At this time of year, there are plenty of little jobs to fill an afternoon in the garden. Spending the time now will see your garden cope & look better until the end of Winter. This will ensure you will have less to do when Spring comes around, keeping your garden happier and healthier over the next season.

Transplant.

In most areas of Australia, early Autumn is still a safe time to transplant plants into another section of your garden. That said, if the weather has cooled off already in your area then delay until Spring arrives.

transplanting plants

Ensure that you prepare the new planting hole in advance so the plant can be planted straight away.  Allowing the plants roots to dry out will cause shock, so it’s important to move the plant directly from one site to the other.  When digging around the base of the plant, make sure that you take a considerable amount of the root ball and the soil attached. Once in the new hole, ensure the plant is not sitting too high or too low in comparison to the natural ground level around it.  Back fill with soil, ensuring there are no air pockets in the soil around the root system. Remember to water the transplanted plant in well and keep an eye on it, supplying supplementary water, if needed, until it has settled in.
 
You will need to cut the plant back to “take the pressure off”, allowing the transplanted plant to spend its energy establishing it’s root system again.  Less foliage to feed will allow the plant to use its energy on getting its root system deep into the soil.  Don’t trim any more than 1/3 of the foliage away at any given time.  Once the plant has recovered and starts to shoot, you can trim more should you need to.  That said if you find the plant is struggling to settle in, then removing more foliage may help it recover more quickly.
 

Trim.

To ensure your garden doesn’t look overgrown and ratty by late Winter, take the time now to give your plants a light trim. 

Trimming a shrub

Not all of your plants will require trimming but a little light pruning now, on those that do, will ensure plants maintain great shape over the coming months.  Home gardeners often overlook the importance of trimming to encourage fresh new growth.  This ensures a nice busy shape to most shrub species.  Getting this done now, at the beginning of the season, will give your plants time to recover before Winter sets in. In cool climate regions plants enter a state of dormancy seeing very little, if any growth. 
 
Once the warm days and nights start with the arrival of Spring, fresh new growth will appear on your plants.  The arrival of Spring is always such a wonderful time, seeing fresh new leaves and an abundance of flowers.  Such a lovely time of year.
 

Fertilize.

After a long hot Summer, plants may be needing a little boost to get them through the cooler months to come.

Fertilizing
Support your plants with slow release fertilizer or mulch, mulch, mulch!
 
Potted plants can also get some TLC before the Winter months set in. Trim dead leaves and flower heads from your plants, & replenish potting mix using a premium potting mix. Premium potting mixes contain all that is needed for your plants to thrive, including slow release fertilizers & water crystals. If you are not topping up potting mix now then apply a slow release fertilizer, suitable for potted plants or indoor plants.
 
Most plants in the garden don’t need fertilizing if they are regularly mulched with a composting mulch, such as hardwood mulch or forest mulch. There are the exceptions to the rule but generally all Natives and most Exotic plant species do very well with the nutrients released from decomposing mulch. 
 
Utilize the cooler months ahead to reapply mulch to your gardens, so when Spring arrives you have more time for other things.

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