Gardening in different climates

All around New Zealand, there are lots of things to keep you wonderfully busy out in the garden during spring.

IN COOL CLIMATES it’s time to:

Keep feeding spring flowering bulbs such as daffodils, hyacinths and tulips with a high potassium plant food, like Yates ® Thrive ® Flower & Fruit Soluble Fertiliser, to promote healthy growth and a great flower show next year. Continue feeding each week until the foliage dies down in late spring. Plant seed potatoes into a sunny, well-drained vegie patch or pot and when new foliage emerges, cover with layers of straw and a sprinkling of Yates Dynamic Lifter ® Organic Plant Food. Several types of thrips can become active in spring, including New Zealand flower thrips and greenhouse thrips. New Zealand flower thrips damage stone fruit flowers and greenhouse thrips can cause foliage of camellias to mottle. While thrips are present, spray vulnerable plants each week with Yates ® Nature’s Way ® Organic Citrus, Vegie & Ornamental Spray, including the undersides of leaves where they often hide. Repot vigorous indoor plants into slightly larger pots or refresh the potting mix in tired and weary plants with Yates

Thrive Indoor Potting Mix.

Create your very own strawberry pot or patch by planting small potted strawberry plants or seedlings. Fill pots with Yates Premium Potting Mix or prepare soil before planting with Yates Thrive Natural Blood & Bone. It takes a lot of energy to grow handfuls of sweet and delicious berries, so make sure you feed your strawberries regularly with

Yates Thrive Strawberry & Berry Fruit Liquid

Plant Food.

IN TEMPERATE CLIMATES

it’s time to:

Grow your very own mango or avocado tree in a warm and sunny protected spot. Look for space saving dwarf varieties of mangoes and for avocados, ensure you plant both an A and B type to promote pollination and fruit set.

Start a pizza garden with the kids! In a sunny vegie garden or a group of pots, plant fragrant basil, delicious cherry tomatoes and colourful capsicum so kids can grow and pick some of their very own healthy pizza toppings. Apply a fresh layer of mulch in garden beds to create a nice finished look as well as help reduce weed growth and soil moisture loss. Sow seeds of Yates Watermelon and Yates Rockmelon in early spring, so you’ll be feasting on delicious fruit during summer. Give sweetly fragrant gardenias some TLC with applications each week of a Yates Thrive ® Flower & Fruit Soluble Fertiliser. It contains nitrogen, magnesium and iron to promote healthy green leaves and is rich in potassium to encourage flowering.

While they’re busy growing, feed cymbidium orchids with Yates Thrive Orchid Liquid Plant Food, which contains the right balance of nutrients to promote healthy leaf growth and prepare the plant for future flowers.