November Garden Journal

Jobs to do
* Increase the enjoyment you receive from your garden by planting fragrant plants.

* Propagate your own plants; take softwood and semi-hardwood cuttings. Try azalea, camellia and rosemary.
* Pot colourful annuals in containers to decorate summer entertaining areas.

Tips & Tricks

* Don’t feed herbs or you’ll get soft, leafy growth at the expense of essential oils.
* Pour boiling water over pavers infested with annual weeds. Weeds will die off within three days. It’s easy, safe for the environment and very cheap.
* Use ice cubes to slowly water potted plants that have become dry. Why not add seaweed to the ice cube tray before freezing? This will increase the nutrient value of the ice cubes. As the cubes melt in the pots, water will seep down to the roots without running down the sides of the dried soil.

In the flower garden:

Nurture roses
Water and fertilise roses to keep them strong and reduce risk of pests and disease. Add seaweed solution to the watering can for improved performance. Watch for die back, and prune it out as soon as possible, before it spreads through the whole plant.

Prune wisteria
Prune back hard now, after flowering, leaving the first five buds on each new stem. Continue to prune whippy growth. Don’t allow wisteria to escape into adjacent trees; it’s weight in the canopy will cause serious damage to the tree.

Prune azaleas
After flowering, prune azaleas and feed to promote new growth. Spray with Eco-oil, a botanical, oil-based miticide-insecticide that kills pests on contact. Repeat every two weeks to protect new growth. Alternatively, spray with Confidor once a month in November and December.

Water well
Water deeply once a week to encourage plant roots to grow down deep, in search of moisture. Frequent watering encourages surface roots that are vulnerable to drying out.

Prune lavender
After flowering, cut back half the current season’s growth to prevent the plant becoming woody. Don’t cut into older woody growth, or it may not re-shoot. Feed after pruning with Blood and Bone. True English lavender, L. dentata is suited to cool climates. Spanish lavender , L. stoechas, is better suited to warm climates.

In the vegetable patch:

Feed fruit trees
After flowering, feed fruit trees to produce high quality fruit. Deep water each tree with a seaweed solution to encourage good fruit production. Protect developing stone fruit from the birds with a bird net and continue spraying with Eco-naturalure for fruit fly control.

Sow more favourites
Sow or plant more tomatoes, zucchinis, eggplant and sweet corn to ensure  a continuous supply. Water and feed regularly. Harvest as soon as they are ripe as baby produce is tasty while mature produce is tough.

Make it pretty
Beautify your vegetable garden. Turn it into a more ornamental potager with flowers such as nasturtium, dianthus, standard roses and a lollipop bay tree.

Try seed tape
Growing from seed can be daunting if you haven't done it before. Seed tapes make it easy. Lay the tape in a groove about 1cm deep and lightly cover with soil. Keep moist and the seedlings will emerge at just the right spacing. Look for seed tapes of beetroot, radish, carrot and spring onion.