It's not “all the trees are brown and skies are grey” in South Africa in winter.
It can easily be the most colourful time of the year in your garden.
Over the next few weeks, it's time to sow and plant some of our all-time favourite bedding plants.
Bedding plants are most rewarding this time of the year as there is just so much to choose from.
These include calendula, cineraria, dianthus, delphiniums, Iceland poppies, nemesia, pansies, snapdragon and stocks.
The range is extended even more with the selection of seeds that make adding colour to your winter garden just so easy.
Planting tips
Whether you plant your bedding plants from seed or seedlings, the secret to this time of the year is soil preparation.
Always dig over your beds to loosen the soil after removing your summer annuals, add liberal compost along with a sprinkling of bone meal or a planting fertiliser. The compost will help to aerate the soil and keep the soil moist through the drier winter months. The bone meal will help the young roots establish faster to give you strong plants.
Some favourites, this time of the year, include the most popular colours of yellow, blue, purple and orange.
Favourite bedding plants include:
n Pansies. They do best in full sun with rich, moist soil. Providing mass colour for borders and edgings, they also give vibrant displays in containers. Each plant will produce over 600 flowers if kept deadheaded and fed every two weeks.
Iceland poppies. Striking in full sun and can get by with little water. They do best in soil with good drainage. Iceland poppies make excellent cut flowers. They have glistening, translucent flowers, which are lightly fragrant. Their petals look like tissue paper or crinkled silk which form bowl shaped flowers. Poppies create a lavish display from mid-winter to late spring and are much loved by bees which are good for the environment.
n Poppies love to be picked and make excellent cut flowers that will last longer in a vase if the stems are immersed gently in boiling water for 30 seconds.
n Fairy Primulas. These have become synonymous with winter gardens, as they are tough little flowers that grow easily and quickly in semi shade or partial sun. These flowers reward the gardener with a breath taking show of flowers throughout the winter and spring. A regular foliar feed throughout the growing season will ensure a beautiful show of flowers. The tiny flowers are borne in whorls of decreasing size, up slender stems to a height of 20 to 25cm.
n Petunias. The secret to growing the best petunias is to plant them in the hottest spot possible. Petunias are water wise and can die if over watered.
Water them once a week to every 10 days through winter and keep deadheading the spent flowers to keep them looking good. In the coldest months Petunias will stop flowering but will keep growing and then in August, as the temperatures warm up, they come back into flower and give the best show ever.
n Livingstone daisies, also known as Bokbaai Vygies. They produce a glowing display in full sun when planted in beds, borders, dry banks and rockeries. A quick carpeting plant, it will practically paint the ground in colour. They like well drained, sandy soil and are the easiest seed for young children to grow.
n African daisy, also known as the Namaqualand Daisy, they grow to about a foot high. A mass show of large daisies in shades of yellow, orange, salmon or white with a brown centre is unrivalled in spring. Simply rake the seeds into the surface of any sunny patch of soil and water regularly until germinated. After that you can all but ignore them and they will still give a great show.
There is no reason to have a bland garden through winter. By planting winter bedding, plants you will have great colour that will last well into spring, giving you months of joy.
Information courtesy of Eckards Garden Pavilion.
