This long weekend each year provides many gardeners with the green light to start the preparation for spring displays and or garden competitions.
Starting Good Friday the Gladstone Orchid and Foliage Society’s Easter Expo is a must visit. The show starts this Good Friday from 9am-5pm, Easter Saturday from 9am to 4pm and Easter Sunday the from 9am to 1pm at Bill Robertson Toyota.
Then after visiting the Gladstone Orchid and Foliage Society’s Easter Expo maybe start work on your own garden. The preparation of garden beds, whether flower, vegetable or shrubs, is now recommended. However, if you are not using fresh garden soil you may need to open and aerate the soil, as soil tends to harden up and compact after a little rain and following hot dry weather.
Many flowering shrubs, such as Allamanda, Bougainvillea, Hibiscus, Ixora, Mussaenda and Pentas, are looking great now and all of these can be planted now as well. Many creepers are also recommended for planting like Jasminum polyanthum, Pandorea, Podranea and other members of the Bignonia Family.
If you want to transplant established shrubs, this weekend is one of the best to do it in. Several years ago I was involved in removing all the valuable plants from the gardens of a historical building that was to be renovated.
These included plants like fifty-year-old Roses, Ixoras, Agapanthus, Hibiscus and Murrayas, of which we had better than 90% success rate. All plants were potted into between 25lt to 40lt pots, and then replanted into the new gardens around the building.
So, if you have planted a beautiful shrub in the wrong place, this weekend will provide you with the perfect opportunity to move it.
The lawn has probably been the most long-suffering part of our garden, and we still need to be vigilant around the garden for lawn grubs, which are starting to appear in numerous gardens. You will first notice small, irregular patches of your lawn either dying or becoming very thin. If this is the case with your lawn, I would recommend putting a wet towel on or near the affected area of your lawn overnight. The next morning, the lawn grubs will be clearly visible. You will then need to apply a lawn grub killer. Note – there are numerous brands available on the market, and no one brand is better than the other.
You should also keep an eye out for a small reddish-coloured wasp that is quite often seen hovering over the surface of the lawn. These wasps are the good guys! There are actually on the prowl for lawn grubs, so that they can lay their eggs in them. If these wasps are about, you may need to reconsider a lawn grub killer, as you will affect these wasps as well.
Indoor plants may need to be around the house now so that they get better light, especially those which are in rooms facing south or south-east, where they are getting good light all through summer. Ants can also create a problem now with Mealy Bug.
I am sure that many people who read this column have never attended the Gladstone Orchid and Foliage Society’s Easter Expo. It can be beneficial to gardeners as there are experts that will be on hand to answer any question you may have with growing Orchid or Foliage plants.
One question that is often asked is, “Should Orchids should be re-potted when they out-grow their pot or their potting mix has broken down?”
The answer is they can be re-potted at any time of the year except when very hot or very cold. The best time to repot is when new roots are beginning to form. You will see the new green root tips emerging from the lead growth and also the older white roots. In most orchids this occurs soon after flowering. Never cut plants too hard. There should not be less than three bulbs plus the emerging growth on Cattleyas or Dendrobiums etc.
So, why not take the time over this long weekend to visit the Gladstone Orchid and Foliage Society’s Easter Expo at Bill Robertson Toyota. It can be a very rewarding experience, with displays of Orchids of every colour, as well as many beautiful foliage plants and ferns on display, many of which you will never see in local nurseries.
