Outdoors

The garden tasks to do as the days get warmer

Article by Your Home and Garden

It’s time to plant some summer-loving crops as the days become warmer and there are more hours to spend in the garden

To do

November is a busy month in the garden. Spring is in full fury. At no other time of year are the greens so bright and the flowers so fresh. Amongst all this frenzy to plant, plant, plant and sow, sow, sow, take time to stop and smell the roses. For November really is their time of year – and the irises, of course. Not to mention the Japanese maples.

Desperate to grow tomatoes but have no suitable place in the garden, that is somewhere with half-decent soil and at least six hours of sun a day? Why not grow them in a bag of proprietal tomato compost? Just lie the bag flat, cut a 15cm slit in the top and plant one seedling directly into the mix. Add a stake and water. Bales of peastraw are another option. Lay them flat, force a hole into the bale with your hand, fill it with compost and plant. One bale should successfully grow two plants. Smaller varieties, such as Sweet 100, are best for container growing.

Looking rosy

To encourage more blooms, remove fading roses. As when picking for the vase, always cut the stem to just above a strong outward facing bud. Although most roses are tough and can cope with some drought, they perform best and withstand diseases and pests better if watered deeply. Give them a good feed now, too.

Get it in

The warmer your climate, the sooner you can plant out tomatoes, courgettes and other curcubits, eggplants, capsicums and sweetcorn. All of which can be cold sensitive. Most annual flower seedlings can be planted this month. While the likes of sunflowers, nasturtiums, snap dragon, bishop’s flower, Californian poppies and a whole host of others can be sown by scattering the seeds directly where they are to grow.

Consider this

Generally, we encourage feathered visitors to our gardens, and we tolerate them scattering our soil and mulches hither and yon. But we do draw the line at all our plump, ripe summer berries being scoffed before we can get to them. Which is why we are big fans of Birdscare, a tape that emits a penetrating hum and vibrates in the wind when stretched between two stakes. Try also the reflective, holographic bird scare tape found at most garden centres, which is more a visual deterrent.

Birdscare Humming Line, $13.99 (30m)

How to grow vegetables like the Iroquois

Arguably the ultimate in mini companion planting, the Three Sisters method, as used for centuries by indigenous North Americans, has sweetcorn, beans and a cucurbit growing closely together. Each works to help the others – as sisters should. The corn offers support for the beans, which as they grow up keep the corn stalks upright and close and add nitrogen to the
soil for the benefit of all three. At the same time, the large prickly leaves of the cucurbit growing at their feet suppress weeds, keeps the soil cool and moist and, if need be, holds any pests at bay. Modern-day varieties differ from the ancient, so adjustments can be made. Try to get stockier varieties of corn. Courgettes and squashes are a suitable cucurbit, but avoid pumpkins as they are too vigorous and heavy. Make sure, too, you choose a climbing bean rather than a bush variety. Grow in blocks about 1sqm, mounded with a flat top if you prefer, and sow corn first, waiting till it is 20cm to 30cm high before sowing the other two vegetables.

Steal this look

This garden is bright, happy, vibrant and celebratory – an antidote to the long grey wet winter that beset the land. And it’s so easy to achieve. Someone once said “nothing clashes in nature”, an overstatement perhaps, but like its associate aphorism “good taste is the death of art”, it is worth considering when creating a flower patch. Seldom will the sublime be attained through caution or modest ambition. This patch is a glorious mix of colours and shapes, with fiery zinnias, happy yellow and orange heleniums and helianthus (sunflowers), purple sage, popping pink phlox, melodramatic hollyhocks and crazy coleus tossed about in the mix. Whites and pale colours are minimal but it could just as easily be dominated by them, creating an equally stunning but dreamier picture. That the Adirondack chair is nigh on impossible to reach, let alone sit on without crushing plants is irrelevant; its gay blue slats provide a focal point in the carnival-like chaos. To achieve this look, don’t think too long or hard, just gather together seeds and seedlings of annuals and perennials you love, and let nature and chance do the rest.

Landscape 101: fences

Ironically, the country most protective of private property rights is also one most likely to have communal suburban gardens, with fewer fences onto the street or between houses. We’re talking the US of A where more often than not, with little in the way of delineation of individual gardens, a park-like facade is presented.

The backyard is often similar, with generous open spaces dissolving into light woodlands which in turn open again into the backyards of neighbouring streets. Here in New Zealand, more of a fortress mentality prevails with high fences demanding privacy at apparently any cost. And that cost can be high. A Dutch study revealed that neighbourhoods with nil, low or see-through front fences not only had lower crime rates (the nefarious activities of burglars is not hidden from the public and other residents), but they also engendered better relationships between residents. Greater social activity was undertaken in these front gardens, such as chatting to passers-by or children playing with each other. Neighbours could also more easily keep an eye on each other as well as each other’s property. The Netherlands research also showed that their gardens tended to have higher fences and more of them around the backyards, where more private activities took place, such as barbecues, utilitarian gardening, pet runs and so on.

Few would advocate for the tearing down of fences, otherwise how would we keep our dogs and children inside and secure? But wander down any suburban New Zealand street and observe how high its fences are getting. Where are the pretty pickets or delicate twisted wires? Often the effect to both resident and passers-by is of a prison. In attempting to keep people out, many householders are rather locking themselves in isolation.