From harvesting citrus and tamarillo to sowing beans and planting onion seedlings, there’s lots to keep you busy in the garden this July. Here’s your gardening guide
Chores
In the cold heart of winter, the garden becomes less demanding, leaving time for slower, more creative work: fashioning plant supports from stakes and prunings, laying paths and terraces, rethinking areas that never quite worked. Or time for those chores you’ve been putting off, like sharpening tools, cleaning pots and tidying the shed. On the other hand, those long evenings are just perfect for plotting, researching, finding inspiration and desirable plants.
Knives out
Winter pruning depends on where you live. In milder coastal and northern gardens, deciduous trees, shrubs and climbers – especially those that flower in summer and autumn – can be tackled now.
In colder inland and southern areas, wait until late winter to avoid frost damage to fresh cuts. Whatever you are pruning, dead, diseased, spindly and crossing over stems are the first to go.
Camellias should be pruned as soon as flowering finishes, before next year’s buds are formed. Hydrangeas flower on the previous season’s wood. Cut back to a pair of fat buds.
Roses are best cut back as new growth begins – late July into early August for most. Cut at a 45-degree angle just above an outward-facing bud.
Cut back those whippy wisteria stems to about four buds to encourage flower spur development. Clematis can be pruned now but hold off attacking bougainvillea till late winter.
Time is short
Lily bulbs are available through to September. As they dislike being out of the soil, plant them as soon as possible after obtaining them, never letting them dry out in their packing. Early planting means earlier flowers and better root establishment before summer’s heat. On the compost heap, aim for damp, not soggy. If breakdown stalls, add more “browns” (dried weeds, straw, shredded paper) to balance your greens. Activators can help, but a handful of manure, blood and bone, or fresh clippings will do much the same.
Heap it up
In high-rainfall areas, spread compost on top of the soil and let worms draw it down; in drier regions like Canterbury, lightly fork it in to improve soil structure. Everywhere, it doubles as a winter duvet, moderating temperature and protecting roots – just keep it clear of crowns and trunks to prevent rot.
Consider this
Among the cuts, strains, stings and falls of gardening, poking an eye – or anywhere else – on a cane is a rarer but just as painful peril. When bamboo canes became readily available and were in vogue in Victorian kitchen gardens, a simple safeguard emerged. Invert a tiny terracotta pot over the cane’s tip. The drainage hole was often plugged to protect the valuable cane itself from rain and prolong its life. Soon came purpose-made versions – neater, more ornamental – shaped as balls, finials, acorns and even miniature pots. With these hard to source in New Zealand, gardeners here have come full circle, returning to the original solution: small terracotta pots turned upside down on canes. Function meets form with an unstudied rustic charm.
How to: Harvest citrus
Many citrus, including grapefruit, lemons, limes, mandarins and oranges, become ready for harvesting over winter (although lemons tend to produce and ripen fruit just about all year round). To stop disease entering the tree or the fruit, cut off fruit with a sharp knife or secateurs, rather than plucking, pulling or ripping. Nip off all the fruit for a tree’s first two or three years to allow it to put energy into creating a sturdy framework. As citrus does not ripen once picked, do a taste test on at least one fruit before mass harvesting – itself generally unnecessary as mature fruit retain their good condition on the tree for quite a time.
Landscape 101: Wide-enough paths
A garden path does more than get you from A to B – it sets the mood. Too skinny and it feels pinched; too wide and suddenly it’s all plaza, no personality. The sweet spot comes down to purpose, proportion and how you actually move through the space.
The main path, leading from house to gate or out into the garden, should feel easy and sociable, inviting company. At around 1.2 to 1.5 metres wide, two people can walk side by side without any awkward shoulder shuffle. In larger, more structured gardens, a width of 1.8 metres or more gives the path real presence, while allowing space for planting to soften the edges. Grasses can drift inwards, hedges hold the line and perennials spill without crowding the actual route.
Secondary paths can be slimmer, but there’s a tipping point. Below about 90cm and it starts to feel tight, especially once plants begin to lean in. Around a metre is usually ideal. That’s wide enough for comfort, but still close enough to the planting that you feel part of it, not separate from it.
Then there are the looser routes –through orchards, shrubberies, or the veggie patch. Here, paths are often more suggested than formally laid out: a mown strip through grass, a scatter of stepping stones, sometimes just 60–80cm wide. The success of these narrower tracks depends less on measurement and more on how the planting behaves – whether it frames the way or flops across it.
Materials also play a part. Gravel always seems wider than paving; crisp edges feel sharper, while softer planting blurs boundaries.
The best gardens mix it up: a generous entrance, a narrower passage, then space opening out again – creating a natural sense of flow.
Steal this
If this is not a good enough reason to leave seedheads on, we don’t know what is. Such scenes are one of the special joys of frost. And the phenomena’s benefits are not only about aesthetics – a good frost will knock back populations of disease-forming fungi, as well as pesty aphids, mites and other soft-bellied insects. Repeated freezing and thawing will help to break up heavy soils, opening them up and improving drainage and aeration. By converting starches into sugars, frost sweetens carrots, parsnips, kale and Brussels sprouts. And, last but not least, a good icy snap aids fruit set, particularly with apricots.
Read more:
- Composting at home: How to create your own ‘black gold’
- These are the best vegetables to plant in your garden in June
- Landscape designer Guy Hessell on growing native plants in New Zealand gardens
