September

Garden Calender for the Brisbane region

Other Months

NB: These notes are under ongoing development. At present, the following applies to the greater Brisbane region only. It's hoped to expand on these notes in future updates, adding more details and eventually, more regions.

Naturally, this is a general guide only and will vary depending on local conditions, weather, plant variety etc. Ongoing water availability is also a big concern these days, so take this into consideration too, especially if planning new gardens.

It's springtime! There's lots to see and lot's to do this month, so set the alarm clock early.

At this time of the year many garden shows, garden festivals and garden openings are held. There will sure to be at least one you'd like to attend. Besides being a great source of information and ideas, hard-to-find plants and other items for the garden are often available for sale at such events. Check the Gardening Events Diary to see what's on in your neck of the woods.

Prune shrubs that flowered in winter/spring as they finish. This includes natives such as callistemons, grevilleas and even wattles. This not only encourages an attractively shaped dense bush with more flowers next time (and low, where you can see them), but prevents the plant wasting energy on the production on fruit and seeds.

Some poinsettias (Euphorbia pulcherrima) may still be showing some colour, so leave those until October if you prefer. However their relative the Snowflake (Euphorbia leucocephala) should be well and truly finished, so cut back to tidy it up and encourage branching.

Also cut back shrubs like acalypha, plumbago, megaskepasma and hibiscus, before new growth resumes with the onset of hot weather.

Fertilise and mulch after pruning to set them up for the summer. Be sure to use a low-phosphorus formualtion for sensitive natives such as grevilleas and banksias.

If you have spring-flowering annuals in, keep up the water and give them a quick boost with a soluble fertiliser to keep them going as long as possible. Remove spent flowers to encourage the formation of new ones. Annual Flowers and other Bedding Plants

The Vegetable Garden

September is a peak planting month in SEQld if you want to capitalise on the relatively mild conditions of spring and early summer to produce a wide variety of vegetable crops. Things will be more difficult when the punishing summer weather really arrives.
Solanaceous crops: tomatoes, eggplant, capsicums, tamarillo.
Cucurbits: cucumbers, pumpkins, watermelons, rockmelons. The choko is an usual member of this family, but can be planted at this time, too.
Also: Try carrots, lettuce, radishes, beetroot, silverbeet, beans, cucurbits.
If you still have space, you can also begin sowings of heat lovers like rosella, okra, snakebeans and sweetcorn.

With the weather warming up, cabbages will be very susceptible to caterpillar attack. If you still want to plant them, be prepared to take precautions. Pests and diseases in general will be proliferating. keeping on the front foot both with respect to prevention and control measures, as well as attending to the health and vigour of the plants themselves so that they can resist and outgrow attacks, will help protect the investment of time and energy you've already made in establishing crops.

It's tempting to get carried away when confronted with the variety of seeds and seedlings available in the garden centres, much less the many unusual varieties in the catalogues of specialist suppliers. Most vegetables need a constant supply of moisture to do well so do bear in mind your ability to keep the water up to plantings over the coming months.

Pest control is also a major problem during the warm months. Try to minimise population buildups by being vigilant now Newly hatched pests or isolated attacks may be difficult to spot, but if you control infestations early you can help reduce more serious damage later on. For example, protect young tomatoes and other susceptible fruit from fruit fly with with appropriate bags or nets and set up fruit fly traps.

See also: Vegetables, Seed raising.

Fruit Trees

Sorry, I haven't prepared any monthly notes for fruit trees yet. In the meantime, you can try the main page dealing with this subject and check the links for the type of fruit tree you're interested in, here: Fruit Trees

The Flower Garden

Garden shows, open gardens

See what's in the Events Diary for September.

Looking ahead

While September is a big month for garden shows and open gardens, there are plenty of places to go October, too. Visit the Events Diary and see what's on. Also, don't forget that Christmas is approaching, so keep an eye on those market stalls for garden-related gifts. If you need some more ideas, visit Garden Gift Ideas.

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