Growing for success | Best spring seedling picks

I take it from the number of people that played a round of mini-golf in our Laugh A Lot Links gardens last weekend, that a good majority of people have been making the most of it.

Also, from the number of people we have had visiting and wandering around the garden centre, it is easy to see that we are not the only ones getting excited about the spring months and not the only ones just itching to get out in the garden.

I know it is very early, but I have finally relented to customer pressure and ordered the first of our summer seedling range this week. I say summer seedlings because that is when they come into their prime. But now, well, it is almost spring, so it is the time to plant them.

I have limited the range to the very hardiest summer seedlings, with the exception of tomatoes, for which I have ordered the early fruiting variety Rouge De Marmande. These will need to be kept out of the frost, preferably in a glasshouse. The other seedlings should, with a little care, be able to cope with most frosts.

Arriving this week, we have had chrysanthemum chalet, cosmos, marigolds, petunias, foxgloves, lobelia, Sweet William, cat grass, coriander, dill, lettuce, honey pod peas, red onion, radish and zucchini. All these, along with the winter range that can still be planted out now like viola, pansies, silverbeet, spinach and all the Brassica cabbages, cauliflower and broccoli, means there is plenty to choose from. If you are not sure about your selection or how to go about planting them out, have a word with the garden centre staff; they will be happy to help you out.

The warmer, sunny weather this past week has also affected our plant stock, particularly our bare-rooted plants. There have been signs of bud swell across quite a few of the plants in our bare-rooted stock, with some even breaking into leaves. This means that, for the health of the plants, we will have to cut the bare-rooted season short.

Starting mid-next week, we will start potting our rose stock, including bush, standards, climbers and weeping roses. Once potted, the price increases by about 20 per cent to cover costs, so time is running out if you wish to take advantage of bare-rooted prices. The following week, we will get into the bare-rooted ornamental trees and fruit trees, and that will then be the end of the bare-rooted season for this year.

You are also running out of time if you want to shift plants around in your garden, digging them up and replanting them elsewhere. But, before you go and grab the shovel out of the shed and start digging, you had best have a word with us, as not all plants respond well to this.

If you are thinking about putting up pot plants around your garden this year, now is the ideal time to do so for most plants, unless, like camellia and azalea, they are in flower or about to flower.

For long-term pot plants, be sure to use a quality potting mix so that you do not have to always pump the fertiliser into them to get any growth. The other advantage is that you are not having to turn around and re-pot them in six months because the potting mix has collapsed. Try not to over-size the pot you go into because you will get much better results going up only one or two sizes at a time.

The first of our spring stock arrived in the nursery this week and is looking great. It is lovely to see this fresh new season’s stock arriving, especially some of the Protea, Leucadendron, Leucospermum and Serruria plants, most of which are in bud or full flower. The Serruria are always popular because of their unusual flowers, and the Leucadendron for their sheer mass of colour.

Other notable additions to the garden centre this week include standard acacia limelight, which is always hard to come by, and grafted dwarf flowering gums in 20cm pots. These include Corymbia baby orange, Corymbia baby scarlet, and Corymbia mini red; most of these have been hard to come by in smaller pots for the past few years, so it is nice to have them back in the range.

With spring now upon us, we will have plenty of little gems like this rolling through the garden centre over the next few months, so I will keep you updated on their arrivals.

Now, though, get out and enjoy the fresh air. It’s beautiful and just another advantage of living in the Goulburn Valley.