Questions, questions for Cyprus gardener
Gardening with Patricia Jordan
June already and nearly midway through the yr, 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 close to me are never pruned, yet they may constantly be in flower and supply passers-via as a whole lot 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 northerly Europe for decades and been involved in Mediterranean gardening for nearly two decades, so I experience flattered that human beings have to assume I can help them.
Usually, questions are why certain vegetation don’t produce plants or what to do 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 be dominating 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 flowered ones).
Other inquiries are available thru emails, sometimes observed by means of slightly out of awareness pictures. It allows becoming aware 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 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 yr, the early flowering flora that we so enjoyed is going over and need some interest now. Chasmanthe (nonetheless regarded right here as montbretia) have to have useless leaves taken off now that they’ve dried. If you take them away too quickly, then you’ll no longer have vegetation next year. Every few years or in order that they must be lifted and cleaned via starting off the ‘tunic’, that’s an internet across the corm. Look below the base of the corm and you will find a hard flat base plate, which ought to additionally be removed. You can replant now or wait till the fall, but they probably will not flower for a while 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 and easy up the corms and maintain them in a dry vicinity till the autumn rains come and 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. The leaves, in spite of looking so sturdy, are extraordinarily prone to rain, winds, and locusts and may appear very untidy if they are torn and ragged. The equal is going for canna lily leaves, which can be shredded by means of 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 yr they have been all over a few older lavender bushes, ensuing their death. Not a great deal pollen there, I worry!
Early herbs, like marjoram and sages, can also want a trim at the moment, so reduce them back to new growths near the bottom of the plant. It may seem instead drastic however there may be no sense in losing the flora’ power in making 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.
If you want evening primroses Oenothera speciose is a great floor cowl plant generating lots of lovely gentle red plants over a long season. Generally speaking, nighttime primroses simplest flower within the nighttime as their commonplace name might suggest, but this little beauty flowers all day and night time. Beware, although as it could wander over your beds until kept under manage, however, it is a good floor cover plant denying get right of entry to weeds.
Lots of vegetation have vegetation that might be open for best sooner or later. Hemerocallis is one of these despite the fact that 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 way of agapanthus. What a debt we owe to South Africa for those two plants.
