Free pink Hyacinth bulbs! - Jul 31, 2014
Dear Gardening Friends,
My friend Carl from the cafe had his tee shirt, shorts and thongs on this morning. If he had zinc on his nose he could have come straight from the beach.
Spring must be getting closer but don’t rush out to buy your tomato seedlings because it is still winter and they are forecasting more cold weather. I did notice that some of our spring blossom fruit trees have started to flower.
If you have peach, nectarine or apricot trees then you must spray them urgently with Lime Sulphur. This winter spray prevents them from getting a fungus disease called Leaf Curl.
Timing is critical. It has to be applied at bud swell. Lucky for us Ryan sprayed last week. If your tree gets this disease it is untreatable for the season.
We sprayed our lawn with Richgro Bindii Killer for Buffalo lawns last week. I keep telling you that it is time to spray but I suspect most of you haven’t got around to doing this job yet?
Our broad leaf weeds are starting to curl up. This means the weed killer is working. I will spray again this week and that will finish off these hard to kill weeds.
For best results you need to spray your lawn twice in 10 days. It’s important that you spray in the morning before the wind gets up. Spray drift can cause damage to other plants in your garden. Rose bushes, Grevilleas and Robinia trees are particularly sensitive.
I put a squirt of dish washing liquid in with the spray. This makes it stick to the leaves and makes the weed killer more effective. It is better not to mow your lawn for at least 3 days before or after spraying. Keep your dog off the lawn until the spray dries.
It says in the instructions on the bottle to mix 30ml in 5 to 10 litres of water. The 5 litre option works much better. Use this over 50 square metres of lawn. If you use it over 100 square metres then you are using it at half strength it won’t work. We have 5 litre sprayers down here for just $15.99.
I have been picking home grown Broccoli this week. It has been a terrible season for Broccoli because autumn was so warm. The plants were just going to seed without forming a head.
We had many gardeners coming in to see with this problem. You can’t control the weather. I hope you have had more success.
I am a huge fan of Yates Tomato & Vegetable dust. This product contains Spinosad. This naturally occurring bacterium kills caterpillars without killing you.
You only need to apply it every 3-4 weeks and there is no need to reapply it, if it washes off.
Magnolias have been spectacular this winter. We have had almost no rain and hardly any wind so the petals are staying on much longer.
Simon has just shown me a picture of a variety called Black Tulip. This relatively new variety has just started to flower in the nursery today. Such a deep colour and a real tulip shape.
These are collector’s plants so if you want something special for your garden come and see us. Magnolias really grow well in The Macarthur district so you can plant them with confidence.
To make your Magnolias grow faster add some Dolomite around the drip line. Dolomite also helps to green up Buxus plants too. It is not a fertiliser but it makes these acid loving plants grow faster. I picked this tip up from a Magnolia grower in Victoria.
We are having great success with a new Geranium plant called ‘Big Red’. We have these in hanging baskets here at the nursery and they have been flowering all winter.
I love the bright red colour and it goes great with our purple poles. We are going to plant this new Geranium in the baskets at the front of our shop this season.
We have had terrible problems with White Cockatoos. They are turning up early in the morning and cutting off our pansy plants at ground level.
For some unknown reason cockatoos just don’t like pansy flowers! If you have noticed flowers on the ground then the cockatoos have been coming to your place too.
Talking about birds, I just wanted to tell you about this great Grevillea that we have growing in our nursery garden.
It is called Grevillea Ellegance and it hasn’t stopped flowering for 20 years or more. It has grown into a small tree about 6 metres high by 6 metres wide.
Every day the Lorikeets turn up to eat the nectar from the large spidery looking flowers. We can hear the birds talking to each other as they hop from flower to flower.
A recent survey in N.Z found that your house is worth more money if people can hear or see birds in your garden so there is money in feathers!
We are giving away free Hyacinth Bulbs today. We have the beautiful pink flowering variety available. One packet per customer please. You don’t have to buy any thing to get a packet. Plant them this week and you will get perfumed flowers this spring.
We had a lot of fun with pig this week. Pig chucked a sickie on Monday and we asked all our Facebook friends to come up with an excuse for pig.
We had an amazing response. Nearly 4,000 people viewed our Facebook page and 120 people came up with an excuse. Our gardening friends were so creative. If you want a laugh check it out.
Pig may have been responsible for inspiring Clover Moore to commission a huge milkcrate to be built in Prince Alfred Park. It hasn’t been announced yet but we are hoping they build a giant pig too.
All jokes aside I think our city does need more street art. Melbourne and Brisbane have art installations everywhere.
Happy Gardening
Tim