December Gardening 2013: What’s Going on in My Garden!

This last month has just flown by – I can’t believe that December is almost upon us! As the end of November fast approaches we now have to start thinking about the December gardening jobs that need to be carried out.

For us December usually means that the garden hoses are dusted off and the watering systems are checked. Nothing has changed this year because the amount of rain that we have had lately is slowly starting to ease up.

While we have had a few showers, they are becoming less frequent and the slow increase in temperature means the ground is really starting to dry out. Mulching around plants is important to ensure that plants can deal with the harsh summer heat ahead.

Before the summer heat sets in we have been planting out some of the potted plants that we collected over the winter. We have also been finishing off the spring weeding and generally clearing up the yard ready for the coming fire season. It is a great chance to give the garden a general tidy up!

One December gardening job that I have just discovered that I need to do is; to dig up my tulip bulbs and any other spring flowering bulbs. I haven’t done this in the past and now I realise that leaving them in their pots over the long hot summer might have affected their flowers!

The roses have been so beautiful this year and they are just about ready to be dead-headed. The masses of flowers that we have had this year have really looked great. And from a distance they still look nice but the blooms are past their peak.

I will be pruning off the old blooms in December so that a new flush of flowers can develop. December is also the time to fertilise the roses again to keep them going strong!

Another job for November and December is to get things planted in the vegie patch. We have made a good start on this already and I am really excited because we have planted lots of vegetables! It is the first year in ages that we should have a really productive vegie patch!

We had a long drought a couple of years back and growing vegetables was hard because it was just so hot and dry. We are hoping to make up for lost time though, so far we have sown beans, peas, cucumbers, carrots, beetroot and pumpkins in the vegie garden!

We have also got some capsicum, broccoli and lettuce seeds growing in pots. And if that wasn’t enough we have bought some small tomato plants and a capsicum plant that we have potted up into bigger pots. The capsicum plant is quite small but it already has a little capsicum growing!

It is not just the roses that have put on a great display over the last month. Our many callistemon trees or bottle brushes have been looking stunning. We have several bottle brushes dotted around the yard.

Most of them are red but we have a beautiful pink one that I think is just stunning. These plants have flowers that look like the brushes that you use to clean bottles and they attract masses of bees and lots of nectar loving native birds!

Speaking of birds we will soon need to protect our fruit trees from the birds. We have several fruit trees; apples, an apricot and a plum. Thankfully they all tend to ripen at different times so we only have to protect one tree at a time.

Protecting the fruit trees is on December gardening chore that has to be done if we want to get any fruit for ourselves! This means putting shiny things such as CD’s all over the trees and covering them with nets it the birds are really bad.

They really look quite funny when they are all dressed up!

Birds have been a bit of a feature in our garden these last few weeks. The local magpie population has been getting around with this year’s young in tow and one magpie has really made itself at home. We don’t know if it is male or female but we call it ‘Cheeky’ because well – it really is very cheeky.

This magpie regularly sits at our back door warbling away. We put out wild bird food which it seems to like but it also seems to enjoy just watching what we do.

Quite often I will be working away in the garden and turn around to find ‘Cheeky’ just behind me ready to move in and check out what I have been doing!

Now that December is almost upon us we are getting ready to put up our Christmas lights! This is one of my favourite December Gardening jobs. It takes a while but it is worth the effort!

All of our light sets are solar powered (except one) so they don’t use any extra power. We will be putting them up over the next few days so that we can add some Christmas cheer to our neighbourhood through December.

It really is great to have warmer weather and get out in the garden. For further details on what else can be done in the garden during December I have included a few links: