May in your Subtropical Garden

Nurseries are full of roses at this time of the year. Choose your rose with care but plant it carefully too by preparing the soil well and making sure it is free of perennial weeds. Dig in Debco Rose Compost to improve the organic content of the soil and carefully prune off damaged roots before you plant bare root roses. Make sure your planting site receives at least five hours of full sun per day. Don't feed yet, that should be done in spring.

Dahlias look dismal in the winter. You can leave them in position all winter, or alternatively you can lift and divide them now. Root tubers are easy to separate but each must have a swollen eye or bud if they are to grow effectively. Over-winter them either by re-planting or storing them in dry potting mix until planting out in spring.

Chinese cabbage is invaluable as a vegetable for stir-fry and is becoming more widely grown. Planted now, they will crop in about eight weeks. Application of Phostrogen Plant Food maintains good even growth for the best results.

Zucchini can almost be over bountiful, indeed the more you pick, the more fruit they produce. Plant a couple of plants into a mound filled with well-rotted manure or compost and covered by soil. Mulch them heavily with Debco Mulch 'n' Feed and keep them well-watered. If pollution by bees is not successful, male flowers can be removed and touched into female flowers to achieve almost 100% success. Cropping will be in 8 – 10 weeks.

Light Conditions in Winter

During the next few months we will be entering low light conditions. Light becomes restricted during short days in winter. This is made much worse if there is a lot of cloud cover and worse still in green houses particularly if the glass or plastic is dirty. The first week or two after potting is when plants are in greatest danger because the potting mixture is rich with fertilizer. Plants, however, need to use these salts quickly but they will want plenty of sunlight energy to do so. To avoid problems under these conditions it is important not to add further fertilizer or to increase the heat. The latter will cause more release from any controlled release fertilizer in the mixture. The plants will adjust much better if left alone. The only way to overcome this problem in real terms is to use supplementary lighting or carbon dioxide enrichment.