Its time to June

It's time to get into the first of the winter jobs.

Shift the garden chairs into a winter suntrap and enjoy the sun on your back on crisp clear winter days.

Photo - Hannah MacCowatt

Enjoy

Camellias are outstanding winter-flowering plants with an intriguing range of colors, flower forms and plant habits, and options to suit sunny or shaded positions.

Protect

Build a temporary structure to cover with frost cloth (available in rolls from nurseries and hardware stores) and prop over frost-vulnerable plants. Sprays such as Droughtshield and Envy may also help.

Prepare

Add compost and a handful of pelletised chook poo to planting holes for newly purchased deciduous trees, shrubs and roses. Dig to mix in well before planting.

Sharpen and clean secateurs and loppers ready for pruning roses and tidying trees and shrubs next month.

Water

Newly planted deciduous trees, shrubs and roses need regular watering as fresh feeder roots establish. Ease off watering indoor plants, tropicals and cactus as these all hate wet cold feet.

Plant

Make winter sweet with fragrant plants such as daphne, wintersweet (Chimonanthus), winter honeysuckle (Lonicera fragrantissima) sweet osmanthus, pink luculia, Buddleia ‘Spring Promise’, viburnum and pretty violets.

Cram hippeastrum bulbs into shallow pots for a fabulous display in spring, or palnt in the garden, with their necks protruding out of the soil.

Divide

Dig up overcrowded perennials, divide with a garden fork, then replant clumps into compost-enriched soil, and share the excess with friends.

Feed

Liquid feed spring bulbs such as jonquils and snowdrops, even though they have already flowered. The foliage creates energy for next year’s show.