Summer holidays may be over, but summer itself is not. Protect yourself and your plants from the heat of the day – and keep harvesting all those delicious fruit and vegies you cared enough about to plant and water. Respite from the heat is what you and your garden need right now. Help your garden tough it out until the autumn rains come.

Planting

Prepare vegetable garden beds for your winter crop. Clear the beds when your summer fruiting plants are finished and compost the plant matter if it was not diseased. Chop the long stems down as you add them to your heap so that they break down faster.

In your vegetable garden, incorporate plenty of prepared compost and manure to compensate for the nutrient-depleted soil.

Lift & divide old clumps of spring flowering bulbs, particularly Daffodils, which failed to flower last season. Spring flowering bulbs will be available for sale later this month.

Fertilising

Trim back, feed and water Fuchsias early this month to encourage an autumn display. Fertilise citrus & stone fruit trees with Fruit & Citrus fertiliser.

Feed roses with Rose Food. Prune Roses back lightly to encourage an autumn flush or flowers on repeat flowering varieties. This summer pruning is easily done if you pick the flowers for vases inside. Place cut Roses in water straight away with a drop of Plant Starter in the water, and keep in a cool position inside. They should last for one to three weeks.

Pruning

Cut back summer flowering herbaceous perennials, mulch with compost and water well. They should reward the attention with a flush of autumn flowers.

Cut back Agapanthus that should be finished flowering now. Don’t let the heads go to seed. They propagate by seed easily and can become an environmental problem if allowed to spread.

Water Conservation

With current water restictions in place, it is absolutely vital to ensure that you are watering effectively. If the soil has dried out the water will not penetrate. It runs off the surface and your plants will suffer. The best way to water is to deliver the water slowly so that it can soak in to the soil and does not run off the surface. You may need to use wetting agents if your soil is hydrophobic (the water beads up and runs off).

For loads of detailed watering info, go to our factsheets section under the heading ‘Water Conservation’. You’ll find factsheets on Rainwater Tanks & Accessories, Greywater Information and Products, Watering Systems, Water Saving Products and Tips and Xeriscaping.

Lawn Alternatives

Lawns can look very sad at this time of year. Even without water restrictions, if you hate wasting precious water on keeping grass looking green you should ask yourself: do you really need all that lawn space? Take another look at your lawn area. Perhaps you could reduce the amount of lawn by making the garden beds wider, or make some new garden beds. There are groundcovers that may replace lawns in low or no traffic areas, or perhaps a different surface such as pavers or gravel in higher traffic areas. Click here for some inspirational ideas for replacing your boring old water guzzler.

Blossom End Rot

Blossom End Rot commonly affects Tomatoes at this time of year. Fruit has sunken and blackened patches at the blossom end of the fruit. The condition is caused by a lack of calcium and is aggravated by water stress during the dry months. Apply lime or gypsum to garden beds next year before planting to help avoid Blossom End Rot. Fertilising Tomato plants throughout the growing season with Tomato Food also helps to supply calcium to the plant.