Larry Smith and the Riverside Gardens team talk all things pots, plants and pruning in their weekly gardening column.
Hold tight - we’re checking permissions before loading more content
It is easy to see why so many people love this time of the year, with such beautiful weather, cool mornings, sunny days and the autumn colour creeping into the deciduous trees throughout the gardens.
It just makes you want to get outside and enjoy it all.
It was great to see all the visitors to town last week for the BMX championships doing just that, strolling around Victoria Park Lake gardens, picnicking in our golf gardens and challenging all comers to a round of mini golf.
They were a very competitive bunch.
Great to see them enjoying our town and its beautiful autumn weather.
Dwarf Stella cherry
Following on from last week’s article on bare rooted roses, I thought I would keep it going with bare rooted fruit trees as they too are due to arrive late next month.
Like the bare rooted roses, there is a limited window of opportunity to purchase and plant bare rooted fruit trees.
The season kicks off once they have gone dormant enough to lift, which is usually late May or early June, and then ends when the weather starts to warm up enough for them to break their dormancy, usually early to mid-August.
With the season being so short once varieties run out, it will be 12 months before they will be available again.
Deciduous fruit trees for the home garden have seen a large resurgence in popularity over the last few years with an almost doubling in the quantity sold through the Garden Centre over that time.
But with the planting of fruit trees in home gardens in our fruit growing region comes the responsibility of maintaining them correctly and being vigilant in the control of pests and diseases.
It is for this reason that we have moved towards dwarf trees which are a lot easier to maintain and can be covered easily with insect net during the ripening season to protect them from fruit fly and help stop the spread of this pest throughout the region.
Dwarf trees will grow about 2.5 to 3 metres high and will produce the same tasty normal-sized fruit for the home in ample quantities if cared for correctly.
Be sure to ask the Garden Centre staff what is involved in the care and maintenance of the fruit trees you purchase as it will vary with each type of fruit tree you choose to grow.
The popular deciduous fruit trees of choice are cherries, plums, peaches, apricots, pomegranates and nectarines.
Then there are ones like apples and pears that require a bit more work to maintain and then the lesser-known fruits like persimmons, quinces, mulberries and figs.
Nuts like walnuts, chestnuts and almonds are also available along with berries, grapes and Kiwi fruit, but the demand for them is not as strong.
Some types of fruit trees require a second pollinator tree to give you fruit.
The pollinator tree must be a compatible variety that flowers at the same time and be the same type of fruit.
Apples, pears, most plums and cherries, Kiwi fruit, and some of the nuts fall into this group of trees.
However, the cherries we have coming in are all self-fertile varieties like Stella and Lapin, meaning that you only need one tree to get fruit.
You will often see these trees that require pollinators offered as double grafted plants, where the two required varieties are grafted onto the one tree.
These might sound like a good option, but you will usually find one variety will become dominant and take over unless you really know what you are doing with your pruning technique.
There are other space-saving answers to getting around the requirement of a pollinator variety which we find much more successful.
Our Garden Centre staff can run through these with you if you wish.
This time of the year, we also have our main lot of citrus fruit trees arriving.
Even though these are not deciduous trees, this is one of the main selling times of all year for them.
We have also been moving towards dwarf grafted varieties of these as well, and again, they are a great option for the home garden.
Lemons, oranges, limes, mandarins, and even kumquats, are now available as dwarf trees and well worth considering.
If you are considering planting fruit trees in your garden, now is the time to start working out what you would like so you can take advantage of the bare root season.
Remember though, fruit fly can be a problem in our area with fruit trees and vegetables, so a responsibility does come along with this choice.
You will often hear that fruit trees are a lot of work, but with the right advice and a bit of care, you will be rewarded with a tasty return for your efforts.
22°C