The constant gardener From fruit trees to roses, what to plant, harvest and sow this month
MARY LOV E L L- S M I T H Garden editor
June
Garden diary
1 34
YOUR H OM E A N D GARDE N
• Plant garlic on the shortest day – or thereabouts. It’s easy to grow, just ensure you buy the bulbs from a garden centre or organic shop as imported garlic is often treated to stop it sprouting. Choose a sunny spot with friable, free-draining soil. Insert the clove pointy end up about 8cm deep about 15cm to 20cm apart. • Add cheer to the gloomy colder months with winter-flowering shrubs, such as daphne (which has the bonus of that heady fragrance); the perfectly named wintersweet and witch hazel. Or, for bolder blooms try sasanqua camellias, leucadendrons, grevilleas and
proteas to light up the garden. • For local colour try the glorious foliage of the native coprosma – ‘Evening Glow’, ‘Fireburst’, ‘Golden Glow’, ‘Pink Splendour’ and ‘Tequila Sunrise’. The colder they are, the more intense the colour. Or try horopito ‘Red Leopard’, whose leaves are used medicinally for a range of ailments. • Plant any bare-rooted roses or fruit trees as soon as possible after purchase. Bare-rooted plants come usually in a plastic bag with sawdust or strips of newspaper around the roots rather than soil and will dry out and can die without prompt action.
