In The Subtropical Garden: January

Hot and steamy with the odd torrential downpour is the order of business for the subtropical garden.

Arno, our resident tropical garden expert knows how to get the best from summer in the subtropical garden.

Anthurium andreanum. Photo - Arno King

Admire

Anthurium andreanum: Long-lasting spathes of deepest red, pink, white, lavender, or jade. Plants grow best in protected, humid locations in bright semi-shade. Plant in raised, free-draining beds and keep water up over the summer months. Plants benefit from foliar feeding, particularly when planted under palms or trees.

Do now

Work in the early morning and late afternoon to avoid the hottest times of the day. Bush houses are great places to escape from summer heat and allow you to grow all sorts of exotic plants.

Plant perennial vegetables such as abika and sweet leaf, and groundcovers such as Brazilian spinach, Okinawa spinach, sambug spinach and Surinam spinach. These are all hardy plants that thrive during warm wet weather to deliver an ongoing supply of delicious leaves.

Wait until March or April to replace Mediterranean plants that have died overnight following heavy or continuous rain. Regard plants that enjoy hot dry summers, such as lavender, sage or thyme, as annuals in subtropical climates.

Make more coffee: coffee grounds applied as a mulch on vegetable beds repel insects and provide nitrogen, phosphorous, potassium, magnesium and copper as they degrade.

Undertake a six-monthly pH test of the vegetable patch (your local garden centre will do a test for you) and top-dress with garden lime to bring the pH to 6.5-7 to provide much-needed calcium, which along with silica, builds leaf structure and minimises damage by chewing insects and fungal diseases. Apply fertiliser-grade diatomaceous earth, such as Purasil, to provide plant-available silica.