Spring is in full swing! Awapuni Nurseries has 85+ vegetable varieties, 85+ flower varieties and 25+ herb varieties available online! Keen gardeners all over New Zealand have been sending us photos of their flower gardens blooming with poppies, petunias, hollyhocks, alyssums, sweet peas, lavender, marigolds & more.
Garden Maintenance
Keep weeding (alternatively, try some ground cover plants to reduce weeds in the future).
Check greenhouse ventilation.
Prepare for dry spells, water-saving techniques
Deadhead flowers continuously
Feed roses
Watch out for slugs and snails
Practice succession planting
Vegetable Garden
The weather is definitely getting warmer! It's time to plant your tomatoes, cucumber, eggplant, pumpkin, zucchini, chilli and as many herbs as you want.
You may want to use bamboo sticks to act as frames and stakes to guide your plants to grow upwards. This way, you have more space for other plants in your garden beds. Staking tomato plants earlier will prevent root damage as they grow. Plant basil, spring onions, lettuces in between spaces.
Featured Vegetable Seedlings: Chilli, Capsicum, Kohlrabi, Yard Long Beans, Carrots, Watermelon, Melon, Rhubarb, Raddichio, Sweet Corn, Pumpkin, Zucchini, Tomato
Herb Garden
Basil is a top plant to grow this month. Awapuni Nurseries has six basil varieties you may want to consider. Basil is a great pest deterrent. It produces a wonderful fragrance in your garden and you’ll be spoiled with freshly made pesto-based dishes! Zinnia and basil can be planted next to each other. Basil encourages pollination if allowed to flower, encouraging more blooms and extends the flowering season. Both plants have similar sunlight and soil requirements.
This is the month to grow herbs that liven up the flavour of your meals. You may also want to try coriander and chives! We now have rosemary, dill, sage too!
Creeping thyme is an amazing ground cover. This thyme variety can be used like regular thyme but it can be used to fill up spaces and prevent weeds from growing. They produce small, purple flowers that attract pollinators as well.
Flower Garden
The flower season is here and all over New Zealand, gardens are blooming with pride giving delight to many gardeners.
Awapuni Nurseries has at least 14 Petunia varieties, single and double-petaled delights as well as colour-variegated blues and reds. Petunias are low-maintenance flowers and great for borders, beddings and also hanging baskets.
Petunias thrive if planted next to candytuft, salvias and lobelias. These are easy to grow flowers. Another generous, low-maintenance bloomer to plant next to petunias are geraniums. These flowers require similar amount of sunlight and have the same soil and easy care requirements. The more they are deadheaded, the more they bloom beautifully.
We recommend planting flowers near your garden beds to encourage bees and beneficial insects to visit the vege garden. Marigolds, petunias, lavenders are available throughout the spring-summer season. It’s important to have flowers around the time your veges are flowering for higher chances of pollination.
We now also have a great selection of impatiens - bright summer colours - orange, red. You may also want to consider generous bloomers like cosmos and chrysanthemums. Scabiosas, love in the mist (nigellas), gypsophila, daisies and dahlias are now available online and have been quite popular this year, too.
Featured Flowers: Cosmos, Zinnia, Portulaca, Salvia, Dahlia, Petunia, Marigold, Phlox, Poppy, Sweet Pea, Coreopsis, Cupflower, Scabiosa Gazania, Gypsophila, Lavender, Lobelia, Alyssum
Happy gardening!
