GREENGRASS – North Cyprus Forum

Flaming JUNE in your garden

by greenfingers

The temperatures this month will be in the low-mid 30sC, so make sure that you water your plants each evening and bring any vulnerable plants into more shaded spots for the summer. Continue to dead head daily or your plants will go over quickly. Start to collect seeds and keep them in envelopes or paper bags, Do not forget to label them !

June is not the ideal time to be planting trees but with care and using containerised plants, trees can be planted almost any time, although November to March is the ideal in Cyprus, when the ground should be damp deep down. Trees in nurseries and garden centres have had a sheltered life up till the point they go home in the back of someone’s car, and then they are out on their own! The best stuff to put at the bottom of the planting hole is Bone Meal or you can use slow release fertiliser.

Teasing out the roots is a must and means that you are encouraging them to search for water. If you do not do this then they may stay in that tight round formation and eventually die!

Newly planted trees need to be watered deeply every day for the first few weeks. The eventual watering points should be either side of the trunk equidistant between the trunk and the edge of the canopy to give best results.

Bougainville’s and ‘Star’ jasmines are looking their best this month as their wonderful colours clothe the outsides of buildings and cover pergolas.

Down at ground level the summer South African bulbous plants are still holding out. Tulbaghia violacea is widely grown here with long lasting flowers that will fill your borders for many months if you dead head them frequently. Hemerocallis (Day lilies) which not long ago were only available in bright orange, now come in many different colours.

This is such a good plant although each flower head only lasts one day. Agapanthus in blues and whites, does not like to grow in full sun here. They can be grown in large pots and then move them into a shaded position as the summer rolls on. They can be very ‘iffy’ about flowering, but the trick is to feed them after they have flowered with lots of Phosphorus and Potassium rather than Nitrogen, which promotes green growth.