Your Garden
HOW long will this dry weather last!
With nothing of any significance in the forecast, it is time to get watering.
With the deciduous shrubs and trees breaking into leaf they are very vulnerable, especially when young, if there is not sufficient moisture. Orchard trees will also need moisture monitoring or they will drop all their fruit.
The best way to retain moisture is to mulch heavily with a quality mulch which does not pack down to tightly as this can stop any moisture penetrating into the soil.
Mulch also keeps the soil a more even temperature allowing for soil microbes, organisms and plant roots to thrive.
If you are using any chipped mulch be especially careful of the hydrophobic effect, periodically pull back your mulch and check the soil moisture.
Not only is it dry, but far too warm for early spring which makes the moisture factor even more vital. It is a good idea to put a layer of compost under the new mulch and let the earthworms do their stuff, articularly if your soil needs improving.
Feeding roses, fruit trees and other productive plants now will give them an early flush of growth and flowers, I like to use Sudden Impact or an equivalent now on roses with follow up every six weeks or so.
Roses and citrus can use the same fertiliser if you only have a few. Blood and bone is great if you don’t have dogs. The chook poo organic fertilisers are good too but I prefer to use them later in the season.
Have you got a ph tester? The kits will last many years and are well worth procuring as you will find soil ph varies around your garden and you may have to adjust it to suit what you are growing in certain spots.
Lime will increase ph and iron chelates and/or sulphur will decrease ph. Camelias, Rhododendrons, Azaleas, Blueberries, Pieris, Kalmias, Magnolias etc (under-storey plants) love acid soils.
Many vegies like a bit of lime. It is easier if you put plants with similar soil ph and water requirements together.
Well that’s it for this week, I better go and shift the hoses!
