Gardening writer JACKIE WARBURTON devotes her column to the virtues of jasmine, the problems of tick scale and what to do with raspberries now the fruit’s all gone.
Star jasmine has been one of the most popular garden plants in the last 10 years in Canberra, along with crepe myrtle.
Either or both are in just about every garden for the same reasons – they’re tough and give us something every season.
Star jasmine (Trachelospermum jasmininoides) has evergreen foliage and beautiful, fragrant, large white flowers in summer. It is a self-twinning climber and will climb over any frame.
Trachelospermum tricolour is a variegated form of the evergreen star jasmine. Planted in the right spot, it can be a ground cover or climber. It’s low maintenance, needing a clip only twice a year.
Its leaves are unusual, marked with splashes of three-coloured tones and essentially a form of variegation. It grows well in shade and full sun.
Also from this family is the asiatic star jasmine (T. asiaticum), which I consider worse than ivy and honeysuckle together! It twines up trees and smothers anything growing near it, rooting itself in the soil and proving hard to eradicate when it’s amongst other garden plants.
It has smaller leathery leaves. Although good for a single plant growing on its own, it is high maintenance. Be sure to place any removed plant material into the green bin and not the compost, where it will reshoot from the nodes.
Importantly, always look at the botanical name when adding plants to the garden to ensure you know their growth habits and that they are the right-sized plants for the right spots.
THE cooling weather brings different pests and diseases, among them, tick scale. It is easy to see on branches of wattle shrubs.
It is considered a soft scale or armoured scale, and the insect is protected by the hard coating/shell over its body. It can be difficult to get rid of if using contact sprays.
They are brought in by birds and attractive to ants for their excreta. While a few scales will be food for myna and wattle birds, a major infestation may mean removing branches.
Manual removal of the scale will reduce its numbers. Place a band of horticultural glue around the stem of the tree to keep the ants from moving the scale around the garden to other wattles.
BY now all the berries in the garden will have finished fruiting and can be pruned, tied and dressed in manure, ready for spring.
Summer-fruiting raspberries appear on previous season growth and all canes that have fruited can be cut to the ground. The primocanes (the ones that have not fruited) can be tied up for flowering and fruiting in spring.
Autumn-fruiting plants flower and fruit twice, but in smaller and smaller yields. Their canes will die after fruiting and can be cut down to the ground.
Now is also a good time to divide them and also pull up any runners to prevent them from growing wild.
Raspberries like an acidic soil, so compost or pine needles will help keep the roots protected. The nutrients in the compost will be released in spring. Keep weed free and mulched with any organic mulches.
Berries are companion plants for chives and garlic, but don’t plant them next to tomatoes or brassicas.
They will need some sort of netting and protection in spring when fruiting and while there are no canes to work around, setting up the framework in winter saves a lot of work down the track.
Jottings
- Liquid feed vegetables to keep them growing.
- Reduce irrigation on citrus trees.
- Plant cyclamen for winter colour.
- Cut summer-flowering native grasses.
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