It’s hard motivating yourself to get out in the garden during the cold winter months, but it’s a worthwhile exercise on several counts. Psyche yourself up by thinking about the health benefits – breathing fresh air, getting a dose of vitamin D (if it’s sunny!) and working some exercise into the mix. Visualise a wonderfully healthy, prosperous spring and summer garden. All it takes is a few gardening chores to make this vision a reality!
LET US SPRAY
The best antidote to a pest and disease ridden spring garden is thorough winter spraying. Nothing toxic is required – simply give plants a good dowsing of copper spray, followed a week later by an application of spraying oil. Both of these are regarded as organic. Repeat three times over the winter months to kill both overwintering insect eggs and disease spores. It’s especially important to spray fruit trees (including citrus), roses and other deciduous plants, as well as any plants badly infested with insect pests or disease last summer. In fact, you should spray the entire garden, but wait for any winter-flowering plants to finish blooming before you begin.
FIND THoSE PESTS
Garden pests lurk in the most unexpected places! Check the undersides of leaves for scale insects, and leaf sheaths and stems for mealy bug and scale. Look for silvering of leaves on evergreen shrubs and trees including rhododendrons, camellias and pieris. This silvering indicates the presence of thrips. Spray oil to clean these up and reduce their numbers for spring. Collect diseased fallen leaves and place in the rubbish (not the compost). Spray the ground around infected plants with copper spray to help kill disease spores.
CUTTING EDGE
Restrict w inter pruning to deciduous plants, including deciduous fruit trees. Prune primarily to remove damaged, diseased or crossing-over branches, and then only if you need to reduce the size of the plant. Always check pruning recommendations for specific plants before chopping. Wait until spring to prune evergreens and early summer for sub-tropicals. Cull dead or unhealthy plants and groom others, such as flax and daylilies, by removing unsightly dead leaves from around their base.
WEED ALL ABoUT IT!
Winter-hardy weeds can overrun the garden, making control in spring a nightmare. Spray with fast-acting glyphosate or dig out hard-to-kill weeds such as dock. Wandering Jew is one of the hardest to control. Roll it up with a rake and place in the rubbish bin – not the compost! once weeding is done, fork compost and blood-and-bone through soil and mulch with a 10cm layer of fine bark or pea straw. oulching insulates plant roots from the cold, suppresses weed growth and prevents soil splash in heavy rain. Long-term benefits include summer moisture retention, followed by feeding the soil and improving its structure once mulch breaks down.
LoVE YoUR LICHEN
Lichen becomes more noticeable in winter as trees are laid bare and higher moisture and light levels on their bare branches prompt its growth. Lichen absorbs nutrients from the air and rainwater so it isn’t harmful to your trees. If you do consider it unsightly or if it’s covering highly ornamental bark, you can spray it with lime sulphur (deciduous plants only) or heavy-duty disinfectant. Always test a small branch before spraying the entire tree!
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