• I am a Napier gardener looking for three abutilons: a green-flowered, a pink one and a white one with a pink centre. I can swap cuttings for orange and cream, white, red and yellow abutilons, but I can pay for them if preferred. Helen, email: helen.hb@xtra.co.nz

Send your plant requests and notices to: Noticeboard, WG, PO Box 8185, Symonds St, Auckland 1150, ph 09 377 2340 or email wgpubs@xtra.co.nz

28 Opotiki Dahlia Show
Senior Citizens Hall, King St, Opotiki. 11am-3pm, ph 06 751 1184 or 021 044 7743.

28 Daltons Gardening Workshop
2pm-4pm, Daltons Landscape Supplies Yard, Morrin Rd, Mt Wellington, Auckland. www.daltonslandscape.co.nz or ph 09 574 6421.

28 - 29 Waikanae Lions Super Garden Trail
Gardens open 10am-5pm each day. Proceeds to The Life Flight Trust. Ph John 04 293 6607 or email popone@xtra.co.nz

FEBRUARY 2012

4 – 5 North Island National Dahlia Show
Sat 2-5pm; Sun 10am-4pm, Technical Old Boys Sports Club, Whitmore Park, Napier.

6 Elmwey Dahlia’s Open Day
180 Patons Rock Rd, Takaka. Entry $2 from 11am-5pm, Devonshire teas $4, sales table and raffle. All proceeds to Golden Bay Riding for the Disabled.

7 All About Gardening
Templin Hall, CHS Centre, Christchurch. 7pm.

8 All About Gardening
Templin Hall, CHS Centre, Christchurch. 9.45am.

* For a FREE Garden Events listing here and on Weekend Gardener’s fortnightly E-newsletter, forward your details to: Weekend Gardener Garden Events, PO Box 8185, Symonds St, Auckland, NZ 1150. Ph 09 377 2340, fax 09 377 2369 or email robwg@xtra.co.nz

• Summer pruning of wayward growers like wisteria, hedges and shrubs you trim regularly to maintain size or shape may be needed.

• Summer weeds like paspalum grow quickly even without the help of plenty of rain, so getting out regularly with the push hoe will pay off.

• Keep up deadheading of roses and other repeat flowering plants to ensure ongoing displays.

• Watch for moulds and mildews on susceptible plants. Where practicable, prune dense infected plants to encourage more air circulation. If spraying is called for, as a first line course of action try a baking soda solution (1 tsp to every 1.5 litres of water) or milk (preferably skim milk) diluted with nine times its volume of water. Both need repeating every four or five days for prolonged control.

• Sow Iceland poppies, primulas, pansies and violas for winter and early spring flowers.

• Repot potted cyclamen and sow cyclamen seed in seed trays placed in a cool place.

Growing food
• Watch out for brown rot in stone fruit. Preventative spays will not be much help at this stage so, if it strikes, your best bet is to harvest and use the crop quickly. Collect any infected, unused fruit so the spores are not left around to infect next year’s crop.

• Liquid-feed tomatoes with compost, manure teas or worm wee to help stave off blight. Some gardeners also like to use these very diluted as foliar sprays and think it helps.

• Spray younger courgette plants with baking soda spray (see above) to combat powdery mildew.

• Pull, dry and store onions and garlic, harvest and dry herbs used in leaf form and keep ongoing croppers like beans and courgettes picked regularly.

• Sow seed or plant seedlings of for autumn and winter brassica crops like cabbages, broccoli, bok choy and cauliflowers in all areas.

• Sow swedes, turnips and parsnips for winter.

• Sow (or plant out as appropriate) summer lettuces, beetroot, radishes and mesclun.

Beds built to cope with harsh coastal conditions. Page 32.

There are similar footnotes from our other writers: Jane Bellerby mentions sharing her produce with people whose gardens suffered in the recent Tasman flooding; Andrew Steens jokes about his amiable rivalry with a fellow garlic grower; Robyn Kilty delights in a lily that was a spontaneous gift.

Last weekend, a neighbour knocked on my door. Would I lend a hand to cut up his fallen wattle? My reward for a few hours’ work was loads of firewood, a bottle of red – and the fun of working alongside another gardener.

On that score, there’s lots to offer you in this issue. We’ve finally found the three prize winners of our 2011 photographic competition. Summer is with us and we have tips and culinary treats for outdoors. Among our usual array of informative articles we’ve also a fascinating feature on plant remedies.

Angela Crispin, of Waikanae, Kapiti Coast, took this shot of a bellbird in a banksia. Page 14.

Good reading and great gardening,

Mike Gowing. Acting Editor.

Keep courgettes, beans, tomatoes, cucumbers and capsicums picked as soon as they are ready to encourage more crop production

Hot dry days makes watering our most immediate concern in high summer, especially with young plants and container grown ones. In my book, older established plants should cope with a normal rainfall summer without much fuss. Think about replacing those that don’t in the autumn – unless they’re plants you really love.
Growing and producing veggie gardens will need watering in dry periods, regardless. If, like me, you loathe lugging hoses round, consider installing a drip irrigation system or porous hosing to make watering both more efficient and easier.
When you are not at the beach or relaxing with friends this month, there’s plenty to do in the garden if you wish.

