April Gardening 2014: What’s Going on in My Garden!

Well we have just said goodbye to March and it is now time to start thinking about the April gardening jobs that need doing. I can’t believe that April is here already – I still haven’t done some of the jobs that I planned to do in March!

Despite being well into autumn we have still been having some nice weather over the last few weeks. Earlier this week we even got up into the thirties, which is quite hot for this time of year. It is starting to feel a bit more like autumn these last couple of days though. The end of daylight savings this weekend will definitely put an end to thoughts of warm weather and long days! Looking forward to getting an extra hour in bed tonight 😉

A lot of the summer flowering plants are starting to die back and at this time of year we usually have a big tidy up in the garden. Our local council usually has a free green waste weekend in autumn, so what doesn’t go into the compost will be taken to be recycled at the tip.

It will also be time to dust off the lawn mower very soon. Our lawn dies right back over summer and is pretty much dormant so it is quite a while since we last had the mower out. We had just under an inch (20 mm) of rain last week and it is amazing to see the grass spring to life since then!

The vegetable garden is slowly emptying out. Many of the plants have finished producing now and they are yellowing off. We have ended up with about a dozen butternut pumpkins of various sizes. This is sure to be more than enough to keep us going for quite a while.

We also have lots of gourds which will be used for unique and unusual decorations and floral arrangements.

I am keen to try growing some different vegies during the cooler weather now that I have caught the grow-your-own bug. However I have heard that it is best to give the vegie patch a bit of a rest over winter so we won’t be going overboard.

We have some onions to plant out and I would like to grow some silver beet and parsnips. We will also be planting out some garlic during April. Garlic is so easy to grow and we use it in so many recipes.

I had planned to prune back the salvias during March but they still look so good that I just couldn’t bring myself to do it. The salvias are such an amazing plant; they just seem to flower forever!

Sure some of the flowers are past their peak but there are so many flowers on each plant that overall they still look really good. Soon enough there won’t be a lot of colour in the garden so we may as well keep it there as long as possible!

We are thinking of planting some salvias in the vegie patch later this year. They will help to attract bees to the vegie patch for a really long period over the warmer months.

Another plant that has really impressed us over the summer has been the sedum. The one we have is called Autumn Joy and it is a beautiful pinky-red colour. This hardy plant is a succulent that only grows to around 60 -70 cms.

The sedum plant is new to our garden but we are so pleased with how it coped with the hot weather. We had several heatwaves over summer where the temperatures reached over 40 °C. The sedum didn’t even seem to notice the hot weather and didn’t require a lot of water.

We liked how these plants coped with the heat so much that we have now bought three more different coloured varieties! While they do die down over winter their hardiness over the summer makes them a great addition to the garden.

Well now that the hot weather is really over there will be no excuse for not getting out in the garden. I know this month we will be busy planting out new plants so that they can get established over winter. We will also be raking and composting any fallen autumn leaves. The weeds are just starting to get going so weeding will also be on the to-do list!

For some more ideas for April gardening jobs check out the following links: