Don had some great tips on pruning, fertilising and sowing seed, as well as some fun for the kids.

Sow seed

This is a great time of the year to sow seed. It's fun to do and by the time the drought's over your seedlings will be ready to plant out in the garden. Don suggested collecting seed from grevilleas or any other plant in the garden. He showed how a grevillea seedling develops: first to emerge are the seed leaves, which open and then the true leaves start to come out from between them.

Your seed-raising pot could be any clean, small pot - a used seedling punnet is okay, as are compressed peat Jiffy Pots. You can sow straight into potting mix, but you will get a better germination rate using a layer of seed raising mix on top. (Tip: don't sow any deeper than the thickness of the seed.)

Kids can have some fun sowing bean seeds and watching them grow. (Note: some seeds are treated with fungicide. Children should only handle untreated seed.)

Fertilise greens

Don showed some rocket that was flowering and about to go to seed. He explained that this happens with leafy greens when the plants run out of nitrogenous fertiliser. For best flavour vegies need to be fertilised every week or two to keep them powering along and growing lushly.

He cut off the flowering stems and fertilised the rocket with Nitrosol (you could also use Thrive or Aquasol). 500ml liquid fertiliser costs around $8.

Pruning

Don gave some general pruning tips while cutting back a chorizema. prune after flowering prune so that you think the whole thing either works better or looks better always take your time and cut carefully and gently when you're unsure, prune in stages - you can always take more off but it's hard to stick bits back on again be ruthless when necessary fertilise after pruning (Don fertilised the chorizema with Nitrosol liquid fertiliser.)

Chorizema cordatum, commonly known as the desert or flame pea, is a small, erect or scrambling shrub to 1m (3') high. The leaves are variable, but they are often heart-shaped with toothed margins. The plant produces spectacular, orange-red or yellow pea flowers in spring. Chorizemas prefer dry climates with low humidity. They like well-drained, sandy soils, and for deep flower colours, a shaded position is best.

Copyright CTC Productions 2004