Questions, questions for Cyprus gardener
Gardening with Patricia Jordan
It’s June already and nearly midway through the year. However, most gardens had a late start this year, and village gardens are still full of lovable roses. I am positive that the roses inside the gardens near me are never pruned, yet they may constantly be in flower and supply passers-by with as much satisfaction as I am certain they deliver to their proprietors. I solid resentful glances whenever I pass by using.
It doesn’t rely on where I am – supermarket checkout, pals’ homes, concerts, church halls, or garden parties; necessarily, a person will come up to me with a gardening question. In all fairness, my horticultural information was large, having gardened inside the tropics and northern Europe for decades and been involved in Mediterranean gardening for nearly two decades, so I was flattered that human beings have to assume I could help them.
Usually, questions are why certain vegetation doesn’t produce plants, how to combat various insects, or even why a selected plant died. The latest question turned into ideas for trees for small gardens.
Now, that is a very good query, as no person might want towering jacarandas or large palm timber to dominate small borders around a house. Better to develop Tecoma stans, Leucophyllum frutescens, or even the ever-present hibiscus, regardless of mealy malicious program troubles – (strive hybrids rather than the common or garden crimson floral ones).
Other inquiries are available through emails, sometimes observed using slightly out-of-awareness pictures. It allows awareness of plant life if a flower or bud is proven inside the photo. Unlike a few gardening writers in the UK whose mail frequently includes soggy or dying leaves and plant life, I have a lot of select pictures! Please do no longer let this deter you from writing or emailing me. I am always thrilled to help when I can.
WHAT TO DO IN THE GARDEN THIS MONTH
At this time of the year, the early flowering flora that we enjoyed is going over and needs some interest now. Chasmanthe (nonetheless regarded as Montbretia) has to take useless leaves off now that they’ve dried. If you take them away too quickly, you’ll no longer have vegetation next year. Every few years or so, they must be lifted and cleaned by starting the ‘tunic’, an internet service across the corm. Look below the base of the corm, and you will find a hard, flat base plate, which should also be removed. You can replant now or wait till the fall, but they probably will not flower after such a drastic but vital surgical procedure! You may additionally need to take up any freesia corms now that the foliage has died off. Easy up the corms and maintain them in a dry vicinity until autumn rains come. You may plant them out again and enjoy their delightful perfumed flora.
Cut down frayed strelitzia leaves and vegetation that have died and are long gone over. Despite looking sturdy, the leaves are extraordinarily prone to rain, winds, and locusts and may appear untidy if torn and ragged. The equal is going for canna lily leaves, which can be shredded using any locusts or leaf rollers that attack them. There were a variety of pollen beetles approximately this year. Usually, they assault Damascena roses; however, this year, they have been all over a few older lavender bushes, ensuring their death. Not a great deal of pollen there, I worry!
Early herbs, like marjoram and sages, can also want a trim, so reduce them to new growths near the bottom of the plant. It may seem drastic; however, there may be no sense in losing the flora’s power to make seeds. Keep useless-heading lavender and sage vegetation as they die off, the former may additionally need some drastic pruning mainly Lavandula pinnata with its grey velvety foliage and multi-flower heads on tall stems.
Oenothera speciose is a great floor cowl plant that generates many lovely, gentle red plants over a long season if you want evening primroses. Generally speaking, nighttime primroses are the simplest flowers within the nighttime, as their commonplace name might suggest, but these little beautiful flowers are all day and nighttime. Beware, although it could wander over your beds until kept under management, a good floor cover plant denies you the right to enter weeds.
Lots of vegetation have vegetation that might be open for best sooner or later. Hemerocallis is one of these, even though it can have numerous flower buds on the same stem. They are to be had in such adorable colors now, and once they grow into big vegetation, there will be plenty of flowers to revel in. Hibiscus drops flowers day by day as nicely, however you could constantly add them and any lifeless leaves in your compost boxes, supplied they may be not complete of mealy bugs! Other summertime bulbs are entering their own now are the plant life of tulbaghias. They can be followed quickly by agapanthus. What a debt we owe to South Africa for those two plants.
