It can actually be around now that gardeners make the biggest mistakes because you start to think ‘well we’ve survived summer, now we’ll just sit back, relax, and let winter take care of our garden by itself’. Wrong! What you do now over the next month or two will directly effect how well your garden survives the NEXT summer!

Autumn is a fantastic time to be out and about in your garden. Usually, in most parts of Australia, the weather starts to become milder but there still remains a significant number of sunny days to potter around in. Right now is a great time to prune your summer flowering perennial plants, like lavender, ready for the winter quiet. However not all plants should be pruned yet. Some people make the mistake of pruning their roses too early. April is still too early for roses because if you prune them now, they’ll start growing back too soon and won’t perform as well. Save your roses for June-August pruning. Continuing to dead head roses is important though.

April is also a great month for planting spring bulbs, such as daffodils. This will give them plenty of time to get set and grow ready for a beautiful showing come September. It can also be a good time to spread a light organic fertiliser around your shrubs and trees. Though they’ll receive Winter rains and won’t be growing as much, they still require nutrients to survive the cooler winter.

Autumn, and in particular April, can be a great time for planting trees because trees really do require good amounts of water to take root. Planting now will give them a month or 2 of good, sunny weather while still receiving some good rains, and then lapping up the rains of winter. The milder weather will also help because the trees won’t experience sun damage as easily before they have the root system to cope with it.

It is also not too late to get your winter vegetables in, especially if you get them down in early April. Vegetables such as broccoli, cauliflower and cabbage and your leafy Asian style vegies really need to go in now if you want to get the best out of them throughout winter.

Use the next few months to really sow into your garden. As the rains start to fall in cooler and temperate climates you won’t have to spend as much time worrying about and making sure your garden has water so really work on other tasks, such as preparing garden beds for spring and summer annuals, fertilising, mulching and the like. Take the sunny days provided to you to provide the best benefit to your garden so that when Spring and Summer comes again your job will be easier!

Exactly what your garden needs in any given month does depend on whether you live in a cold, temperate or tropical climate. However what you must do in a cold climate can also be beneficial in a tropical one. As such the advice I give will be ‘general’ but I will try and place the climate type that requires it in brackets.

January
In Australia, January is a very important month in the gardening cycle because it can often be a very hot month. It is in January and February that your proactive work in the garden, or lack there off, will show. If you have just left your garden to its own devices then it is this month that things will really start to look pear shaped. If you have been good and doing the few things required each month, continuing this now will go a long way towards making sure your garden survives the harsh Australian summer.

January is a good month to take cuttings from your favourite shrubs(cold climate). As long as you have kept the watering up and therefore kept your shrubs healthy, cuttings should take well in January with the sun and heat on offer. Obviously cuttings require a bit of attention and a lot of water to make sure they survive.

January is also a big month for fruit pests. Check your fruit trees for the various pests that are common to each individual fruit tree type and if needed, treat them. Your local nursery is a good source for advice on what to treat particular fruit trees with. (cold and tropical)

Another good tip for January is to prune your most vigorous growing plants just slightly. In particular your roses (temperate) could do with a mild to good prune as this will encourage new growth and lead to a great display of flowers come autumn. Be careful not to make this prune too vigorous, it is simply to encourage new growth. Bougainvilleas may also be trying to take over your garden so prune them back to keep them under control. (tropical)

There is also still time to plant annuals like vincas, petunias and sunflowers that can handle full sun so you keep your garden looking great right into autumn. Make sure you water them in well and plant them with either a good liquid fertiliser or a good slow release fertiliser. In fact you could give a light sprinkling of either a liquid or slow release fertiliser throughout your garden to keep the nutrients up.

There you have it. With a bit of care your garden can come out of January looking even better than it did going into it. You can also ensure a solid show right into late autumn with some solid work during the summer heat. So get out there, slip slop slap and wrap and enjoy your garden in this beautiful weather!

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