scone.com.auGetting Down and Dirty: Essential Winter Tasks
By Scott Cooper
Scott Douglas Cooper – gardening columnist.
As our weather turns cooler it is often our inclination to turn to more indoor activities yet gardening in winter shouldn’t be neglected and for most gardeners the time is far from quiet.
Australian winter gardens rarely need to be drab with a vast array of natives, flowers and vegetables to plant.
Pull Out Your Pruners
The first chore for the season is the roses.
A quick sharpen of the secateurs, a good disinfect with some methylated spirits and your off.
Although waiting for August in heavy frost areas can be advisable, roses appreciate a bold cut-hybrid tea roses and the floribundas can be cut back to three or four main stems, removing old woody and dead or damaged growth.
While rose growers tend to have very individual approaches to pruning, aim to leave an open, neat framework of strong out-facing buds to carry the new spring growth. Climbers and standards should be pruned to accommodate the shape of their eventual summer fullness.
Important tips
Always disinfect between plants-many of the most difficult to treat rose diseases can be carried by your tools.
Use lime sulfur spray to control the most common pest and diseases ensuring not only the plant and cut ends are drenched but also the ground around the plant.
Always pick up cuttings and dead foliage, it is often only a short jump from infected material to your healthy plants.
Roses are gross feeders – like lots of regular feeds not a comment on table manners – but hold off until the main feed in spring and the beginning of growth, excess fertiliser in the soil can cause pH issues.
Winter soils can benefit from a seaweed based emulsion and a light loosening of the tilth around the plant with a fork.
Other plants to prune when bare include hydrangeas and ornamental deciduous trees while wisteria and grapes need full dormancy-cut back to strong, plump buds leaving at least two on each cane.
Winter Flowering Plants
With the cooler months generally a period of rest for many plants and grasses, winter flowering natives and spring-flowering shrubs and bulbs are all getting into full swing and growing actively.
Selective watering and appropriate fertiliser is essential for peak performance and flowering.
It is also a great time for gardeners to identify potential additions to the gardens with gaps evident in planting schemes and a good selection of climate appropriate species available-and the opportunity to browse other gardens in your area for the best performers.
Correa (native fuschias) banksia spp, Crowea and boronia are all tough dry loving species with winter flowers and scented exotics such as daphne and lilac are worth trying for those more adventurous gardeners.
Hardy tried-and-trues include loropetalum chinensis, leptospermum spp and hardenbergia spp and don’t forget potted colour including polyanthus, pansies, abutilon and lavender.
Winter Crops
Strawberries! Get them in now to prepare for spring flushes but the more prosaic but hardly less delectable leeks, broad beans peas and spinach go in now, with cut-and-come-again lettuce and keep sowing repeatedly to maintain a supply of young fresh baby carrots-never sweeter than home-grown.
Warm windowsills can be packed with starting seeds for heirloom tomatoes, eggplant and capsicum with a few robust chillies to bulk out your summer flavours.
The truly dedicated will also have started asparagus and rhubarb crowns but it’s not too late to get them in for tender spring picking.
Winter is also a great time to prepare new beds for spring planting or to renovate tired beds with animal and green manures-turn them in to improve the soil and flush out some of the weeds that will inevitably rear their heads.
Important Tips
We all have a thing for mulch.
Heavy mulch in winter however can lead to the ground staying colder much longer so rake back to allow the sun to strike the ground.
You will also help to prevent damping off and other mildews and non-beneficial fungi from affecting your plants.
Frost protection can help sensitive plants over winter but if using plastic sheeting or fleeces always provide a framework of supports to keep them off the foliage-and remove them during the day.
No help to cook them in the sun!
There are also several commercial preparations that can be sprayed on semi-hardy plants to help protect them such as Yates Stressguard or Agrobest’s Envy.
Both products also reduce moisture loss through transpiration and can provide a boost in to spring.
The Lawn
Ok, so there’s a drought, we’re coming into our coldest months and the grass isn’t growing much.
While most are content to sort of keep them tidy, a healthy, well maintained lawn in summer can be remarkably cooling, water efficient and pleasing to the eye-and it starts now in winter.
Many lawns are weedy and compacted after the long heat of summer and low rainfall has led to patchy, loose turf so now is the time to aerate.
Use a garden fork to gently open the ground, hire a commercial aerator for the larger spreads or make yourself some nail studded shoes and go for a walk-aerating now lets what moisture there is penetrate the soil and a light top dress of coarse sand or loam will aid when it comes to fertilising in spring.
Light infrequent watering in exposed areas will help to maintain moisture-don’t flood!
Don’t forget to mow. Lightly trimming the lawn will keep it neater and removing long, lank growth and ensuring edges aren’t overgrown will improve overall appearance-and keeping your eyes open while mowing now can help identify problem areas such as moss and poor drainage.
Important tips
Resting lawns can run into a heap of trouble over winter;-from annual weeds like cape daisy and bindii to cold loving thistles and boy!-do they grow fast! Keep a pressure spray pack loaded with an appropriate broadleaf herbicide and catch them before they seed-old gardeners rule;-weed for one year, seed for five!
For those of a more organic bent, hoeing and manual weed removal is the go, some find the application of scalding water will help with the truly intractable spreads
A little diligence now and regular inspection can prevent many of the worst from gaining a foothold and begin dealing with those weeds that already have one.
And for heavens sake! I know that they’re sort of pretty, but leaves rotting on the ground isn’t do your lawn any favours, raking them up will have the added benefit of removing dead thatch from the sod and preventing pests taking advantage.
Good winter warming exercise!
Scott Douglas Cooper, Innerscape Design. Email: innerscape83@gmail.com