Coming into Spring - What a Bloomin' Show

Winter's lifting, September beckons and a tapestry is forming with the shoots that are bustling. Floral and vegetative buds aplenty and bursting, so is the activity in the unseen realm of the garden, the earthen heroes our microbes and fungi.

Let's look at what we can do to wholly welcome the transition of the season that makes a garden pop, and maybe offer some suggestions to the boffins that designate spring, summer, winter and autumn what they are.

The Basics

Dressing beds with manure and compost will be an absolute tonic for the garden, enriching poorer soils and feeding all the good fungi and microbes that inhabit the topsoil, a gardeners most important ally. Insulation for the later frosts, and a mulch layer while we experience a winter dry period.

Fertilising and further conditioning is also great at this point, I like yours and my favourite trusted blood and bone, pelletised manure and a good liquid feed such as fish emulsion. Can't not mention the ultimate organic guru Mr. Cundall for instilling those values. Blood and bone will do wonders for the veggies as well as other garden beds, but be mindful on phosphorous sensitive natives (Proteaceae). As a general rule of thumb, around natives just a fraction of the application is needed.

Mulch to the heavens, whether its bark, chip, straw, manure, you name it, lets subdue the weeds, insulate the soil and provide some carbon rich material.

A hearty addition of seaweed solution and molasses will also help kickstart microbes into action and get the breakdown of mulch cranking.

For plants that are coming into bud now like Echium, lavender, bulbs and Digiplexus to name a few in my garden, a good foliar feed won't do them wrong in encouraging strong, vibrant blooms. I use Yates Aquasol, but Peter's CalMag Finisher and other soluble fertilisers work well. This is for the superficial gardeners like myself.

An application of trace elements wont go astray either. Apply as a soluble drench or in prilled forms, it'll help those pesky palms get on track - think of Kentias and other species which have troubles with manganese and boron in sandy soils or pots and podiums, maybe add some clay/zeolite/hydrocell to encourage nutrient holding capacity in the media they're in.

Tidying

Don't be a slacker like me, get the debris, dead and diseased material, spent blooms and other undesirable bits and pieces that were left over winter and clean up the garden. This goes for pots, containers, tags you name it. I tend to plant something and fling the pot over my shoulder, letting it land where it may, inadvertently creating slug or snail habitat. Do we learn? No, but I assure you the house is cleaner... Give paths a clean, potting benches an organise and greenhouses a scrub down. Let's start spring with a clean. Spring clean? Now there's an origin story.

Get lawns ready by mowing and feeding, and maybe an oversow. Broadleaf weeds may have taken hold, so get your dull knife or a narrow trowel and put on a podcast. If you've got a small lawn I wont accept that you need to use chemicals to bring it into glory. In September we'll top dress and oversow for a late spring green, that's when the family's usually over anyway.

Misc Jobs

Turn the hoarded bamboo into trellises for those climbing plants you've got coming up such as beans, sweet peas or anything else, make use of the clutter that holds some element of aesthetic potential.

Get nifty with the roses and give them a hit of lime sulphur and mushroom compost, and while you're at it repot your Cymbids if they're due for it and dust the roots with sulphur or a drench with some eco-fungicide. I repot mine with 2 parts orchid compost with 1 part manure, cow or sheep whatever your preference. Add some charcoal if you're feeling trendy, these are tough orchids and I've found they love it.

Get conifers under control. A moderate prune back to older growth (Junipers and Cypress that is) will ensure a tight and balanced boost of growth instead of a complete mop to deal with later. Just don't go past green! You will, potentially, regret it. I bring my Savin Junipers back by 1/2 to 2/3rds when it comes to the spring pop of growth, mainly to give myself headroom when walking through the garden path but also to give the illusion that I do actually give them some attention too.

Grevilleas and other natives also get a bit of neatening with a light prune to the tips and spent blooms to keep them compact, I only have a small space to work with.

Native grasses like Themeda, Austrostipa and Lomandra (to name a few) all get an unconventional pruning around this time as well. I take to them with a cold burn with the blowtorch and sit back, wait patiently and observe for seedlings of flannel flowers, paper daisies and other goodies which germinate better with the introduction of chemicals from smoke and burnt material.

In all, these are some of my winter to spring transitional tips for the thoughtful gardener. Are they right? I don't know but they work for me. It's what works for me with as much best practice as I'd apply to my own garden, and hey, if theres nothing I love more than a good bloom it's a good ramble.

All we need now is the BOM to look at introducing a few more seasons. Sprinter and Sprummer perhaps? A topic for another day...

T