The weather this weekend is looking perfect for gardening and we can't wait to get out there. This is the best and easiest time to plant a veggie garden, prepare your garden for a Christmas display, or just generally enjoy being surrounded by greenery.
Acorn Nursery and The Oaks Cafe will be open with normal operating hours over the Melbourne Cup weekend. The nursery is open from 8am to 5pm every day. The Cafe is open from 8am to 5pm on weekends and 8am to 4pm on weekdays. We hope to see you soon!
Tony's Tips
November 2023
We've reached late Spring but we're already starting to see the first of the new season colour. We will have a terrific range of Hydrangeas over the next six weeks and this is the best time to plant them. They are brilliant for late spring and early summer colour in pots or the garden.
Mandevillas are spectacular, colourful climbing plants in pink, red or white that will flower from now untill late autumn. My favourite Mandevilla is Aloha Dark Red but they all are great in pots or in garden beds.
Roses have started flowering early and are looking fabulous. With a little love, they will flower on till winter. Trim after each flush of flower and feed with a high quality rose food to have them back in flower in six to seven weeks.
Another favourite, undervalued plant is Salvia yangii, known more commonly as Perovskia or Russian Sage. It is a tough, drought tolerant upright perennial plant with silver grey foliage and deep blue flowers all through summer.
With a little warmth, the Calibrachoas are starting to flower well and the first of the new season Vincas are now in stock. All of these plants do well planted in well prepared soil, improved with Zoo Gro or Enriched Planting Mix or potted in Terracotta and Tub.
Things to Do:
- Prune back spring-flowering shrubs such as Azaleas, Pieris and late Camellias after they finish flowering.
- Treat your garden, pots and lawn with Rapid Soak wetting agent to ensure maximum water penetration, absorption and retention prior to summer. Follow up with a good quality mulch.
- Keep feeding Gardenias with Harry’s Gardenia Food to ensure a full flowering.
- Feed fruiting veggies such as tomatoes and chillies with a high potassium fertiliser when they are flowering well and their first fruits are pea sized.
- New seedlings need at least six weeks to be at their best, so plant now for a beautiful display over Christmas and New Year.
- November is the last month to plant tomatoes and the best month to plant basil!
- A wet October may have encouraged some diseases. Dust tomatoes with Tomato Dust and spray Roses with Rose Shield or Mancozeb to prevent and control disease.
- Watch out for Pear and Cherry Slug on Cherries and control new hatchlings of Azalea Lace Bug. Control Calypso Beetle on Lily Pillies and, if you’ve had Lawn Beetle Grub in the past, now is the time to control new hatchlings.
