Back to the templates
Well, in Winter I always have longform thoughts and not as many garden tasks, but in Spring and Summer I have too many thoughts and garden tasks, so I have gone back to last year’s Wellington Week template.
The little orange plants below are coreopsis, a really good value plant which is a perennial and flowers throughout the season (a bit of faff to dead head though)
What I’m obsessing over this week
Watering. It’s been my annual irrigation check/turn on week, so some madness for me. It was a nice job when the weather was extremely hot as I always get soaked.
People pay good money for irrigation companies to come in and fix their irrigation. I can tell you that this job is quite simple, you just have to buy all of the right bits (which are widely available).
The general rule is to clamp anything which has a connector on it, at both ends, so it won’t pop off or leak.
When you put in your irrigation system, make sure you make/keep extras, especially if you have the taller sprinkler attachments, as they tend to break but are easily fixed.
If you have put a spade through your irrigation system, you can get joiners to fix it. Dig around the area, put the joiner into both ends, and clamp both ends. I couldn’t get a picture before today, but here is a joiner, and the clamp images are above-
It’s really easy. To test irrigation for the coming year, I send someone out to run around the property and tell me which zones are which, then we run each zone from the control box and make sure that the water is running at each point. This is quite simple because if there is a break, the water is coming out at high speed in one spot.
There are other signs that your irrigation is broken… if you have a new swimming pool, for instance
This is all that the irrigation companies do when they come out to check your irrigation. There are only a handful in Wellington, and I am a pretty big fan of all of them, so if you do need help there are expert hands around.
What staff learnt about this week
Our weekly focus was planting. We have done a tonne of planting, but now it is getting serious, as everything we plant is likely to die unless babied.
Digging slightly bigger holes, making sure that the plant sits firmly in the hole (there isn’t a big gap underneath it) and that the dirt is pressed firmly around the side of the plant - important.
Most importantly in this weather, if you fill the hole with water, let it drain (twice), soak the plant in diluted liquid fert, then gently but firmly tamp down the soil around it (I stand on it), you will get best results. If you can put a bit of mulch or biodegradable matting around it, even better.
And remember to water! 2-3 times a week depending on weather. Water whenever you see signs of distress (wilting), and water slowly and deeply to get that water right to the roots.
Some garden tasks for this week
Well I suppose it depends if Summer is going to come back, it is raining pretty hard here.
I’ve been emptying my worm bins and compost, and moving my worm bins to a shadier/cooler spot, as worms aren’t a huge fan of the warm.
Tomato plants keep turning up so those are going in- if you have extra, offer them around! My neighbour has put out pumpkin plants by their letterbox (but I am suspicious, as curcubits don’t necessarily grow true to type).
We have started deadheading as well, for roses cut two nodes below the spent rose- this is 2 leaves down from the head.
If your plants tend to get fungal problems, for gods sake please start their treament programs now, or at the least give them some low nitrogen fertiliser to bump up their health.
And check on your various ivies- they go rampant when left unchecked.
If you can’t do some weeding, at least rip off the flowering weed heads to reduce the problem.
And have a lovely weekend :)