MANY of us despair as we move through the seasons with our gardens.
Those very hot days –especially around midday – when we see our plants wilting in the sun are a painful reminder that we can do little to control the weather, whether it’s scorching hot or bitterly cold.
However, avoid watering your plants during the middle of the day. It might make you feel better, but the sudden temperature change can burn the leaves or damage the plant in other ways.
There’s divided opinion about whether it’s best to water in the morning or the afternoon.
Watering in the morning can be beneficial in summer, as it provides plants with nourishment before the heat of the day. Conversely, watering in the evening may be more beneficial for some plants, depending on the conditions. Try both and see what works best for your garden.
In winter, those cold mornings can make it hard to get out and water, especially if you have work commitments – or just want to stay in bed a little longer.
However, if you live in a frosty area, watering early can help wash the frost off your plants and may even save them from damage.
So, with so many variables, gardeners often need to find a routine that suits their climate, plants, and lifestyle – perhaps a mixture of both morning and evening watering depending on the season and your attitude toward gardening.
Perfect gardening begins with choosing the right plants for the area you live in.
About 1000km west of Brisbane, in a small country town called Ilfracombe, lives a gardener who doesn’t need perfect soil to grow flowers.
A career change led this avid gardener to open a micro flower farm where anyone can pick their own blooms for a small donation.
With blooming beds of sunflowers, daisies and carnations – plants suited to her environment – it’s a striking contrast to the endless plains of straw-coloured Mitchell grass that surround it.
Longreach gardener Elizabeth Clark wrote a book about her experience keeping plants and flowers alive in extreme weather conditions.
Her advice to any gardener is simple: only grow what grows.
In other words, if you find certain plants struggling to survive, don’t fight nature – choose something better suited to your climate.
Till next time.
