Shorter days should not mean that you pay any less attention to your garden
SHORTER days and longer nights shouldn't stop you enjoying your garden. There are still lots of sunny days to linger out there without having to be wrapped up, but some jobs must be done before you can relax ahead of the countdown to christmas flowers south africa . Did you harvest all your pecan nuts? This should really be done in October when the outer shells begin to split open. The crows know exactly when they are ready and can strip a tree before you are up in the morning! Don't eat them immediately as they need some time to harden, but they are really very nutritious and help to lower high cholesterol levels, so think about that when you are tucking into them next month.
Hopefully we might have good rain this month, not those little dribs and drabs which occur when we are on the edge of a passing weather front. Aren't we all obsessed with the weather these days? In the USA they have a TV channel just dedicated to the different weather that ranges over that huge land mass. There are even local weather channels where you can see fronts passing through and check rainfall levels, quite useful where you have raging rivers which threaten to flood after autumn hurricanes in the Atlantic. Here I check our local (to my house) weather every morning as well as the BBC, just to see if either of them coincide with what is going on right outside my windows! We are all affected by the weather. It is one of reasons why so many people choose to live in Cyprus where you wake up nearly every morning to blue skies and wall to wall sunshine. However, it does make for difficult gardening when most of the rain comes in one short season!
The lower temperatures in November on their own will encourage plants to put out new growth and bulbs and corms buried deep down to emerge into the sunshine again. I bought some Colchicum bulbs (Autumn Crocus) a few weeks ago and already they are in flower and giving me much pleasure. Irises and Chasmanthe are putting on growth spurts. After the long 'closed for growth' summer season, they are ready for the off. While irises remain upright, sometimes the weight and height of the chasmanthe leaves cause them to topple, requiring staking and we talked about plant staking last month. Chasmanthe hail from South Africa and do very well here in the very early spring, unlike their relatives, crocosmia, which in other countries flower in late summer.
Another favourite South African plant Tulbaghia, grows almost everywhere here. The Royal Horticultural Society's Magazine The Garden featured them in their August edition. They have long been favourites of mine, even though they have only become widely known in Cyprus during the last few years. Much hybridising has been done in the UK and there are now many varieties available, but not here. I usually have some other cultivars on my plant stall when our garden is open in April – mainly 'Cosmic' which clumps up very quickly. It was interesting to read that they do well in pots containing a moisture-retentive compost with some slow release fertiliser in the mix. Outside they like to grow in gravel alongside other drought proof plants. Now there's good news for us!
WHAT TO DO IN THE GARDEN THIS MONTH
YOU STILL have a little time left to plant spring bulbs and for impact, plant them in groups of three or five. Have you ever tried Paper-whites? They were originally natives of this area of the Med, and are now available worldwide. They are mainly grown in pots and are ideal to give as gifts to those friends who have everything! Plant them now and their small, white, perfumed flowers will be open in time for christmas flowers south africa blogs . They can grow on a bed of pebbles with water added, but the more usual way is to sit them in a shallow bowl of compost over a layer of stones. Don't let the bulbs touch each other or the sides of the pot. Cover with just enough compost to leave their tops exposed and water them lightly. Keep the pot in a cool dark place until the shoots start to show. They should flower four to six weeks after planting. So hurry!
With the approach of winter and likely gales and storms, take a good look at your roses. I only grow damascena and banksia roses and the latter need very little attention apart from removing any diseased or dead wood. Damascena roses put on a lot of growth and it is a good idea to shorten the long stems by about half now, removing a few of the older woody stems each winter. Constantly renewing the growth sometimes helps in the case of rust, which this lovely rose is prone to. Check that the roots of all roses are firmly in the ground and water in a feed with a lot of potassium (high last number on the fertiliser) after this treatment. In January or February you can further reduce the stems of hybrid tea roses and feed again.
If the ground is suitably damp then you can move pot bound plants into larger pots or even into the garden. If a plant has been in a pot for some years then a bonsai effect is created. The roots confined in the pot will be growing round and round. Gently unwind them and if necessary trim them down. All this can affect the plant and it may take a little while to recover from such drastic surgery but in the long run the plant will benefit from this. Always add some new compost, slow release fertiliser or bone meal if you can get it, to the planting hole and water in well after ensuring that the plant is firmly in the ground.
Some people rarely prune their shrubs but if this is done regularly you will help promote lots of new growth and the bush will always look fresh. Plumbagos put out enormously long stems each year that they really do need to be chopped back to about 15cm. I also trim mine after the first flush of flowers in July and have a shrub full of sky blue flowers right through to October. There are white plumbagos too – just treat them the same way as the blue ones. Lantana bushes put out fresh growth each season as well, so cut them back to the wood and they will give you fresh new stems in the spring. Always water well and feed afterwards.
I am always being asked when is the correct time to prune lavender. Just cut back them after they have flowered and depending on their water supply, the growth will be sparse or abundant. The native lavender, Lavendula stoechas (or French Lavender) flowers early, so cut off the dead flower heads or you will have little plants popping up in all your borders very quickly. You may want that of course.
Plant of the Month November 2011 Hibiscus mutabilis
This Plant of the Month was featured in 2006 but still enjoys much notice each November as it comes into flower, brightening up our autumn days. Sometimes called the Changeable Rose, Confederate Rose, Cotton Rose or Dixie Rose Mallow, depending on where you live in the world, it can grow to around four metres with a spread of perhaps three metres. Belonging to the Malvaceae family, it was collected in Southern China but is now grown in many warm parts of the world, including the southern States of the USA, hence some of its common names. In Cyprus you will find it mainly in old gardens but it is increasing in popularity here as more and more people discover its beauty.
Mutabilis comes from the word mutable meaning changing and the flowers change colour almost before your eyes. When the huge rose-like flowers first open they are white, changing gradually to pink and just before they die later in the day they are a reddish hue. The blooms can be single or double and the main attraction of the plant is that you can have all three stages of the flowers out at the same time on the same tree.
The light green leaves, which will drop in winter, are hairy underneath and they are similar in shape to an abutilon leaf with very pointed leaf ends. This plant does not like cold winter temperatures so don't grow it above 350 metres and it prefers a rich, free-draining soil, so if your soil is poor then feed the plant well with a high potassium fertiliser. Although it is sometimes described as 'drought tolerant' I have found this not to be so, as it droops quickly if the ground dries out. Grow it in a partly sunny spot. Propagation is by seeds (let them dry on the plant before harvesting) or by cuttings that can be taken in the spring. I have some spare seeds if anyone would like some.
