Prepare your garden for winter vegetables by digging in plenty of compost and an application of a complete fertiliser. A sprinkling of lime spread over the area two weeks prior to planting is beneficial.
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Plant seedlings of broccoli, cabbage, cauliflower, lettuce, leek, kohl rabi, turnips, swede and silverbeet. Sow spinach, broad beans, carrots and parsnips.
Radishes prefer light, rich, friable soils and must be grown quickly to ensure crispness.
Seedlings emerge a few days after sowing and need to be thinned out otherwise the roots tend to elongate without forming bulbs.
Remove spent flowerheads from agapanthus and other free-seeding plants before they set seed.
Eliminate any unwanted seedlings from the garden and put into plastic bags, seal and destroy.
Glorious Gauras
Gauras tolerate a variety of soils from dry and sandy to clay-based but perform best in well-drained, moist, fertile soil.
They like a sheltered position and are frost-tolerant growing to a height of about 75cm with a width of 90cm.
Gaura lindheimeri ‘Siskiyou Pink’ is a perennial with wine-red buds and glowing rose-pink flowers that have contrasting white stamens.
New foliage is streaked with purple.
Graceful, arching stems arise from a dense base of leaves and are produced from late spring till late autumn. A stunning plant that should be used more often.
Chilled out rhodos
Rhododendrons will survive the summer heat if their roots are kept as cool as possible.
This can be achieved by mulching young plants or will occur naturally when the plants are large enough to shade their own roots.
A thorough watering once or twice a week during summer should be sufficient.
King of house plants
Rex begonias are very attractive house plants easily propagated from leaf cuttings.
Cut the leaves into wedge-shaped pieces 5-7cms long where the leaf stalk joins the leaf.
Then insert them firmly about half their length in a medium of clean, washed sand and peat at the rate of one part peat to three parts sand.
Place under glass or plastic, shade from the hot sun and keep just moist.
Get on the grass
Dietes bicolour is an extremely hardy, clumping, grassy plant that tolerates a range of soil conditions.
The flat round, iris-like yellow flowers with brown blotches in the centre are held on long stems above the foliage.
Grow in full sun or very light shade.
These low-maintenance plants grow well in frosty areas and are used widely for weed suppression and erosion control.
