Growing Gardens

with Julia Hancock

After the Ball

Gardenias were immensely popular in the 1920s and 30s as a cut flower for corsages, due to their elegant form, pure white colour and luxurious fragrance. The dance movies of the thirties show how popular this flower was, as Fred often sported one on the lapel of his tail-coat while twirling Ginger around the ballroom.

The common gardenias are all varieties of Gardenia augusta. Now that flowering is nearly over they will all benefit from a little maintenance. The low-growing groundcover gardenia is G. augusta 'Radicans', a very tough plant. It requires no maintenance other than trimming off the spent flowers. 'Radicans' spreads by adventitious roots and will eventually cover a lot of ground.

G. augusta 'Florida' is the florist's gardenia, the kind Fred used to wear. 'Florida' grows to about one metre in height and spread, and again requires no pruning except the removal of spent flowers.

The giants of the species are the glorious G. augusta 'Magnifica', 'Professor Pucci' and 'Aimee Yoshiba', all tall shrubs to 1.5 metres. These varieties have much larger flowers than 'Radicans' or 'Florida', with 'Professor Pucci' producing blooms up to 10cm across. These tall varieties will need some pruning. Cut back the leggiest growth by half when you trim the dead flowers, as this will encourage bushiness and therefore more flowers next year.

Gardenias appreciate a rich soil, so if you are gardening on sand, add large amounts of well-rotted compost and manure. They are also very sensitive to drought, so be sure to water well during early spring.

This is the time when gardenias often display yellow leaves, which are interpreted by many as a magnesium deficiency. This isn't so, and applying Epsom salts is pointless. Magnesium deficiency is indicated by yellow leaves with green veins, not pure yellow leaves, which are a response to dry soil.

Lismore Garden Club News

There's a social morning tea and garden walk at Mary and Emily Betteridge's home, 7 Charles St South Lismore at 9:30am Weds, Jan 12. Please bring a plate.

January and February are amongst our hottest months and a difficult time to plant seedlings with success. The veggie garden is limited to planting summer herbs, sweet corn and pumpkin. Try popular ones that you use often, such as parsley, basil, thyme, garlic chives, rosemary etc. When planting your sweet corn, interplant bush or running pumpkins with it. The corn will give the pumpkins much-needed shade.

In the flower garden, plant marigold, petunia, sunflower, nasturtium, strawflower, coleus, Livingstone daisy, kangaroo paw, impatien, portulaca, rudbeckia, balsam, salvia, cocks comb and zinnia.

Gardening tip: When planting any type of seed or seedling, water in with 'Seasol' to give them a flying start. Be sure to shade new seedlings with inverted plant pots or broken off camphor laurel branches for the first few days. And water them daily with a fine spray of the hose. Apply half strength liquid fertilizer after the first week.

Happy Gardening
Ron Burns.