Rose Pruning and Seed Sowing Round 1
Hello friends,
We're over halfway through winter now, and it's time to prune roses, and to also start seed sowing for the coming spring. My first job was to prune the roses, since I'd noticed that some of them had started breaking their buds, so I didn't have choice but to prune them early.
In the front garden I have roses including Blackberry Nip (Hybrid Tea), Aotearoa (HT), Celebration (HT), Happy Birthday (Floribunda, a birthday gift from my aunt), and My Girl (HT). They were all pruned using my grandad's tried and trued rose pruning advise. It's basically the 5D method, which is to remove the dead, dying, diseased, and damaged, and deranged plant tissue, and then trim for shaping, so that it looks like an open vase shape, with no branches that go toward the center of the rose bush.
In the end they looked much better for their pruning, and I'll fertilise them closer to spring.
Once that was done, it was time to trim the back garden roses. Our banksia rose, The Pearl, is a thorn-free climbing rose which trails along one length of the back garden. We planted the banksia rose once we found out that one of the neighbour's subdivided their backyard, and that a house was going to be built right next to our fence line. I've been training the banksia rose along the whole length of the fence line in the last couple of years, and over summer, when we tend to be out in the garden more, it provides a green wall of privacy for us.
Trimming the banksia rose basically just involved a lot of taking out the overgrown branches back to the main branches, and then tying up the lengths further along the fence line. It will still be a couple of years before it reaches all the way along the fence.
The last job was to take a look at my two Damask roses Isaphan and Duc de Cambridge. I bought them for collecting their scented flowers, which are used in rose oil and rose water production. They don't require any pruning in the first years until they become established, but there were some dead stems on them, so I pruned those off.
Next up was to start seed sowing, so I pulled out my flower seed containers and pulled out my packets of sweet peas and homegrown Calendula officinalis seeds.
I sowed the following Keith Hammett sweet peas: Blue Shift, Blue Butterflies, Burlesque, Liqourice, NZ Gardener, Somewhere, Sapphire, Triple G, and Turquoise Lagoon.
I also sowed seeds I collected from the Calendula officinalis plants I grew last summer. It's so rewarding to collect your own seed, and then grow new plants from them. Since then both my sweet peas and calendula seeds have sprouted, and I'm currently in the process of repotting them.
Spring is nearly here, and I'm very excited to be sowing seed nearly every day over the next couple of months. I'm itching to sow my tomato and chilli plants now, but want to hold off for another week at least. I need to balance when they need to go into the ground in the glasshouse, versus when I can plant all the other seedlings growing in the glasshouse into the garden. Our last frost was the first week of November last year, and it was very stressful having to frost proof so many seedlings...
Have a wonderful day
Julie-Ann
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The Vegetable Garden is Planted
Hello friends,
Over Labour Weekend in October hubby and I planted our vegetable garden for the summer.
My first task was to weed the garlic growing in the smallest vegetable garden bed, and then also sow onions, carrots, beetroot, radish, sugarbeet and carrot seeds as well.
Hubby then dug over the two remaining large garden beds, and I added sheep pallet fertilizer for the soon to be growing plants.
For the next bed, which was already growing peas and potato plants by now, I added lettuce, rocket, black turtle beans, summer sprouting broccoli, and cabbage, that I had been growing in the glasshouse.
With the last large garden bed I planted maize, corn, and pumpkin plants in the top half. In the bottom half of the garden bed I sowed wheat and linen flax seeds, while hubby acted as a scarecrow to keep the birds off them, and then we double bird netted the seeds to protect them from the birds.
With most of the glasshouse now empty of plants, we emptied out the space, and hubby dug over the garden bed. After that there was just the task of fertilising the soil, and then planting cucumbers, basil, chillies, capsicum and many tomato plants. There was also the big task of setting up all the climbing frames for the growing plants.
It's been a few weeks now, and everything is growing nicely in the garden, despite low snow falling the week after we planted everything. I can't wait to feast on all our vegetables over the coming summer.
Have a wonderful day
Julie-Ann
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The Winter Citrus Gardening Project is Finished
Hello friends,
My winter citrus gardening project is finally completed. A couple of weeks ago, I dragged the citrus trees out of the glasshouse, and gave them each a trip on the wheel barrow out onto the patio. The next task was digging three very big wholes into the ground to make space for the citrus trees.
The first tree to go in was the lime tree. It only took a couple of bangs on the outside of the pot, and it loosened up enough for hubby and I together to lift the heavy plant into place.
Then it was just a task of filling in the hole, sprinkling both citrus fertilizer and water retention crystals onto the soil, and then watering the lime tree in.
Next up on the list was to do the same to the lemon tree, which is now sitting quite happily underneath the kitchen window in the herb garden.
And last of all was the mandarin tree, which is now sitting in front of the newly painted white fence in the front garden. If you've noticed the three green pegs in the ground, they're soil water monitoring sensors, which I can keep an eye on to see how much water each plant is getting. The pegs are connected to our weather station system, and I can check them online whenever I want.
I've repurposed the now empty large pots, and they're now housing three of our tomato plants, a yellow Honey Bee plant, a Pomodoro plant, and a Juane Flamme plant.
And last of all the planter box has been painted a pretty shade of sage green, and it is now full of annual herb plants.
I'm really happy with how this garden project has turned out. Now all I need to do is paint our patio garden furniture sage green, and then the whole area is spruced up. Over the summer I need to come up with a plan to protect the citrus from frosts and snow over winter, but for now I can just enjoy the fruits of my labour.
Have a wonderful day
Julie-Ann
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Repotting Tomatoes and Chillies, and More Seed Sowing
Hello friends,
It's been another busy week in the garden, with warm and mild weather to welcome the start of spring.
I had to repot my chilli, capsicum and tomato seedlings in the last week, as they'd gotten too big for their plastic small glasshouses in the dining room. They're now happily situated in their now bigger pots with potting mix in the glasshouse, and are sitting in a frame which is wrapped up with multiple layers of frost cloth each night. If there's even a hint of bad frosts or snow, they'll be back inside the house in our spare bedroom until the bad weather passes.
Seed sowing is still underway, and will continue through spring.
Vege seeds sown this week:
- Pumpkin Crown Prince F1
- Pumpkin Musquee De Provence
- Pumpkin Baby Bear
- Pumpkin Marina Di Chioggia
- Maize Manaia
Herbs sown this week:
- Chamomile Roman
- Chamomile German
- Catnip
- Soapwort
- Marshmallow
Flowers sown this week:
- Eupatorium Hemp Agrimony
- Gypsophila Snowflakes
- Gypsophila Deep Carmine
- Yarrow Summer Pastels
- Valerian officinalis
There's so much more seed to sow, and things to do in the garden, but work is also busy right now in the lead up to the Christmas season, with me preparing eco textile products for inclusion in the online craft artisan website Felt gift guide. I hope I can balance the two between now and Christmas.
Have a wonderful day
Julie-Ann
Want to discuss my post? Feel free to chat with me on Instagram or Mastodon.
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