Thursday was July 1. Weeks of winter lie ahead, frost, maybe snow, but even so spring isn't far away, especially in warmer parts of the state, and gardens will start waking up before long.
July is my last chance to catch up on jobs I've sat on since April, starting with dividing succulents.
Many sedums, echeverias, sempervivums are frost hardy on the Tablelands and mid-winter is a good time to carve up and replant overgrown clumps.
Succulents love full sun and well-drained soil and are perfect for dry, sunny corners where nothing much else grows.
Use them as stand-alones or to fill gaps.
Related reading:
Last autumn I admired a bed of cacti and succulents at Canberra's National Arboretum (www.nationalarboretum.act.gov.au), cared for by volunteers.
Not all were fully hardy, but shapes and textures were beautifully contrasted and inspired me to try an echidna-like agave (A. geminiflora) that tolerates the light frost.
Mid-winter is the moment to prune deciduous, summer flowering shrubs such as buddleias, lemon verbena (Aloysia triphylla) with citrusy smelling leaves, Hibiscus syriacus, and false spirea (Sorbaria aitchisonii) with pinnate leaves and plumes of lovely creamy flowers in January.
If you're not sure whether to prune a plant now, a rough rule of thumb says that spring flowering plans bloom on old growth while summer bloomers, including many roses, flower on new wood.
This is common sense in a way since plants are unlikely to have time to put out new growth on which to flower early in the season.
So, don't prune spring bloomers yet.
While you're in the cutting back zone, look for annoying suckers of japonica (Chaenomeles) and mahonia that you'd like to get rid of.
Cut them to a stump and paint the cut with neat glyphosate.
You must snip and paint as you go though, as if you leave the stumps even for a few hours, they will seal over and won't absorb the glyphosate.
I only chop and paint two or three suckers in one session and have not yet lost a parent plant with this method of control.
It's also handy for suckers that appear after a tree like an elm or poplar has died.
It's more effective than digging them out, which merely produces more suckers.
You can prolong the blooming time of indoor plants like cyclamen and hyacinths considerably if you put them in a cool place overnight.
I've enjoyed a $12 pot of three hyacinth bulbs from our local IGA this winter, partly because I actually remembered to put it on the verandah every night.
The sweetly scented flowers lasted nine days indoors and when I dead headed each bloom I found a smaller flowering stalk behind it.
So I had six lovely hyacinth flowers when I'd only expected three. Winner.
Winter is a good season for planting so it's time to tackle your propagation corner.
Plant everything that's big enough to handle the hurly burly of the garden and pot up smaller subjects for next autumn.
Last job for July is to order lilium bulbs to flower in time for Christmas.
Love agricultural news? Sign up for The Land's free daily newsletter.
