October
Sunshine and blue skies herald October. Enjoy visiting gardens, start getting your ready for outdoor living and revamp your tired potted plants. It is the ideal time for courtyard makeovers, balcony hacks and backyard blitzes.
Prepare
Plant basil for a summer ahead of fragrant pesto and pasta sauces
Pellitised manure to feed your rose bushes
Prune back early spring flowering shrubs as they finish blooming to encourage bushy growth
Fruit fly can be a problem as the weather warms and soft fruit starts to ripen. Hang some fruit fly traps so you can jump start any problems
Plan some Christmas colour now in your garden and plant some colourful begonias
Enjoy
Roses as they come into their own
English lavender – and dry some flowering stems for your jumper drawer
Chinese Star jasmine as its sweet smelling blooms start opening
Orange jessamine, also known as Murrarya, when it flushes
Early gardenias as they start blooming
Crabapples and cherries as they bloom
Bottlebrush and the birds that flock to them feeding
Fresh asparagus spears
Have on hand
Secateurs to cut roses for inside and deadhead them
Repot pot bound containers Control weeds before they seed Plant tropical fruit trees
white oil or pest oil to use on your gardenias and lilly pillies to treat scale insects
Eco-naturalure Fruit fly baits are a registered organic control Harry’s Gardenias food to does up your gardenias with as they food buds and flowers Some Dynamic Lifter Plus
A mortar and pestle to use up that excess foliage on you basil plants as it comes to leaf
