Monthly Checklist
Plant Now
Tend To
Essentials
Plant Now
Potatoes, strawberries, daphnes, hellebores and winter annuals.
Tend To
Weeding, protecting, mulching, pruning, spraying, feeding, transplanting, deadheading, and harvesting.
Essentials
Bypass Pruner, Rose Gloves, Pruning Paste, Quash, Yates Liquid Copper, EnSpray 99, Magic Moss, and more.
Plant Now
Potatoes, strawberries, daphnes, hellebores and winter annuals.
Veggies
- Chit potatoes for four weeks before planting.
- Plant out new season asparagus crowns.
- Store your seed potatoes in a cool, well-lit spot until they have 1-2cm shoots.
Fruit
- Continue planting strawberries for a tasty spring crop.
Trees and Shrubs
- Plant daphnes in a semi-shaded area.
Flowers and Perennials
- Plant hellebores to offer bees food in winter.
- Continue to plant winter annuals in the garden and in pots and hanging baskets.
Tend To
Weeding, protecting, mulching, pruning, spraying, feeding, transplanting, deadheading, and harvesting.
Veggies
- Be sure to get those slow-growing weeds out now before spring rolls around.
- Check and, if necessary, improve the drainage around your veggie beds.
- Dig in any cover/green crops before they flower and begin getting beds ready for spring planting.
- Continue to protect vegetables from frost and damping-off.
- Mulch garden beds with pea straw.
- Continue to use Quash, or create your own beer-trap for slugs and snails.
Fruit Trees
- Remember to prune deciduous fruit trees that you didn’t prune in summer, as well any citrus trees and grape vines that need a bit of work.
- You’ll need secateurs, Prune'n'Paste, as well as loppers and a pruning saw for any larger cuts.
- Prune back branches to help shape your fruit trees for the coming growing season. Do this on a fine day and use pruning paste afterwards. Start by pruning out any dead, damaged, or diseased wood. Then prune back by 1/3 to improve the shape.
- Spray your deciduous fruit trees with Yates Liquid Copper and EnSpray 99 to kill off overwintering insects and diseases.
Trees and Shrubs
- Feed daphnes and camellias with acidic food.
- Respray for waxy scale – dead scale can still be attached to your plants.
- Spray lime sulphur to defoliate roses that are still in-leaf and to kill off any fungal spores. And then get ready to start pruning.
- Do the last late pruning of roses in the first couple of weeks of July. Choose a dry, sunny day to prune. Start by cutting out any dead shoots and branches that cross. Snip off any twigs that are too thin to carry flowers. Shorten branches back by approximately 1/3 and cut back to an outward facing bud. Seal any large pruning cuts with a pruning paste.
- After pruning roses, spray with a mix of liquid copper and Aquaticus Glow to help clear up any persistent bugs or fungal problems.
- Transplant any small trees or shrubs you want to move now.
Flowers and Perennials
- Deadhead hydrangeas and any other flowering shrubs, perennials, or annuals that are starting to die back.
- Cut back perennial flowers that have finished flowering, and trim back trees and shrubs where necessary.
- Feed your winter annuals with Kings Dried Blood for optimal health.
Lawn
- Continue removing moss from your lawn with Kings Lawn Moss Control.
- Spot spray and take out any larger or harder-to-get weeds by hand now.
- Remove any fallen flowers from the lawn and pop them in the compost.
- Adjust mower blade settings to avoid scalping wet lawns.
Indoor Plants
- Cut back any dead leaves.
- Yellow and curling leaves at this time of year can indicate cold damage, so increase the room temperature or put plants closer to an indirect light source.
Harvest
- Harvest carrots, leeks, silverbeet, kale and lettuce.
General Tasks
- If you have compost, remember to turn it over and add leaf matter, cardboard and newspaper. Layering is key!
- Clean and sharpen any pruning tools now for optimal performance.
- Clean out gutters once all deciduous leaves have fallen.
- Clean out birdbaths and bird feeders frequently.