Christmas is always such a busy time of the year. There is the winding up of work activities, social and work functions to attend and the arrival of family and friends to stay for the Christmas season and to welcome the new year in. It is important not to forget about your garden at this time of the year, but to keep up with the maintenance and to start planning for the winter months that will be upon us soon. It is important to look at the maintenance of the garden to keep it looking in shape should you wish to be entertaining in the garden, or if you are going away.
With temperatures high and regular rainfall, plant growth will be at its maximum level. Keep up with your regular lawn mowing to maintain a healthy green sward of lawn. Avoid scalping your lawn at all costs as this will reduce its health and vitality and result in unsightly brown patches. If your lawn gets too long, rather raise the height of your lawnmower than keeping it at its normal cutting height and cutting the grass too low. Keep up with regular watering of the lawn, especially where rain does not get to do this for you for example on the lee side of the house or under trees. This is especially important where you have cool season grasses for example 'All Seasons Evergreen' or 'Shade Over Lawn'. If you are going away, I would not advise fertilising your lawn until you return. This will encourage a spurt of growth and you will have to contend with knee deep grass when you get back. Trim all edges regularly to keep the garden looking neat and to prevent grasses like Kikuyu from invading your borders and beds.
Summer time is lovely for entertaining outdoors, and what easier way of spending Christmas with family and friends than out in the garden. Keep up feeding and watering roses, and spray for fungi and insects with Rosecare once a fortnight or as problems occur. Fruit beetles, Christmas beetles and blister beetles should be controlled with Carbaspray. One doesn't always see these pests until the damage has been done. They all feed on the petals and leaves of the roses, leaving huge holes where they have fed. Keep picking roses for the home as this is a form of pruning and will encourage the growth of more buds on the plants. Likewise, remove all faded blooms from the plants.
The plums are about to come into full fruit, while the first of the early peaches have nearly finished. Remove all fallen fruit from the ground and inspect the tree for branches that may have broken under the load of the fruit and remove as necessary. Thin out excessive fruit as this will reduce the chances of damaging the structure of the tree and will improve the quality of the remaining fruit. Keep up watering and feeding of citrus trees. They are currently forming their fruit for next winter. Scatter a balanced fertiliser such as 2:3:2 under the tree and water well. Spray the foliage and soil around the base of the trees with Maxi Marinure. Scatter Epsom salts around the tree to improve the sweetness of the fruit and again, water this in well.
Keep up feeding and watering summer bedding plants. Again you can use a balanced fertiliser such as 2:3:2. Keep on removing faded flowers from the plants to encourage them to keep on their show and to bush up more. Again you can use Maxi Marinure but avoid spraying plants with white flowers as it can discolour the flowers. Rather use a weaker solution and apply it more often. It is not too late to sow quick maturing summer bedding plant varieties such as nasturtiums, Celosia, marigold and zinnia. Nor is it too early to start thinking about next winter. Slow maturing bedding plants such as primula should be sown now. These always put on a good show with their pretty clusters of flowers. Should you be wanting more colour for this Christmas, one can always buy annuals flowering in bags and pop these in where you want instant colour around the entrance to the house, around the patio in the garden or in pots and near the reception room windows.
Neaten up perennials such as cannas, agapanthus, day lilies and alstroemeria by removing all spent flowers and dead leaves. Keep them well watered and foliar feed them with Maxi Marinure to encourage them to put on a second flush later on. It is not a good time to do any lifting and dividing of perennials. It is far too hot and the chances of losing plants by doing this is far too great. Stake tall growing perennials such as perennial phlox, Shasta daisy and alstroemeria to prevent them from falling over in the wind.
Continue to water summer bulbs. Stake your dahlias and remove side buds to improve the quality of flowers. Remove spent blooms promptly and keep a watch out for earwigs. These are small black and brown crawling insects that have a nasty looking pair of pincers on their rear. They are quite harmless to humans but damage the flowers of the dahlias. Spray with Carbaspray. Watch out for snails and slugs and bait accordingly. They especially like to aggregate under the strap like leaves of agapanthus, clivias and gladioli.
Top up the mulch around your plants. This helps to conserve precious water and keeps the soil cool.
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