Gardener’s Wisdom May 2008

• “unplanted plants sitting in their black plastic shrouds” - try to put plants in the ground promptly.
• Sow seeds in ground comfortably warm (the bare bottom test!)
• Use a year wall planner to keep track of where plants are planted. Keep labels of plants marked with date of planting and where it was planted.
• Use apple prunings to make pea supports.
• Old biros make good plant markers.
• Put a board along the garden to walk on so the ground is not compacted.
• Use animal manure for Rhubarb. Shift Rhubarb every 3 years. Don’t let it go to seed.
• Plant radishes with carrots - when the radishes are pulled the carrots are thinned. Plant spring onions with carrots to keep the carrot fly away. Carrots planted in July should be ready to eat before the carrot fly is around.
• Put pine needles around strawberries instead of straw.
• When planting in pots, put the pot inside a larger one and fill in the space with soil. This stops the plant drying out too quickly.
• Use a plastic bag to line hanging baskets.
• Chop basil and put in ice cubes with water and freeze them. Do the same with chopped parsley. Just take one out whenever you want the herb.
• Use pumice in a trench to grow Buxus cuttings. Use hormone.
• Use a diamond stone to sharpen tools.
• Always wear gumboots to protect legs.
• “Companion Planting” by Brenda Little - recommended.
• Salvias like dry conditions so plant them where you can’t water.
• Use old pallets to make compost bins.
• Couch control: cover it with sawdust, let it grow through, then roll it all up like carpet.
• Don’t buy foliar feed fertilizer - it is a waste of money. Plants feed through their roots.
• To open walnuts, put the point of a knife into the blunt end and twist.
• Orchids need air around the roots, and they must dry out between waterings. They do well in hanging baskets, in orchid mix lined with coconut fibre.
• Remove your hearing aids before moving the sprinkler - water wrecks them.
• Persimmon leaves smell awful, like sewage.
• Self sown broad beans will give you a very early crop if you leave them to grow.
• If parsnips go to seed, the stems can cause sores on the skin, so keep skin covered when handling parsnips. Parsnips seem to like heavy soil.
• Roundup will not kill Agapanthus, but will kill the weeds growing among them.
• For big juicy feijoas, water them well during summer.
• For early scarlet runner beans, leave them in the ground at the end of the season.
• Perennial asters flower best if left in the ground. Don’t divide them every year. They give great colour in late summer.
• For successful cuttings: fill a pot with mix and sit it in a large plastic bag. Make your cuttings, dust with hormone powder, and insert into the mix. Water well. Put a label and a wire hoop in the pot. Blow up the plastic bag full of air and do it up tight. Put another label into the tie. Check it every so often but don’t water it again. Leave it in a warm place with good light. You can get good results using this method even with dryish rose cuttings. Make cuttings of roses at rose pruning time. Rooting hormone powder lasts only 3 months once opened. Don’t dip cuttings into the original container - tip some powder out and use that.
• Gutterguard around the edge of the garden, held up with wire pegs, stops the birds scattering mulch all over the lawn and paths.
• Use Christmas tree decorations to keep birds off grapes. Use small bags of mothballs to keep birds off plums. Cover ripening grapes with paper bags tied closed with twisties to keep the birds off.
• Marigolds are good companion plants for potatoes and tomatoes.
• Take a torch and a bucket of water with detergent and salt in it to collect snails at night. Put the lid on the bucket so they don’t escape. DON’T try to flush them down the toilet as they won’t go.
• To transplant safely in hot, dry or windy conditions, dig the hole, put the plant in and water it well, then fill in with dirt, firm down, and water again. Trim the foliage as you would a cutting. Give it a little tent of shadecloth for shade and shelter for a few days.
• Plant onions in groups of 3 or so to save time planting.
• Blackboy peach trees are disease-resistant and can be grown from seed. Crack the stones and plant the kernels in root trainers.

©Palmerston North Horticultural Society Inc 2008

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