Growing Gardens

with Anita Morton

Gettin' the Blues

Blueberries are one of the best berry fruits for the home garden. If they're happy they will produce lots of delicious fruit, and the bush is an attractive plant, thornless, with beautiful white flowers reminiscent of lily-of-the-valley, and they don't need spraying. One does have to put a bit of effort into preparing the blueberry bed, and this is a good time to do it, so it can settle before you buy the dormant plants in winter.

Allow two or three bushes per person in your family, and try to buy early, mid-season and late varieties so that you get fruit for as long as possible. The best types to get are the tetraploid cultivars such as Sharpe Blue and Misty. If you have a cool microclimate, you might also try some of the low-chill highbush types such as Gulf Coast. In warm microclimates stick with the rabbiteye blueberries.

Site the bed in full sun and plan to grow your blueberries in one cluster, rather than dotted about. This will make it easier to net the whole patch, which is essential if you want to feed people rather than birds. If your soil is heavy, make a raised bed, as blueberries won't tolerate waterlogged soil. They need a sandy, free-draining bed that is rich in acidic organic matter such as leaf mould, peat moss or compost made without lime.

Blueberries need a pH of between 4.5 and 5.5, which is very acid. Test your soil and if it's not around pH 5 you will need to add sulphur to acidify it. Let the bed settle for a while, watering it regularly, before you plant it up. It's a good idea to install a watering system and mulch the plants with leaf mould or pine needles to help keep their soil both moist and acidic.

Lismore Garden Club News

The next Lismore Garden Club meeting will be held on Thursday, May 5, at the Lismore Workers Club from 1.30pm. The guest speaker will be Stephen Muldoon from the Lismore Orchid Society.

The social outing for May will be a morning tea and garden walk in the beautiful garden of Alan and Ivy Gray of Lismore. Visitors are most welcome. For information phone Ron on 6624 7422 or 0421 021 451.

If you asked gardeners all around the world what their favourite flower is, a large percentage would answer roses. And if you went one step further and asked the rose lovers the reason for their passion for this flower, they would be likely to use words like "beauty", "elegance", "radiance", and "fragrance" in their answer.

I have to confess, after growing most kinds of flowers over the last 43 years of gardening, I too would nominate the rose as my favourite flower. However, humid climates such as ours (from November to February) is not ideal for rose growing. But all is not lost if you want to grow a few roses.

The proven performers in our area are the "old roses". Those that can be found still growing in the gardens of the oldest homes in the district. These will grow readily from cutting, are easy to grow, are disease resistant, and many are fragrant. Specialist rose nurseries and even some better general nurseries will stock "old roses". David Austin roses seem to perform well here also. They combine the gracious shape, sweet scent and strong growth of the "old roses" with the more generous repeat flowering and the wider colour range of the modern roses.

Happy gardening
Ron Burns

Botanic gardens update

The Friends of the Lismore Rainforest Botanic Gardens recently participated in a survey on water use at our site, as part of the NSW Botanic Gardens Network. Should you be interested in this topic, or any other aspects of the work being undertaken by volunteers of this growing community asset, please call Mary on 6624 2064 or Dennis on 6689 5261. Perhaps you're interested in becoming a 'friend', and participating in our workdays on site near the Wyrallah Road Waste Facility? New folks are always welcome!