Caring for plants
Take advantage of time-saving greens that’ll give you goodness to eat while waiting for other crops to mature.
Nurture your garden by sowing edibles and flowers. Give your roses some attention and maintain your existing crops for an abundant harvest.
Many summer-flowering annuals start coming to the end of their flowering season and need to be removed. As such, collect ripe seeds from flowers you wish to grow for next season and begin preparing seed and flower beds for autumn planting.
Blooms to sow
- Plant tough annuals such as Sweet William (Dianthus barbatus) and African Daisy (Dimorphotheca) to fill gaps in beds and provide colour in your garden.
- Gerbera Daisy (Gerbera jamesonii) is your best bet for pots with full sun. They boast striking pink, red, cream or orange blooms that’ll bring any patio to life.
- Begin sowing these winter and spring-flowering gems that need a bit of time to mature in seedling trays; cinerarias, gazanias, iceland poppies, primulas, violas, pansies, larkspurs, canterbury bells, columbines and aquilegias.
Best for indoors
Adorn the indoors with your own love palm (Chamaedorea elegans). It is small, slow-growing palm trees, reaching a full height of about one meter. Celebrated for its attractive foliage, compact shape and decorative cluster form, love palms are ideal indoor plants that thrive in low to moderate light.
Caring for flowers
- Keep azaleas and camellias well watered to ensure a good show of flowers during winter and spring.
- Keep deadheading your spent blooms to promote faster regrowth with more flowers.
Rose maintenance
- Deadhead and dis-bud your roses.
- Water well three times a week.
- Fertilise, but remember that a heap on the surface is not optimal. Fertiliser is only of use when it is dissolved by water and carried to the roots.
- Spray fortnightly against black spot, beetles and bollworm with organicand biological pest control solutions available at your plant nursery.
Greens to sow and plant
- Sow spinach, globe artichokes, parsley, carrots, radish and rocket.
- Plant Chinese water chestnut (Eleocharis dulcis) if you enjoy Asian-style cooking. This aquatic vegetable forms tufts of bright green with straw-like leaves that spread rapidly.
Tending to the harvest
- Pinch out tomatoes and surplus squashes to get fewer but bigger vegetables.
- Remember to keep mulching your beds to suppress weed growth, keep roots cool and conserve water.
Plant nursery treasures
Buy ready-to-plant strawberries, which you can hang in baskets or transplant into containers. Feed and water regularly to enjoy its beauty, even after fruiting.
Your nursery has the latest, fully grown, dwarf veggies that are ready to harvest. These varieties include chillies, cherry tomatoes and fresh loose-leaf lettuce varieties. Take advantage of time-saving greens that’ll give you goodness to eat while waiting for other crops to mature.
Pesky critters
Look out for red spider mites which are problematic in periods of drought and very hot weather. Use the correct insecticides to control these pests on plants such as fruit trees, roses and shrubs. Red spider mites can also destroy annuals like tomatoes if too heavily infested.
There’s always something to do in the garden and always a plant in need of a little attention. Caring for your crop offers delicious rewards while tending to blooms provides an ongoing stream of colourful delights.
Visit the Life is a Garden website www.lifeisagarden.co.za for more gardening inspiration or join the conversation on its Facebook page lifeisagardensa.
