December journal

Tips & tricks

• Water lawns with a wetting agent to improve water penetration.
• Consider decorating a tree in your garden with Christmas lights to bring a touch of evening magic.
• Most herbs grow well in pots. Be sure to pot bay trees, which sucker in the garden, and mint too as it can become invasive.

Jobs to do

• Feed cymbidium orchids after they flower with a controlled-release fertiliser to ensure regular flowering. Keep them outside, but not in baking sunshine, and water with seaweed solution.
• Spread a 7cm layer of mulch over garden beds for protection from summer heat. Top up as necessary.
• Choose a fabulous, new, strong-coloured frangipani (red, apricot, pink, buttercup yellow) and plant in a hot spot. They need free-draining soil, so raise the garden bed if your soil is heavy.

In the flower garden

Feed magnolias

After they flower, feed magnolias. Mix together five bags of cow manure, three cups of dolomite, one cup of blood and bone, one cup Sulfate of Potash, and three cups of seaweed granules (such as Maxicrop or Seamungus). Spread over the root zone of your magnolia and out to the drip line, to a depth of 10cm. Repeat in autumn. Do not use lime or chicken manure as both have too much nitrogen for magnolias.

Mulch

A thick layer of mulch over your garden beds conserves water and encourages earthworms, which increase aeration, add humus and nutrients to the soil. Mulch improves friability of heavy clay soil and adds body to light sandy soil, making it better for moisture retention.

Plant gardenias

Gardenias are the scent of summer. Plant them in pots near doors and windows. Keep them well fed and watered with seaweed solution. Choose from the following varieties: ‘Magnifica’ which has fewer but larger blooms; ‘Florida’ which flowers all summer with prolific, smaller blooms; and ‘Radicans’ which is a low-growing ground cover.

Plant cannas

For a stunning tropical look plant cannas for their bold, colourful foliage and flowers. They love the heat so give them full sunshine and good soil that had been conditioned with compost. We love their tropical companions: Angel’s trumpets, Abyssinian banana, cordyline, Bismarckia palm and paintbrush lily.

Plant ginger

Don’t forget the fabulous range of flowering gingers: torch, butterfly, shell and shampoo gingers, if you live in a warm climate.

Spray roses

Regularly spray your roses with Pestoil or Eco Rose Oil. Feed them every six weeks with Sudden Impact. Deep water with a watering can full of seaweed solution once every week in summer. Check for black spot and spray with Rose Shield.

In the vegetable patch:

Tackle fruit fry

Protect ripening fruit and vegetables with Eco-naturalure, a new organic preventative fruit fly control spray to kill fruit flies before they attack the fruit.  Start spraying around stone fruit and citrus 6-8 weeks before harvest.  For tomatoes and capsicum, commence spraying just before they change colour and continue throughout the season. 

Plant beetroot

Beetroot is an underrated vegetable, easy to grow, tender and tasty. Do not manure vegetable patch before planting or roots will be misshapen. Seedlings can be planted from spring to autumn in cool areas, and all year round in warm areas. Harvest while young and tender.

Plant zucchini

Zucchini seeds or seedlings can be planted into a garden bed that has been prepared with compost. Allow 60cm spacing between. Hand pollination may be necessary if bees are absent. Strip petals from male flower gently press into the ‘face’ of the female flower so that pollen is transferred from the male to stigma of the female.

Stake tomatoes

Stake tall tomato plants and pinch out laterals. Water regularly to avoid the disease ‘Blossom End Rot’. After the first hand of fruit has set, apply  a water-soluble, complete mixed fertiliser such as Tomato Food. Avoid excessive amounts of nitrogenous fertiliser as this can result in large, bushy plants which produce few fruit.

Hand pollinate passionfruit

One of the main challenges when growing passionfruit is in obtaining a satisfactory fruit set. You need plenty of bees to increase pollination. If you interplant a purple and yellow passionfruit that between them have their flowers open from dawn to dusk, you will have better pollination. Hand pollination (with a cotton bud) greatly increases fruit set and size.