According to the calendar it should be early autumn, but in South Africa Mother Nature’s sun is still hot and sitting high in the sky with no great hurry to set at the end of the day. Enjoy this special month by running around with your wheelbarrow filled with dark compost to cultivate the soil. Plant like there is no tomorrow, feed everything that has given you pleasure so that they do it again, and go shopping for winter- and spring-flowering bulbs.
Eastern Cape
Plant new roses! There are many disease-resistant stalwarts like ‘Queen Elizabeth’, but also newer varieties such as ‘Eyes for You’. Feed existing roses to prepare them for a stunning autumn flower flush, water well, and keep on spraying for fungal diseases, which are prevalent at the coast during humid times.
Deadhead perennials and annuals to prolong flowering and prune summer-flowering shrubs that have done their jobs well.
Seasonal plants for colour are Cassia fistula (golden shower tree) and Tibouchina spp. (glory bush), but it is not too early to start thinking of aloes, big and small, for winter colour in beds and pots.
In the veggie garden you can keep on sowing seeds of short-lived herbs such as coriander, rocket and dill. Also plant basil, parsley, borage, chives and garlic chives.
Sow seeds of spinach, globe artichokes, beans, beetroots, radishes, carrots, gooseberries and turnips.
Remember to: Do companion planting with wild garlic, yarrow and comfrey.
Gauteng
Time to lift and divide agapanthus, wild iris (dietes), penstemon, campanula and asters. Cut them back, lift them out, split up and replant into freshly composted soil.
Sow Namaqualand daisies, sweet peas, poppies, primula, foxgloves, hollyhock and larkspur. Don’t be scared to sow the flowers that you love – it is easy and success is guaranteed if you just follow the instructions on the seed packet.
Sow seeds for new lawn grass, especially in colder areas where Shade Over and All Seasons Evergreen grow well.
In the veggie garden, sow fast-growing greens like lettuce and spinach, and also start preparing to plant winter crops like cabbage, cauliflower, parsnips and broad beans.
Free State
The main call to action is to fertilise: use 3:1:5 SR all over your garden and then put your plants (especially the fruit trees) to bed with a generous layer of compost or old kraal manure. Feeding will strengthen the plants’ cells before winter and adding bulk loads of organic mulches will protect them and give them a jumpstart in spring again.
It is a perfect time to plant new trees and backbone shrubs, but also time to prepare for a magnificent spring garden by planting swathes of bulbs like freesias, anemones, ranunculi, hyacinths, muscari and daffodils as soon as soil temperatures have cooled down. After bulb planting, follow up with winter- and spring-flowering annuals like lobularia (alyssum), pansies, violas, Iceland poppies and primulas – this wintry province is ideally suited to these cold-loving plants, so go for it!
Limpopo
Tick over in March by trying to get the most out of summer’s annuals and perennials by deadheading them regularly. There will still be a number of snails about, so keep your bait traps full at night.
Winter bulbs will be available and can be planted into the open ground or pots and containers as soon as the weather cools down. Remember to dust the bulbs with insecticide powder to keep the worms at bay
Keep the garden well watered in the heat and fertilise with a general fertiliser.
Winter veggies to sow now are: Peas, lettuce, cauliflower, cabbage and radishes. It is best to sow the peas directly into the ground, but sow the other veggies in trays first. Use a quality commercial seedling mix when sowing.
KwaZulu-Natal
Start off by preparing the soil for planting winter and spring annuals and bulbs as soon as temperatures cool down. Dig in compost and superphosphate or bonemeal at the recommended application rates. While doing this, also tidy up the dead leaves on hellebores and mulch with a layer of leaf mould. This ensures a good winter display. Divide strelitzias if necessary and move other evergreens and conifers planted in the wrong place. Feed palms with a general fertiliser and water well. Start lifting and dividing overgrown perennials like daylilies, dietes and liriopes.
Spend lots of energy in the veggie garden: Plant seeds of peas, broad beans, carrots, parsnips, turnips and radishes. Harvest the last of summer’s crops like pumpkins and squashes. Plant out seedlings of cabbage, cauliflower, broccoli, lettuce and spinach. Stagger plantings at 3 to 4 week intervals. Sow more parsley, mustard and rocket. While grafting there, fertilise bananas, mangoes and pawpaws and cut down asparagus foliage. Early citrus crops will start ripening now. Check citrus trees for red scale on leaves and stems.
Western Cape
Add the following jewels in colour pots or bags to your garden now: cosmos, Echinacea purpurea, Amaryllis belladonna (March lily), black-eyed Susan, pride of the Cape and all the Plectranthus spp. and varieties. For magnificent autumn colour in future years, plant Quercus palustris (pin oak) as a specimen tree. It grows very well here.
This is definitely indigenous bulb country, so buy all those lovely veld beauties like ixia, babiana, freesia, tritonia and chincherinchees, which naturalise so easily in the garden. Wait till it is much cooler and the first winter rains have fallen before planting them.
Plant of the month: Leonotis leonurus (wild dagga) is a fast and easy-growing shrub that flowers profusely and attracts wildlife to the garden, such as birds, bees and butterflies. The flowers are tubular and bright orange in colour, although there are white and salmon-coloured ones available too.
Sow in the veggie garden: Beetroot, broccoli, cabbage, carrots, cauliflower, kale, leeks, lettuce, onions, peas, radishes, Swiss chard and turnips.
For more information on bringing life to your garden, visit the Life is a Garden website or join the conversation on their Facebook page.
Daffodils
Namaqualand daisies
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