* Enjoy the flowers on your frangipani, bring them inside in a float bowl. Enjoy colourful pokers and hydrangeas.
* Need a tough plant that survives no matter what? Look out for the old fashioned but incredible reliable Shrimp Plant (see photo above). as its name suggests the flowers look like prawns in the colours of red, ornage and yellow. Great for under trees and in full sun.
* Spray roses with seaweed solution as foliar spray (Plant Health Spray mixed with Rose Shield) for resistence to disease and water stress.
* Don't fertilise plants in hot dry weather.
* Remove spent flowers and tip prune spring growth to keep shrubs bushy.
* Divide cymbidium orchids when they are overcrowded. Remove the plant from its pot and cut the clump into 2 pieces, each with at least one or more pseudobulb and its roots. Remove any bulbs that have become soft and dark as well asw any dark roots. Repot into clean pots and fresh orchid mix. Small divisions may take a year or two to produce flower spikes.
* Take cuttings of begonia, rosemary, camellia, plectranthus and tomato.
* Dead head the spend flowers from perennials such as petunias to prolong their flower display, feed with a bloom booster fertiliser
* Potted colour available now to decorate patios, courtyards and balconies. Choose New Guinea impatiens, Poinsettia and Million Bells to bring a touch of brilliant colour to your Christmas parties.
* Spray Hibiscus with Confidor to prevent hibiscus beetle from damaging flowers
* Feed gardenias each month through summer with pelletised manure and water with organic liquid feed such as seaweed or liquid blood and bone.
* Now is the perfect time to take semi-hardwood cuttings of camellia, azalea, gardenia, fuchsia, daphne and osmanthus. Take an 8cm cutting from a healthy shoot, wood that has aged from green to brown. Place in a moist plastic bag until ready to plant. Remove the lower leaves and cut the remaining leaves in half. Dip base of cutting in hormone gel to ensure strong root growth and pot up into small pots with several cuttings around the outside of the pot. Cover the pot with plastic and keep it shaded until the cutting has struck. Roots should form after 3 weeks and then you can repot each cutting into its own pot. Keep the cuttings just moist until new roots have established.
* Prune lavender as they finish. Trim back perennials after the first flush to encourage a second.
* Lay snail traps around dahlias and cordylines
* Support growing dahlias with thin bamboo stakes.
* Mulching is esssential at this time of year. A thick layer of any organic matter over your garden beds will conserve moisture, stop the weeds and keep plant roots cooler. Choose from lucerne hay (the most nutritious), sugar cane, tea-tree, pelletised paper, Coco peat (coconut fibre), compost or fallen leaves.
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