Routine shrub care

Maintenance tasks will need to be carried out regularly in order to help your garden to become established, and to keep it neat and tidy. If time is short, concentrate on weeding and watering new shrubs and trees. To ease the task of deadheading flowering shrubs, gather together the flowering stems once they are past their best and trim them with a pair of secateurs. Alternatively, for shrubs with thin stems such as lavender, Geraldton wax and santolina, cut them back with garden shears.

Weeding
When creating a new bed, start with clean, weed-free ground. If you are not in a hurry, leave the area clear for a year. As weeds appear, either hoe them out or spray them with a weedkiller. Never allow weeds to flower and drop seeds, or you will have a problem for years to come. Hand hoeing is an effective way to kill annual weeds. Do not waste time raking off small weeds after hoeing, unless the soil is wet: they will soon rot down. You can also control them by laying mulch matting right through your planting areas, or growing evergreen shrubs that are densely foliaged to the ground. When you have a complete cover of such shrubs, light is excluded from the soil and few weeds will grow. A thick layer of mulch such as compost can suppress some weeds, but many of the worst weeds will just grow through it. Think of mulch as a soil conditioner and moisture conserver rather than a treatment for weeds.

To save time weeding around established shrubs, use a glyphosate-based weedkiller when weeds are young, small and actively growing. Glyphosate is sold under a number of proprietary brands. Check the label to ensure you have bought the right product. Glyphosate should only be sprayed on a still day, as the chemical will damage other garden plants if it drifts onto them. To guard against this, use a coarse, rather than a fine spray and cover nearby plants with plastic. Glyphosate is biodegradable, leaving no residue in the soil, which means you can put in new plants after only a week.

Watering and Feeding
New plants need watering and feeding in order to develop a strong root system and to grow, while established plants may need watering in dry weather. To save time, lay a seep hose around the shrubs and connect it to a tap with a time switch; set it to turn on the water at night when it is cooler and evaporation lower. If you have to use a hose, concentrate the water on the root area of the plants. To water the roots of shrubs and trees directly, sink a plastic pipe, or a plastic bottle with both ends cut off, into the soil.


Jobs Calendar

Spring
Just before growth starts, prune deciduous shrubs that flower from early summer onwards and those that have colored stems. Prune deciduous shrubs that flower in spring immediately after flowering. Evergreen shrubs are usually pruned after bloom. Conifers are sheared in spring if necessary. Apply mulch right across the root zone. Feed everything in spring.

Summer
Water deeply as needed. Control weeds, remove faded flowers.

Autumn
Rake off any leaves smothering small plants or ground cover. Let the rest form a mulch, rotting down into the soil.

Winter
Make sure that garden beds and borders are weed free before spring. Have a general tidy up.