Have you thought about planting a fragrant winter flowering wall of colour? The Sweet Pea or Lathyrus odoratus could be the perfect plant.
Traditionally Sweet Peas should be planted around St. Patrick’s Day but you can sow seed until Anzac Day and still be successful. Locally Sweet Peas have been grown in many Central Queensland gardens for more than 100 years.
Sweet Peas made excellent cut flowers as well as producing showy winter floral displays.
This plant could be used in a number of locations from covering a trellis or screens to being great for pots or hanging baskets. These days there are a wide variety of flower colours for the gardener.
These colours range from white, blue, lavender, purple and pink through to red.
If you are purchasing packets of Sweet Pea seed always check that the seed is Australian.
Sweet Peas are fairly hardy but few handy hints for success should include Sweet Pea seed will rot in wet soil. Ideally it would be helpful if dolomite was added to the Sweet Pea garden last month. When preparing the seed, soak the Sweet Pea seed in water overnight to soften the seed coat.
Always water the soil where the seed is to be planted then water the garden after planting the seed. But then don’t water again until the seed has sprouted.
TIME TO TOP DRESS LAWNS
With still a bite of Summer in the air, and the expectation of cooler weather to come, one of the most asked questions at this time of year is “Can I top dress my lawn now?” The answer to this one is that the next few weeks will be the best time to topdress your lawn in readiness for a lush and green spring lawn.
If you don’t get a chance to topdress your lawn now, you may find that your grass will brown off during winter.
You can revitalise your lawn so that it is looking bright and green with a small application of liquefied Sulphate of Ammonia. I would recommend a tablespoon of this to a bucket of water for every ten square metres of lawn.
Top dressing of grass should only be applied when your lawn is either thin or patchy, or if the roots are exposed.
This could be caused by heavy rain washing top soil away from recently established lawns, if new turf was not cut with an adequate soil base, or if the previous top dressing was done with an inferior or poor quality soil which makes it difficult for the grass to establish.
Many soils available will do more harm than good for top dressing, and I would definitely suggest purchasing higher quality soil mixtures for this task. It is very much a case of what you pay for is what you get.
One of the soils that I recommend for lawn top dressing would contain a mixture of sand, fine wood ash and loam, which is very easy to spread and will not set like concrete.
For the best results in restabilising poor areas of lawn, spread a packet of good quality lawn seed and small amount of gypsum on the grassed area before top dressing, and remember to water in.
When a thick layer of top dressing is necessary, apply it in stages over several weeks.
Firstly, apply a small amount of top dressing, keep damp and wait until the grass begins to grow through before the next top dressing. Repeat this until the lawn area is at the required level. You may even need to lightly roll the lawn after top dressing.
Most lawns only need a touch up here and there. High traffic areas will quite often become compacted, and in some cases you may need to loosen the soil and mix in a handful of gypsum.
Also remember that you may need to keep this area out of bound until the grass has restabilised.
You should always keep top-dressed areas of lawn damp until the grass is long enough to hold the soil and stop it blowing or washing away.
When the grass is thick enough, you will need to mow it, but only with the mower on a high setting, and make sure the mower blades are sharp, because blunt blades will either pull up the grass or cause bruising which leaves the grass open to infection.
