It’s an ideal time to start feeding your citrus right now, while we have these warm sunny mild days and cooler nights. Dig a shallow trench around existing trees at the edge of the foliage or drip pattern and spread mulch, such as Lucerne straw along the trench to reduce evaporation. Then water your water soluble citrus fertilizer into the trench and flood irrigate. If you use organic pellets spread some lightly over the mulch and they will settle down, but not too many as they tend to foster soft leaf growth at the expense of flower and fruit.

If planting potted citrus into the ground or into pots and it is a good time to do that now, except that some popular cultivars like ‘Lisbon Lemon’ are hard to find at this time of year, then do not be tempted to tease the roots out, as the immediate response of most citrus is to drop their leaves. It won’t kill them, but you’ll think you have! Once planted just feed with a light sprinkling of superphosphate over the root ball. That gets their roots growing, as there is no need to think about fruit set for a year or two.

This is ideal weather for striking cuttings of evergreen trees and shrubs. Conifers are particularly easy, when taken as short side shoots (10-15cm long) with a heal and placed 20 to a 12cmpot of sharp sand, covered with a plastic bag a sealed with a rubber band. No need to ventilate and water by immersion. Place in a shaded spot, not on full sun!

When propagating conifers it is worth remembering that variegated cultivars are seldom propagated from cuttings, since they root too slowly. Those are grafted onto green rootstocks of the same type. Also with conifers and most shrubs, if you take the leading tips of the plant your progeny will have strong tip-dominance, so if you want low shrubs or compact forms, then take laterals for your cutting material.

Mulch your hungry plants like rhubarb and silver beet to extend their growth season and you don’t need to use organic material either. Even washed gravel makes great mulch, as does a section of old green or black shadecloth. These cut down the sun’s rays and reduce evaporation and so conserve moisture and create a cool root run. That’s all mulch does. It is seldom a source of nutrient.

If you use organic material as a mulch be sure it is well rotted or else materials such as sawdust and fresh grass clippings, will break down where you lay them and at the soil face they deplete the soil of its available nitrogen which causes a yellowing of the leaves on many plants. We call this a short-term nitrogen draw down. It’s not fatal and most plants recover as the compost material in turn releases its nitrogen back to the soil.

I’ve taken a lot of calls on radio recently from folk with ‘Ponytail’ questions. This plant used to be named Nolina recurvata, however Beaucanea recurvata seems to be the current valid botanical name. The collection of them in the Adelaide Botanic Gardens is awesome, so if you start off with a potted specimen and you are thinking about planting it out into your garden, check them out in the Botanic Gardens first, on the south-western corner of the lake near the Kiosk! I reckon one of them is 6 metres around the swollen base. It is however over 100 years old and was moved there just 47 years ago, so if you plan to live a long time maybe keep yours in a pot!

A potted ‘Ponytail’ in the hills is best kept on a veranda, facing north where it gets minimal rainfall and maximum sunlight, as they don’t like being watered very regularly. A similar position is also ideal to flower marigolds and petunias all year round. All three can take the cold, but not the cold wet conditions of a hills’ winter, but given bright sunlight and a sunny aspect without winter rain and they will thrive.