Spring is just around the corner, and garden centres around the country are gearing up for gardeners who want to give their outdoor spaces a head start.
Life is a Garden has plenty of tips for those who want to get their gardens ready for spring and summer.
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Colour
Annuals are an easy and quick way to add instant colour.
Trays of pretty flowering snapdragon seedlings - tall and dwarf varieties - are available now.
Petunias in trays, hanging baskets, or small pots are not fussy. They simply need a sunny spot and regular removal of the spent flowers. Feed them regularly with liquid plant food, and they will go on providing splashes of colour for months.
Other good choices include dianthus, lobelias, begonias, gazanias and marigolds.
It’s not warm enough to start sowing flowers in earnest, but bumper seed packs of alyssum in various colours are ideal for filling bare spots. Alyssum prefers the cooler months to heat and will create a carpet of colour in your spring garden.
It's not too late to plant violas and pansies, which will flower until late summer. This is if they are set out in cooler areas of the garden with morning sun and afternoon shade. They will be in full flower mode at your favourite garden centre now, so you can choose the colours you want.
Lawns
To revive your lawn after winter, it’s time for the ‘spring treatment’. This is typically done in August, but for colder areas, September will still be fine.
For runner-type lawns like kikuyu and some of the tougher cynodon grasses, this entails a spiking, low cut, firm raking, generous feeding, levelling out and covering with a nutritious blanket of organic lawn dressing.
However, such vigorous treatment will damage tuft forming grass varieties like shade lawn and evergreen mixes. Kentucky Blue and subtropical grasses like Berea can be spiked and dressed but should not be cut too short.
There are many reliable, good products available that will awaken your lawn from its winter sleep, with 7.1.3 being a firm favourite. To avoid unwanted weeds into your lawn, be sure to use only registered lawn dressings, which are available from all Garden Centre Association members.
Pruning and feeding
August is the ideal time to tackle pruning, encouraging strong and lush spring growth.
Prune poinsettias, plumbagoes, tecomas, hypericums, heliotropes, solanums, hydrangeas, roses, canary creepers, golden showers and buddlejas.
Remember to mulch after pruning with a thick layer of compost. Ensure deep pink- or blue-flowered hydrangeas by feeding these rewarding shrubs with hydrangea food to bring out the colour. Also, mulch blue hydrangeas with an acid compost.
Compost
Remove old winter veggies and add them to the compost heap instead of throwing them in the bin - unless they are diseased.
Adding these veggies to the compost heap with a compost activator speeds up the composting process. In a short time, you will have a supply of recycled home-made plant food.
Features
If your garden needs a small tree that will also tolerate some shade and will produce flowers profusely, plant the Mickey Mouse bush (Ochna serrulata). It produces interesting yellow flowers followed by berries that turn black when ripe and garden wildlife loves them.
Add a softening touch with various jasmines for a patio surrounded by lovely scented flowers and gentle shade from the sun.
- Chinese jasmine is a fast growing, prolific-flowering creeper.
- Starry jasmine is a slow grower but, once established, produces flowers for months on end.
- Wild jasmine is indigenous and can be slow to get going, but it is a strong grower once it is established.
- Carolina jasmine is an evergreen creeper with abundant clusters of small, sweetly-scented, canary-yellow flowers in late winter and spring.
Let your garden bloom this August by applying the guidelines listed above.
Writer : Sarah-Jane Meyer