.biotec-organics.com
right here in South Australia.
If wondering what to plant for your winter and early
spring bedding scheme for some colour, how about the tall blue flowering
Larkspur, Nemesia ‘Patchwork‘ for a sunny spot, Verbena ‘Flagship’
if you doubt your gardening ability, or a drift of ‘Goblin Yellow’ dwarf
Chrysanthemums? All available as punnet seedlings for a quick start.
Vegetables to plant now in the cold parts of the hills
is usually a pretty short list, but Broad beans either to pick or to dig
into the soil and provide fibred and nitrogen as green manure make a lot of
sense. Endive, kohl rabi, English spinach and radish, can all be sown now
and bulb offsets of shallots, tree onions and potato onions can all go in
now too.
Garlic corms can also be planted now into a prepared
trench, then backfill after they have sprouted out of the trench. That’s
most important on our heavy clay-loam soil and that way they don’t rot off
before they get going. A little spread of superphosphate over the emerging
green shoots will also get them growing rapidly, even in cold weather.
A reminder that if planting a packet or two of any of
the South African corms (Watsonia, Sparaxis, Ixia, Freesia, Babiana, Dierama
and others) it’s a responsible move to plant them in pots, rather than in
the ground in the hills, because most of them have the potential to become
pretty invasive weeds, but in pots they thrive and cannot spread.
Oh and make sure to remove their flower spikes after
flowering so they don’t cast their seed far and wide via the wings of the
Red-browed Finches! These South African flowering plants have pernicious
habits, as we have already seen with the rampant spread of the Soursob (Sour
grass to folk in NSW & Vic. or Bermuda Grass to Kiwis) and in recent
times the Watsonia on hills roadsides.
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