November Gardening

What to do, this Month

November is a wonderful time in the garden. Small plants grow almost before our eyes, filling out into a luscious garden that's just on the edge of its full potential. You can almost feel the summer days ahead, with increasingly warm sunny blue-sky days and (for the most part) the cold turbulent weather behind us. But don't take your eyes off the weather forecast just yet...the odds of snow in November are much better than winning the lottery!

• It's time to start giving the garden a regular liquid feed for thriving, productive plants that look their best all summer.
• As the weather warms up plants will begin to grow rapidly, but they won’t be the only things flourishing in the warmth! Check often for pests and diseases and be prepared to spray if necessary.
• Start decorating for Christmas now, by planting out hanging baskets and containers for beautiful blooms to match your festive theme. Be sure to water daily and feed weekly, for lush healthy plants.
• Don’t get caught out with thirsty plants. Be ready to increase deep watering as we approach summer.
• Keep on top of the weeds – remove them while they're small; don’t allow them to get big enough to set seed. A good mulch will help suppress them, as well as locking moisture into the soil
• If a plant isn’t doing so well, it's better to remove it (and replace it) now, rather than spend the season struggling to look after it, because it'll probably be a magnet for pests and disease.

Vegie Tasks

• Now's a great time to fill your garden with summer-loving vegetables. The choice is plentiful! You're only limited by what you like to eat and the space you have available in your garden.
• Start tomatoes, cucumbers, peppers, zucchini, pumpkins, beans, sweetcorn, silverbeet, spinach, parsnips, basil and watermelon from seeds or seedlings, for a bountiful harvest.
• The soil should be warm enough now to sow seeds directly into the garden, for great results. Sow generously, so you can thin out the weakest seedlings to let the best ones flourish. Protect fresh seedlings from slugs, snails and birds.
• Sow beetroot, lettuce, carrots, kohlrabi and spring onions every 3-4 weeks for a continuous supply.
• To avoid sweetcorn and popcorn cross-pollinating, separate them, either by distance (at least 30m, 50m is good if you have the space) or by time (leave at least four weeks between sowing varieties).
• Plant out main crop potatoes and kūmara.
• Pinch out the laterals from tall tomatoes for better fruiting and good airflow.
• Protect brassica vegies from White Butterfly Caterpillars with insect netting or Yates Nature's Way Derris Dust. Check for telltale eggs under the leaves.

Fruit Trees and Berries

• Avoid wormey apples by hanging Codling Moth traps in apple trees, to alert you when the moths appear. From mid-November (immediately after petal fall), begin preventative sprays with Yates Success Ultra Insect Control, every 14 days. Keeping up with sprays will head off late-season stragglers.
• Give your citrus trees some love with a slow-release Citrus Fertiliser. They're gross feeders, so they need regular nutrition to stay lush and healthy. Mix together a sprayer-load of Yates Copper Oxychloride and Yates Conqueror Spraying Oil to prevent icky verrucosis (AKA lemon scab), along with the almost-inevitable November aphids and mealybugs. 
• Pear and cherry slugs (sawfly larvae) can quickly skeletonise pear, plum and cherry leaves. To control them, dust trees with wood ash or garden lime or spray with Yates Success Ultra Insect Control.
• Peach Leaf Curl begins to appear on peach tree leaves now, in the form of twisted-looking pink blisters. There's nothing you can do to fix the deformed leaves, but make a note in your calendar to spray Lime Sulfur late next winter, just before the new buds form on the tree. You can protect any fresh new growth for the rest of the season if you apply Yates Liquid Copper as a regular preventative treatment.
• Fruit trees can be sprayed now to prevent fungal diseases destroying the crop.
• Now's a good time to plant passionfruit, rhubarb, tamarillos and blueberries.

Flowers Everywhere

• Grow an A-Z of beautiful flower seeds or seedlings! Fill your garden with Alyssum, Ageratum, Asters, Begonia, Carnation, Celosia, Cosmos, Dianthus, Delphinium, Forget-Me-Not, Gazania, Impatiens, Larkspur, Linaria, Lobelia, Marigold, Nasturtium, Petunia, Phlox, Rudbeckia, Sunflowers, Salvia, Verbena and Zinnias.
• Stagger planting Gladiolus corms for an extended display throughout the summer.
• Dahlia, Lillies and Cannas can be planted now, for summer flowering.
• Repot orchids after they've finished flowering.
• Plant intentionally to attract pollinators into the garden. Bees like blue and purple flowers, with a simple open structure best.
• In areas where the winters are cold and wet, lift spring bulbs after the leaves have died down. Allow to dry and store for next year.
• Give your roses some attention with a side dressing of rose fertiliser, keep soil moist with a weekly watering and mulch  thickly over their root zones. Apply Yates Super Shield Rose Spray to prevent fungus diseases and pest damage. And yes, you can still plant new roses.

Love Your Lawn

• A good lawn fertiliser will encourage strong healthy growth that prepares the grass for it's toughest challenge: hot dry weather. Time your application for when rain is due, or water it in with a hose.
• Lift the blades on the lawn mower for a longer cut, to avoid stressed grass and reduce the risk of lawn soil drying out.
• It isn’t too late to spray for broadleaf weeds, but the window of opportunity is closing for a prickle-free lawn! If you're quick, you can spray Yates Prickle Weedkiller to kill Onehunga weed just before it flowers, to prevent summer prickles.
• You can still sow new lawn seed or make repairs, but as the temperatures warm up, it's really important to make sure the new areas don’t dry out, at any point during the germination process. Keep a close eye on your sowed patch; watering may be required in the morning and evening. Yates Lawn Seed Sealer helps to maintain moisture levels, ensures good contact between the seeds and soil, plus it sticks everything in place, even on a slope.

Trees and Shrubs

• Deadhead spring flowering shrubs, as they come to an end.
• Flowering shrubs will appreciate a side dressing of fertiliser to support them through the growing season. If you're using all purpose fertiliser, avoid overfeeding because it can encourage leaves at the expense of flowers.
• Check stakes and ties to make sure they aren’t too tight. Most new trees only need support for the first two years.
• Recently planted trees will need to be regularly watered while they establish.  
• When applying mulch around trees and shrubs, take care not to mound it up around the trunk or main stem, leave a wee gap to sidestep diseases.