This Xmas period I was able to get the time to tidy up my container gardens and area they are in.
So that is what I do when I get some spare time.
If you would like to see more goto: Pictures of my container gardens

* Tender varieties of flowers and vegetables may be sown indoors by gardeners now for later planting out.
* But some species, such as asters and carrots, do better when sown where they are to grow. Sow when the soil warms up.
* Rake the soil by 10am. If it is dry and crumbly by 2pm, it will be warm enough for seed germination.
* Keep sowings small. Use sterilised seedling mix when sowing seeds indoors to prevent damping off disease.
* Spray lawns this month with a lawn weedkiller to get rid of Onehunga weed, the one which becomes prickly in summer.

Written by Wally Richards.

Sometimes a plant, shrub or tree may partly or fully yellow off which means that the normal green foliage goes yellow. This could indicate a lack of minerals especially magnesium or the ability of the plant to take up magnesium.
Magnesium deficiency is often noticed in the winter months when the cold tends to lock out this and other elements. The normal remedy is an application of Epsom Salts (which is sulphate of magnesium) on a monthly cycle and usually after about 3 months the plant returns to green foliage.
It pays to sprinkle some Rok Solid also so that any other minerals that may be deficient are increased. Yellowing of the foliage can also mean that something is going wrong in the root zone which could be too much or too little moisture.
A test hole outside of the root zone can determine if either of these conditions apply.
Recently as a result of a fellow horticulturist in Australia, Jim McNamara, contacting me, wishing to acquire some seeds of our Native Fuchsia (F excorticata).
I was able to direct him to a local web site at www.nzseeds.co.nz which has an excellent range of our native seeds available by mail order.
Well worth a look at. In the reply thanking me, Jim asked me if I had come across yellowing of trees as a result of herbicide spraying in the root zone of the victims.
I was directed to a article that he had written on the web at http://anpsa.org.au/APOL27/sep02-5.html which is headed ‘Mundulla Yellows’ a condition caused by herbicide use on non-target plants.
Readers may have experienced this effect in their own gardens if they have been using herbicides for a period of time to control weeds that have been growing near or in the root zone of plants.
The likelyhood of weed killers that have a long term effect in the soil such as many lawn weed killers, Das and other pre-emergent weed killers plus the old knock-um dead glyphosate, under various trade names such as Round-up etc.
Glyphosate does not harmlessly disappear when it hits the soil as we were lead to believe by Monsanto when Roundup was first released in New Zealand. (Then again they also said that Agent Orange was safe) Glyphosate has a half soil life of about 6 months and can affect plants grown or growing where the chemical has been used. Anyway lets see what Jim has to say:

Trees and associated vegetation expressing a range of symptoms termed 'Mundulla Yellows', are readily found in the settled areas of South Australia. Critical observation of the ground beneath such plants indicates the presence of residual herbicide within their putative root zone.
Routine use of root absorbed plant poisons is observable and documentation of some practice is recorded here. Both in the practice of public utilities and private usage, knock-down and residual plant poisons are often applied, in combination, at least once a year. This is usually described as pre-emergence weed control and in the categories considered here usually takes the form of 'total weed control', wherein, residual herbicides are applied at the highest rates with the aim of stopping all weed growth, that is, killing all plants on certain patches or strips of ground.
Documentation confirms the historical and current use of particular common combinations of plant poisons: amitrole with atrazine and glyphosate with simazine, by highways, water and local government authorities, to kill plants along unsealed shoulders of roads, around roadside furniture and water meters and indicator posts, near intersections and railway crossings, on drainage structures and along drains and so on. Atrazine and simazine are root absorbed plant poisons and in the case of simazine the manufacturer's cautions leave no doubt as to its danger to 'off target' species through the action of the roots.
The triazine herbicides are the most likely candidate class of plant poisons, through their pattern of use and symptoms caused. The explanatory power and simplicity of the herbicide hypothesis suggests that it should be favoured unless or until it is shown to be inadequate.
Field study relates disease to tree size and distance from a 'total weed control kill zone' (DKZ). A good working hypothesis is, that intolerant susceptible trees will be affected when and wherever such poisons are applied to soil within reach of their roots. A variable distance, a maximum DKZ (MDKZ) is easily measurable for each situation. In the case of the Booloman-minga, Eucalyptus porosa, this distance is about 16 metres.
The basic epidemiology of this disease, associates it markedly with certain artificial landscape features: roads, rails, drains, gravel paths, driveways and car-parks, and in more urban areas, brick-paved and graveled street-scape's, places where total weed control is often manifest.
Not all weed control is total, it may be partial as in the elimination of broadleaf weeds from grassed areas. These may be viewed in the same way, however, and DKZ or MDKZ distances measured. In this way a disease zone may be defined round golf-course fairways, ovals or lawn tennis-courts etc.
Nothing of the epidemiology presented so far suggests an infectious biotic pathogen is necessarily implicated in the primary causation of the burgeoning Mundulla Yellows epidemic.
In the face of unchanging practices of herbicide use the prognosis is: the loss of all susceptible trees within the appropriate distance (MDKZ). That is, all red gums near treated roadsides, railways and drains etc. will be lost throughout South Australia. The solution to the problem is simply to stop poisoning these desirable trees. End.

The full article is available on the web address above and well worth a read.

Likely the most common situation for gardeners in NZ is the use of Lawn Weed Killers affecting the roots of plants growing beside the lawn areas and where weed killers are used frequently or other weed killers near existing plants.
You could assist the clean up of herbicide residues in the soil by drenching the areas with a combination of Magic Botanic Liquid (MBL) and Mycorrcin. This can be repeated every few months till surrounding plants and trees return to normal.
If you can reduce the use of herbicides that have a soil residue or not use them at all, then your garden plants will be far better off.
Next week we will look at some alternative safe to use weed killers, some of which you already have in the kitchen.