Gardening calendar June 2020
Winter doesn’t have to be dull in the garden, there are lots of vibrant flower seedlings, ornamentals, fruting and deciduous trees and native varietes to plant or pot out now in your WA garden.
Planting
Flowers & Ornaments
- Some vibrant flower favourites for June planting include cineraria, viola, pansy and calendula.
- Split the clumpers such as agapanthus, Japanese wind flower, strelitzia, acanthus and clivia. Clean up crook foliage then replant.
- If you are planting out roses this winter, now is the time to prepare the beds with Baileys Soil Improver Plus or Baileys Soil Matters Clay & Compost.
- Time to lift and store dahlia tubers. You need to be careful to avoid damaging the dormant shoots at the neck of the tuber where it attaches to the old main stem.
- With the weather getting a little hairy outside, stay out of the rain by adding to your indoor jungle instead. If repotting always use a quality growing media, such as Baileys Indoor Premium Potting Mix.
Natives
- Early winter is the perfect time to plant natives in our Mediterranean climate because the cool, mild conditions and regular rains give the perfect chance to get a good start before the long, hot, dry summer arrives. If growing in pots, use a quality mix, formulated for phosphorus sensitive plants, such as Baileys Native Premium Potting Mix.
Vegetables & Herbs
- Vegetables to plant now include all the cabbage family and onion tribe.
- Also get going with artichoke, shallots, garlic and why not try English spinach. Make sure you have a rich compost base by adding Baileys Veg & Herb Mix to existing patches.
- Remember the onion tribe like cool conditions so this makes winter their prime time. Also this is the ideal time to plant radish and kohlrabi.
- It is a good time to plant asparagus crowns as well as rhubarb sets.
- Cut back the fern like fronds of asparagus to the ground so that new edible shoots will pop above the ground ready for harvest.
Fruits
- It's a great time to plant strawberries now the weather is cool and rains reliable. Depending on varieties, expect your first harvest in around 12 weeks.
- Deciduous fruit trees and vines are now available at nurseries and weather conditions make this the ideal time to plant them in your garden.
Trees & Shrubs
- Plant some winter fragrance with plants that include, daphne, including a new white flowering variety called Eternal Fragrance, Geraldton Wax, lavender including the variety 'Winter Lace', Wintersweet shrub (acokanthera) and Luculia.
Feeding
Flowers & Ornaments
- Feed sasanqua camellias once flowering has finished as this coincides with their main growing season. Use Baileys Soil Matters Garden.
Vegetables & Herbs
- Continue to feed cool season veggies in the patch to improve flavour and yields. Liquid fertilisers like Bailey Vitaplant are fast workers at this time of the year. These can be applied over the foliage for a sort of intravenous feed.
Suggested Products
Pruning and Maintenance
Flowers & Ornaments
- Lightly trim back summer and autumn flowering evergreen shrubs such as hibiscus, many grevilleas, oleander, gardenia, many ornamental grasses, geranium, canna, salvia, plumbago, cistus rock rose, Chinese lantern or abutilon and tibouchina.
- If you were given an indoor poinsettia for Christmas then trim it back and plant it in the garden using Baileys Premium Potting Mix in a sunny spot and next winter it will resume its brilliant colour storm.
- To keep indoor cyclamen happy and cool put them out when you go to bed onto a cold patio.