Jobs to do in December from the November 2000 Newsletter
- Buy some potted colour if the garden beds immediately around the house need a bit of Christmas colour.
- Give hanging baskets and pots a really good soak by immersing them in a tub of water until the bubbles stop.
- Prune male kiwi fruit vines after they have finished flowering.
- Hang fruit fly baits in fruit trees and check for signs of attack by borer. Destroy fallen fruit.
- Deadhead roses regularly, pick off old leaves that are yellowing and spotted black, hose off aphids and spray scale with Pestoil. Prune rambling roses if they are getting out of hand.
- Feed established banana clumps and pawpaws every other month with a potash-rich fertiliser and keep well watered throughout summer.
- Trim back bougainvilleas and orange browallia (Streptosolen jamesonii) after they finish flowering and take cuttings.
- Keep an eye on azaleas to make sure they don’t dry out. If necessary, top up the mulch around their root zone.
- Remove spent flowers on camellias to keep them looking lush and lovely.
- Sweep paths and trim away overhanging plants to ensure that walking around your garden is a safe and pleasurable experience for Christmas visitors.
- Pick strawberries daily to prolong their fruiting season and harvest pawpaws just as they’re starting to turn yellow to beat the bats (they will ripen in a day or so).
- Deadhead petunias to encourage more flowers, and pick large bunches of zinnias to promote a second flush of blooms. Trim away dead flowering stalks of daylilies, pelargoniums, red hot pokers and cannas.