JANUARY GARDENING IN GAUTENG

Bask in the glory of your garden in high summer with our Gauteng gardening guide for January. This month we have some seasonal gardening tips and water-saving suggestions to help your garden flourish.

Spotlight on: Watering responsibly

Since Gauteng is typically dry during the high summer season, it’s crucial that you adopt some water-saving techniques. These are our water-wise tips:

• Only water your garden between 6pm and 6am to prevent any water wastage.
• Ensure you keep most of the watering to the root zone of plants, or install a drip irrigation system to feed water directly where it’s needed.
• Collect and harvest rainwater. Water tanks, inflatable pools and rain chains are all great tools for doing this.
• Replace lawn with pebbles, gravel or low water-usage groundcovers.
• Gradually replace thirsty plants with water-wise varieties, such as dianthus, vinca, petunia and gazania.

ON YOUR TO-DO LIST FOR JANUARY

Plant & Sow

• Fill empty pockets with colour by planting marigolds and vinca (both heat-loving, water-wise plants).
• Plant shade plants such as begonia, impatiens, lobelia and coleus varieties.
• Summer is a good time to refresh the vegetable garden. Plant new crops of radishes, lettuce, cherry tomatoes, and sweet basil, coriander and other herbs. (Pro tip: Remember to rotate your crops, as this improves soil fertility.)
• Cape gooseberry can be sown in trays this month.

Feed

• Feed roses with Atlantic Fertilisers Flower & Fruit to encourage new summer growth.
• Add compost to roses to improve the condition of the soil and retain water and food.
• Water full-sun pot plants daily and feed weekly with Multifeed Classic.
• Shaded and semi-shaded pot plants should be watered every 2–3 days, and fed weekly with Multifeed Classic. (Note: Water requirements may differ depending on the temperature of the area.)

Prune & Trim

• Lightly trim fuchsias, roses and hibiscus plants to ensure renewed growth for the next half of summer.
• Once salvias have finished flowering, cut them back to encourage new growth in autumn.
• Add compost to roses after a light pruning to encourage new flowers. Snap off any suckers (light green, thornless shoots) growing from the base of the bushes.
• If your lawn is old, feels sponge-like and is difficult to mow without ‘scalping’, cut it as low as possible by crosscutting and lowering the blade after each cut. This will get rid of the layer of dead thatch hiding between the soil surface and the green top.

OTHER FRESH IDEAS

Become a Stodels Garden Club member

Is gardening more one of your New Year’s resolutions? Then sign up to be a Garden Club member. Members benefit from points on each purchase, exclusive savings on plants and garden accessories, café specials, a free gift every month with a purchase, and a birthday voucher in the month of your birthday.