Pretoria - March 22

Garden tasks for March
Nurture your flowers by watering once a week
and feed with a granular or liquid fertiliser
once during the month. • Rake up all the
fallen leaves and use them as mulch or add
them, together with Summer annuals that
are over, to the compost heap. • Add Autumn
colour to the garden with purple flowers and
shrubs like Plectranthus ‘Mona Lavender’,
indigenous Ribbon bush (Hypoestes) Salvia
purple and bloom, and Petunia Shock Wave
purple tie die. • Fertilise shrubs with 5:1:5 or
8:1:5 to strengthen them for winter. Water
camellias and azaleas regularly to encourage
the development of spring buds. • Wait until
night temperatures drop to 10 or 12˚C. before
planting pansies, violas, Iceland poppies,
snapdragons, calendula and primulas. • Start
planning and preparing beds for spring bulbs.
Buy bulbs early before they are sold out but only
plant towards the end of March and in early
April. • Keep your lawn green during winter
by fertilising now with Ludwig’s Vigorosa and
water regularly.
We’re planting … Lobelia Curaçao Blue Bay ... which is like a breath of seaside
air! Its blue-white flowers are larger than conventional lobelia flowers, and they
ripple like frothy waves over the sturdy, compact plant. Curacao is a strong
growing lobelia, with a mounding habit that quickly fills out, up to 25cm,
good for containers, or in the garden as a border and with other yellow or
white flowers. Think alyssum, diascia, nemesia, pansies, and violas. It also works
well as an underplanting for roses in pots. Blue Bay prefers sun in Winter and
semi-shade in Summer, and it flowers through to Winter. Don’t over-water
as this encourages root rot. Details: ballstraathof.co.za
Veggie of the month - Purple Sprouting broccoli
If you are going to plant broccoli, why not make it a
statement! That’s what you can do with Purple Sprouting
broccoli, a heirloom variety from RAW seed. It is a beauty,
with its deep purple head and blue-grey leaves. Being purple,
it contains the antioxidant Anthocyanin, which plays a key role in
protecting our health. Once the head is harvested, it continues to
produce lots of tender side shoots. Purple Sprouting broccoli has a
sweet, earthy flavour and it turns green when cooked.
Tips: March is the best time to sow, directly
into the soil or into seed trays. • Grow
broccoli in full sun in Winter, in well
composted soil. • The final
spacing of plants should be
30m apart. • Keep the soil
moist and fertilise with a
nitrogen rich liquid feed once a month. •
The heads should be ready to harvest within 120
to 150 days from germination.