• Buy some potted flowering annuals to perk up pots or fill gaps in flower gardens. In warm gardens, you can also plant out summer flower seedlings; in colder ones, it’s time to plan for winter and start sowing Iceland poppies, stocks, wallflowers, primulas and polyanthus in containers in a cool, airy place.

• This is the ideal time to strike daphne cuttings. Use 8cm-long branch tips that have grown this season and are just firm enough to snap rather than bend. Trim the base of cuttings to just below a node, leave just the last set of leaves and plant them deep in a mix of two parts of clean river sand to one of seed-raising mix or peat moss. Water, cover with a clear plastic bag or glass jar and place in a warm, shady spot. Daphne should root in six to eight weeks.

• Liquid feed annuals and ‘greedy’ summer-flowering perennials like dahlias that need a boost.

• Deadhead or summer prune roses.

• Pinch out the tips of chrysanthemums.

Growing food

• In warmer gardens there’s still time to plant out some pumpkin, capsicum and tomato seedlings and to sow courgettes and cucumbers, but don’t dally.

• Everywhere sow beans, beetroot, loose leaf lettuces, mesclun and spring onions, and plant out lettuces, cabbages, silverbeet and cauliflower.

• Check out Gillian Vine’s advice for winter planting on page 18.

• Pests don’t take a holiday in January so keep an eye out for damage by white butterfly aterpillars, tomato and potato psyllids and mites in particular.

• Harvest garlic when the tops start to die back and spread it out or hang it in a cool, airy place to fully dry.

• Keep courgettes, beans, tomatoes, cucumbers and capsicums picked as soon as they are ready to encourage more crop production.

• Liquid feed growing and producing crops. This, combined with regular and sufficient moisture, should help keep them going through summer.

• Can anyne help me find or provide a piece of an old-fashioned, long-stemmed, single white daisy. I will pay postage. Stephanie, 120 Alpha St, Cambridge 3434, email smw@clear.net.nz. or ph 07 827 7537.

Send your plant requests and notices to: Noticeboard, WG, PO Box 8185, Symonds St, Auckland 1150, ph 09 377 2340 or email wgpubs@xtra.co.nz

7 – 8 Auckland Lily Society Show
Auckland Horticultural Centre, 990 Great North Rd, Western Springs, Auckland. Sat, 11am-4pm, Sun 10am-3.30pm. Bring your questions and meet the experts. Trading table, bulbs for sale, raffles, good parking, gold coin admission. Ph 09 627 9455.

7 – 15 Festival of Pots and Garden Art
Trinity Farm, 202 Waitohu Valley Rd, Otaki. 10am-4pm each day. $5 adult, children free. Pottery and garden art on display for sale in the garden. Refreshments available. Artists demonstrations. www.kapitipots.co.nz

14 – 15 Taranaki Orchid Summer Show
Highlands Intermediate School Hall, Coronation Ave, New Plymouth. Sat, 10am-4pm; Sun 10am-1pm. Car boot sale of orchids and sundries on Sat, 11am-3pm. Ph 06 751 1184 or 021 044 7743.

16 Chrysanthemum Circle
CHS Centre, 7.30pm, Christchurch.

17 Timaru Horticultural Society Timaru Botanic Gardens Tour
Evening guided tour by Parks & Reserves staff. Approx 1 hour. Covers conservatory, endangered NZ plants, heritage border, historical planting and new initiatives. Meet at main gates at 7pm. Supper concludes the evening.

20 - 21 Franklin Fuchsia Group Annual Show
Civic Centre, Cnr Constable Rd & King St, Waiuku.

21 - 22 South Canterbury Lily Group Annual Lily Show
West End Hall, Timaru, Sat 1-5pm, Sun 10am-4pm, ph 03 612 6997.

21 – 22 Nelson Horticulture Society Summer Show
Stoke Hall, Main Rd, Stoke, Nelson. Sat 1-4pm, Sun 10am-4pm. Ph 03 547 2999.

22 Prelude: 3rd Annual Garden Concert
Pompallier Mission, Russell, 5pm. Bring a picnic and enjoy the sound of the Boesendorfer against the back drop of the waves of the Bay of Islands and the Historic Pompallier Gardens. Adult Early Bird $30; Students/children $7; adult $40. www.artzegelaar.blogspot.com

25 Fruit & Vegetable Circle
CHS Centre, 7.30pm, Christchurch.

MORE to win in this issue:

• Win a fabulous Masport 550AL Combo Electric Start mower, RRP $999 (page 3).

• Hot shot: Win a $30 Garden NZ Gift Card for the best digital photo in letters to the editor (page 6).

• For the letter writers: win a pair of Fiskars PowerGear® pruners (page 7).

• Win one of 15 bottles of the plant growth stimulant, Grow Smart™ (page 9).

• We have two copies of Sonja’s Kitchen sustainable cuisine from the Cook Islands (page 9).

• Win a STIHL HSA 65 Cordless hedgetrimmer worth $895.00 (page 23).

• Subscribe to Weekend Gardener and be into win a a 300gm packet of ROOTBLAST® (page 36).

• Solve Mystery Garden Word and win a $30 Garden New Zealand gift card (page 42).