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Spring is always an occasion for Bill and me to renew our annual argument. He insists it starts on September 1. I say it starts on September 21. We’ll never agree, but that’s marriage for you.
Whether it’s spring or not, there’s always a mile of things to do in September. Things I’ve spent the winter thinking I’ll do tomorrow, like cutting back summer-flowering shrubs, Rounding-up along paths and patios and around deciduous trees, hoeing annual weeds that popped up after the autumn rain, and planting more summer-flowering bulbs.
Not to mention genuine September jobs like chucking on blood-and-bone, tip-pruning natives as they start to grow, planting out seedlings and getting myself into mulch-mode before the hot weather.
One of my September tasks is to cut back a big shrub border. Extending our house gave us a long, south-west facing brick wall with only one window. Being in a hurry to cover the bare wall I planted a mixture of quick-growing, hardy mahonias, berberis, pittosporums and buddleias to give flowers from spring to autumn. Artemisias, lavender and santolina fill the gaps.
.A variegated holly at one end, and vanilla-scented Azara microphylla at the other provide evergreen structure. I also put in an Old Man Saltbush (Atriplex nummularia) as I like its wavy-edged, pewter foliage and it is incredibly hardy.
Somewhat to my surprise - it is an exposed bed with very little topsoil- everything shot up. Probably a combination of warmth from the wall and good drainage from the fill. However the buddleias, artemisias and saltbush need heavy pruning in spring, as do the lower-growing lavenders and santolinas.
I have to be ruthless, otherwise things get bare and leggy, with buddleia flowers and pittosporums waving about at roof level. I spread the soft prunings on the ground as basis for the summer mulch, and burn the woody bits for potash for the garden. You can do this on a farm - in town I’d either have to put them through a mulcher or lug them off to the tip.
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Bulbs need feeding in order to multiply, so fertilise them as they die down. September is a good time to go over the whole garden with blood and bone or pelleted manure, so it’s easy to include the bulbs as you go. Then everything gets a good start as the garden hits the period of maximum growth.
If you grow Australian native plants among exotics, remember that many are phosphate-intolerant, so check that the fertiliser you are buying is safe for them. While on the subject, native shrubs need regular tip pruning or pinching out in spring to prevent legginess .
It’s a good idea to check hoses and tap fittings now, since we’ll probably need them before long. Check tap washers while you’re at it as worn out, leaking washers are a major cause of wasted water. Washers are time-consuming to replace as you have to turn off the water supply at the mains and then get at things with a wrench, so it’s well worth checking the whole lot and replacing all the worn ones together.
Mechanical tap timers are an absolute necessity if you don’t have an electronic watering system. Apart from saving you from the horror of a forgotten running tap, they are a godsend when moving sprinklers as they save so much time. In my experience the cheap ones last as long as the expensive ones, so I’m lashing out and putting one on every tap.
I try to find time this month for some seeds. Those sown directly into the ground aren’t a lot of trouble. This year I’m trying Californian poppy ‘Milkmaid’ and nasturtiums ‘Jewel Mix’ on a dry bank, white stocks and gypsophila among the roses and a pale blue lobelia (not the dark one with the beady white eye) for all the steps. Hollyhocks, larkspurs, nasturtiums and nemesia are pretty and easy.
Gardeners in milder areas could also sow tender salad vegetables like capsicum, cucumber and eggplant. Here we can have a frost as late as October, so have to hold off on all of these until early November.
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Shrubs on their own can be a bit dull. An apricot-yellow rose, Lady Hillingdon, climbs round the window, and blue stylosa irises and cheerful yellow wall-flowers give winter colour at the front. Groups of oyster plants, Acanthus spinosus - smaller than the more more common Bear’s Breeches, A. mollis and with shorter, fatter flowers - add glossy, deep green, beautifully-shaped leaves. This bed gets very little water, and apart from pruning and mulching, is maintenance free. It has something in flower all year.
It’s lovely to see the old-fashioned daffodils and jonquils in flower. One of my favourite jonquils is the creamy, double ‘Erlicheer’ which comes out just as the old-fashioned single ones finish. Its scent is strong and sweet, lovely indoors and a magnet for bees in the garden.
I find ‘Erlicheer’ indistinguishable from almost identical ‘Cheerfulness’ but the latter flowers much later, together with its lemon yellow companion, ‘Yellow Cheerfulness’. If you grow lots of different bulbs and would like to divide and replant them, mark them when they are in bloom – it only takes a minute - as it’s amazing how the memory of which is which fades along with the flowers.
Small, white plastic picnic knives make good plant labels and you can write on them with a black oil marker. I poke mine well into the ground in the hope that Wombat won’t think they are long forgotten bones. She has already demolished all the original labels which I placed in the ground so carefully, when planting the bulbs last autumn.
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