Garden
Growing the Perfect Lemon
In this our midspring issue, we’re looking at growing lemons and other citrus, and what to do when your crop is incredibly successful, in fact, too successful. It’s timely, as midspring is the time to plant, and if you already have citrus in your garden, it’s about now that you’ll probably be wondering what you can do with all those lemons. We have a few ideas on how to make sure none of your crop goes to waste. And we spoke to Tim Sansom, the plant manager at online seed and plant store, Digger’s Club, about growing citrus at home. Tim is the resident citrus expert and has been passionate about home gardening since he was a boy. In his work he focuses on productivity in the home garden, which sits nicely with SoHi’s focus on practicality, convenience, abundance and participation. We asked Tim a few questions, assuming that, like us, some of our readers won’t know much about growing citrus. We hope our line of interrogation will inform us citrus-dunces and enlighten even a lurid yellow-thumb.
RW: When should we plant citrus trees?
TS: The biggest mistake people make when planting citrus is to plant them too early.
The best time to plant is in spring as the soil warms up. Always avoid planting citrus in cold soils – they’ll forever struggle to establish, making for a weak plant prone to insect attack and die-back.
RW: What does the citrus-care calendar look like?
TS: Well, it’s probably round in shape and yellow or orange coloured! For citrus trees to flourish, there are a couple of key times of the year when they need attention.
Feeding: It’s best to apply a general fertiliser in early spring as the soil warms up and the plant goes into a growth spurt. Use blood and bone for the main nutrients like nitrogen and phosphorus; add trace elements if you have sandy or poor soils.
Pruning: Citrus don’t need heavy pruning unless they are affected with disease. A light trim of the leaves after fruit harvesting will keep your tree healthy and in good shape. If you are training it flat against a wall, prune and tie-in throughout the growing season to encourage growth where
you want it.
Harvesting: Different varieties yield at different times, but the bulk of citrus is harvested in winter and spring. Lemons will produce throughout summer, and Valencia oranges will also be around for summer juicing, but the rest are most productive from July to December. Make sure you remove all last year’s fruit, so the following year’s flowers can come through in abundance.
Watering: Citrus are shallow-rooted, so they are prone to both over and under watering. Make sure the soil beneath them stays moist in the summer and not too wet in the winter. So plant in a well-drained position, provide some supplementary water via drippers, and mulch with at least 5cm of mulching material to keep the sun off the soil.
RW: How do you maximise your yield?
TS: Follow my guidelines and you should get a bumper crop. The most important thing to keep an eye on is water. And don’t let your trees get dry in the summer.
RW: What are some of the known problems with citrus and what organic products can we use to prevent or cure these problems?
TS: The most common problem with citrus is nutrition. Yellowing leaves are the usual symptom, followed by all manner of insect and disease problems. Keep your plants healthy with adequate nutrition and water. Scale and sooty mould are common on trees that have been neglected. You can easily treat these conditions with an application of horticultural oil in November – this will also get rid of mealybugs and aphids.
RW: Can you tell me which are the best varieties in your opinion:
TS: Dummy-proof: lemons, in particular Meyer. Produce the best yield: cumquats, especially Marumi. Best tasting: This is very subjective, but my faves are tangelos, fourer‚ mandarin, lemon and lemonade. Most frost-hardy: Meyer lemon and grapefruits.
RW: Which varieties are best suited to our region?
TS: In cooler areas, the best bet for the open ground is the Meyer lemon; but in a pot, in a protected spot, you can grow any of the citrus varieties, save the Tahitian Lime.
If you follow Tim’s advice closely you will find you have citrus growing in abundance. Click here for some delicious ways to use the fruits of your labour, courtesy of SoHi’s down-home cooking queen and caterer, Jane Crosland.
Text: Rebecca Wolkenstein & Tim Sansom
Photos: Janyon Boshov
The Architecture of Winter
“All seasons shall be sweet to thee,” Samuel Coleridge reminds us, but winter leaves some gardens, especially here in the Highlands, cold. On a wet, bleak, chilly day (or week), the season’s subtler joys and uses are inconspicuous—and the garden isn’t exactly where you’d want to dwell on them.
But let’s face it: winter isn’t grim for three months straight, as it can be in the Northern Hemisphere. There are mild days, and on these days the garden beckons. Venture outdoors and take a notepad; take a pencil and camera, too. With less foliage and showy colour (and with fewer weeds) to distract you, your garden’s structure will be exposed; you can see what’s really there, and what isn’t. Photograph and document your plot’s good and bad attributes, and jot down planting ideas and possible colour schemes and solutions for bare patches.
If you’re short on ideas and inspiration, look to experts and friends for some and suss out what they’ve done in their backyard. And reacquaint yourself with some gardening classics—I have two on the go at the moment: Gertrude Jekyll’s The Beauties of a Cottage Garden, and Vita Sackville-West’s Let Us Now Praise Famous Gardens. Oh, and I’m oohing and ahhing my way through Sue Southam’s Velvet Pears, about her glorious South Coast garden, Foxgloves Spires.
Some gardens, though not many, are open to visitors at this time of year. In those, you’re sure to find appealing plants—native and exotic—that perform well in our climate. Take a drive, and by the roadside you’ll see winter blooming in the scintillating acacias; just today, I saw some eucalypts flowering. Nature never really takes a break. Why not seek out a wattle for your garden, to correct the colour deficit? And while you’re at it, check out some other winter stars, such as the shrubby, deciduous dogwood Cornus alba ‘Sibirica’; the Japanese flowering quince, Chaenomeles japonica; or perhaps the deciduous shrub Stachyurus praecox, with its chains of yellowish-green flowers dangling off bare stems. And no Highlands garden should be without one or more of these hardy winter mainstays: rhododendrons, azaleas, camellias, daphnes and hellebores.
It’s too chilly to sow seeds of flowering annuals, so buy advanced seedlings instead. Alyssum, Canterbury bells, cornflowers, pansies, primula, stock, sweet William and wallflowers are easy to come by—and provide quick results.
In between all this perusing and planning, there’s the pruning and planting of fruit trees and the roses to be tackled; the division of perennials to deal with; summer and autumn-flowering bulbs to plant; and the vegetable patch to be rethought for the warm weather to come. Speaking of the vegie patch, now’s the time to plant asparagus and rhubarb crowns, globe artichokes, broad beans, peas, rosemary and strawberry runners.
Words: Maree Tredinnick
Photo: Julian Wolkenstein
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