The February garden is sunfilled and feeling the heat

Summer flowers are embracing the summer sun and feeling very much alive, especially with the help of a little targeted watering

Summer’s heated up in recent weeks and after the earlier excitement of long-awaited sun, the garden and some of us are beginning to flag a little. Any mulching you’ve done is now paying dividends. It’s a good time to do some lightweight tidying up around the garden. Deadhead spent flowers and prune shrubs that embraced damper conditions a few weeks ago and put on plenty of growth. ‘Chop and drop’ is the way to go, especially if your soil’s sandy. It’s remarkable how quickly it breaks down, helping protect your soil from drying out, giving it a boost and best of all there’s no need to remove plant material from your garden. It’s also a good idea to embrace the concept of a no dig garden. Digging at this time time of the year exposes your garden’s soil to the hot sun and drying air. It’s also quite hard work. Encourage your soil to retain moisture and maintain its structure by not digging.

A summer’s day at Paekakariki Beach

Our beaches and swimming pools are very inviting as we cool ourselves down. Our gardens are feeling the heat as well, and we need to think about plants that are not drought resistant. The secret here is targeted, deep watering either first thing in the morning before the sun rises, or in the evening after the sun has lost much of its intensity. Water is precious and not all plants need to be treated equally when it comes to watering. It’ll be easy enough to spot plants that are wilting as you wander around the garden. Resist the temptation to ‘shallow’ water your plants. If the water is not pooling around your plant and is running away, grab a trowel or spade and create a small moat. You want to encourage your plant to have deep roots, and this also means you will need to water less.

Heat loving plants

Drought resistant plants are brilliant and are happy to hold their flower heads up high towards the sun. The good news is that there are plenty to choose from including Portulaca, Achillea, Dianthus, Echinacea, Penstemon, Salvia, Verbena, Catmint, Bearded Iris, Hibiscus, Artemisia, Leucadedron and Protea to name a few. It’s difficult to create a bunch of flowers without some foliage and again there’s plenty of choice with Acacia ‘Limelight’, Olive, Acers, Alchemilla mollis ‘Ladys Mantle’, Alectyron Excelsus ‘Titoki’, Astelia, Lambs Ear, Bergenia and Cercis ‘Forest Pansy’. Perhaps now’s a good time to add a few more to your garden?

It’s time to order your Spring bulbs

While it’s hard to ignore it’s late summer, this is also not the time to get caught out if you enjoy flowering bulbs for your spring garden. It’s a good time to seek out gaps in your garden that would be ideal for planting bulbs. If you’re like me you’ll welcome the first signs of spring in the garden, and bulbs play a special role in announcing that winter is on the way out, and warmer, sunnier and longer days are on their way in. Now is when you need to start ordering bulbs. Don’t be tempted to plant your spring bulbs yet though as the soil needs to be cooler. Autumn is planting time for spring bulbs and will be upon us much faster than we think.

I can spend far too long gazing at photos of bulbs in catalogues struggling to choose -  what type of bulb, what colour, early, mid or late flowering, and finally if I’d like a fragrance. So many to choose from! Some of my favourites include crocus, tulips, daffodil, freesia, hyacinth, gladioli, anemone, ranunculus, iris. There are rarer bulbs to choose from as well. Look out for more unusual Muscari, Lachenalia, Amaryllis, snowdrop bulbs for something a little different.

Stunning tulips in the Keukenhof Gardens

I have always wanted to visit the Keukenhof Gardens in Amsterdam and when we visited (along with many, many others) last April, the tulips were past their very ‘bestest’ but still pretty glorious. If you get the chance you must visit Keukenhof Gardens in Amsterdam.

We’re very lucky in New Zealand to have several commercial bulb growers. These include: NZ bulbs (Paparoa), Aorangi bulb nurseries (Feilding), Bulbs Direct NZ (Northland), Lilyfields Hakatere (Ashburton) and Hadstock Farm (Canterbury). There’s a tremendous variety of bulbs available. Have fun checking them out!

This month’s gardening gems:

• de-head or lightly prune flowers and flowering shrubs to encourage new growth (chop and drop = mulch)

• targeted, deep watering - especially for plants you’ve planted in the last 6-12 months

• add some heat loving plants to your garden

• order spring bulbs for planting in autumn

• don’t forget to feed heavy feeders with an NPK fertiliser. These include: tomatoes, zucchini, pumpkin, rhubarb, sunflowers, citrus, dahlia, hydrangea and roses.