Advice. Ideas.
Inspiration
Anita’s Garden
Volume 4, Issue 40
Useful Links Editorial
Webpage
Blog Welcome to the fortieth issue of my
newsletter for Volume 4.
Newsletter back issues
I hope you have all had a good week. I
Facebook have some very big news! A few
months ago, the Gardening with Disa-
Instagram bilities Trust in the UK contacted me
via my Instagram page and asked if I
Twitter
would like to write a blog post for
Pinterest their website. As many of you will be
aware, gardening has played an im-
portant role in my mental health jour-
Contact me ney since I was diagnosed with schizo-
phrenia nearly a decade ago. It has
 Feedback also helped me cope with depression,
 Newsletter input which is worse at this time of the year
(tips, recipes, gar- when the days are shorter and it is so
den photos etc) cold and grey. You can read the blog
post I wrote for the Gardening with
 To be added to my Disabilities Trust here. Bear in mind
mailing list that it was written for an internation-
al audience.
anitakundu.nz@gmail.com
I have been very busy planting broad
bean seedlings that I raised from seed
in mid-autumn. They were ready to
Inside this issue: go into the ground a long time ago but
there was no space. I also didn’t have
time because there was the more
P ot te r ing aro u nd 2 pressing task of planting approxi-
Anita’s Garden mately 2,000 new bulbs I ordered for
spring, as well as all of last year’s
spring bulbs in my existing collection.
Mum has been a huge help by tying
Top 5 gardening tasks 2 the plants to stakes with a bit of
for the week string while I concentrate on getting
the plants into the ground.
I also got around to planting all my
Collaboration news 2 stock (matthiola) seedlings. I follow a
commercial cut flower grower in NZ
called Brite Blooms on Instagram and
they grow the most lovely stock,
which they sell at the flower auction
Anita’s guide to growing 3
roses in Mt Wellington for florists to pur-
chase. I asked them what variety it is
and they told me that it is called Iron,
which happens to be offered by
8 July 2022
Egmont Seeds in their commercial cata-
logue (you have to request it directly
from them, it is different to the cata-
logue on the website and the one which
they send out in the mail). In late
summer, I sowed blue, pink, yellow and
apricot. I look forward to the seedlings
flowering in spring and will share pho-
tos then.
Once I have finished planting out our
broad beans, I also have the task of
planting my dianthus seedlings in con-
tainers. I propagated the variety Diana
Blueberry from seed, which I also ob-
tained from the Egmont Seeds Com-
mercial Catalogue. I came across this
variety years ago when Awapuni sent
me a free established Diana Blueberry
plant with an order. It was so beautiful
that I just had to have a go raising it
from seed myself.
Blog
You can read my gardening blog here.
My latest post is about my winter gar-
dening activity.
Social media
I have a Facebook page called Anita’s
Garden and maintain an active Insta-
gram account, too.
Collaborations
I have the following collaborations:
 Italian Seeds Pronto
 Awapuni
 Bulbs Direct
If you are interested in collaborating
with me, please get in touch by email.
Have a great weekend.
Anita Kundu
PAGE 2
Pottering around Anita’s Garden
This is the ornamental kale Crane
White and Bicolour. I raised these
plants from seed in autumn and
planted them outside in late May.
They are progressing nicely.
Top 5 gardening tasks for the week
1. Plant new roses
If you have ordered roses by mail
order, they should arrive this
month or next. It’s best to get them
in the ground as soon as possible
after you receive them.
2. Plant onions and shallots
It isn’t too late to plant onion seed-
lings and shallot bulbs.
Collaboration news
Just a little reminder about the
note that is on the Italian Seeds
Pronto website. There is a limit of
one packet of tomato seed per or-
der. At present, there are four
varieties available in the Franchi
Seeds range: Costoluto Fiorentino,
Red Pear, Cuor di Bue and Princi-
pe Borghese. In the Beeline seeds
range there is a variety called Tus-
can Red available on the website.
A NI T A ’ S G A R D E N
This is the ornamental kale Crane
Pink, which I planted in a strip
next to one of our rose gardens. I
raised these plants from seed and
transplanted them in late May.
3. Plant garlic
Don’t worry if you didn’t get
around to planting garlic on the
shortest day. It isn’t too late to
plant some now. Awapuni have
garlic seedlings in stock now.
4. Order lily bulbs
Bulbs Direct have a great range of
lilies on their website.
Bulbs Direct are releasing their
long-anticipated dahlia range on 1
July! It’s a good idea to sign up to
notifications so you don’t forget. As
they say, you snooze, you lose!
Kayne has given us a sneak pre-
view of what’s available and I was
most impressed. He told me that
they brought a new supplier from
the Netherlands on board this year
so there are lots of new varieties.
V O LU M E 4 , I S S U E 4 0
Some of our petunias are still
flowering even though it is
winter! Awapuni kindly gave
me some petunia plants back
in December, which I planted
in containers and kept in our
driveway. There is a lot of
green growth on all of the
plants so I’m going to leave
them in their containers and
see if they over-winter and
flower again in summer.
5. Spray roses and fruit
trees
In winter, I use lime sulphur to
help prevent fungal diseases as the
weather warms up later in the
year. In spring, I recommend
spraying with liquid copper. I usu-
ally stop spraying in October be-
cause by them it is too hot and
there is a risk of burning the
leaves if you continue spraying.
Awapuni now has the long-awaited
garlic plants in stock! Choose from
a regular bundle of 4 plants for
$6.50, 50 plants for $55 or 100
plants for $99. Awapuni kindly
gave me four regular bundles of
garlic last season and I can attest
to the quality of the plants. I did
end up getting rust, but it was not
their fault at all! The variety be-
ing sold is Printanor.
 V O LU M E 4 , I S S U E 4 0
Anita’s guide to growing roses
To the best of my recollection, I
don’t think I have ever written a
growing guide for roses in my
newsletter. June and July is the
perfect time for planting roses, so
it seems like a good opportunity to
me. We have quite a few roses in
our garden. At first, I was daunt-
ed by the idea of planting roses but
they are actually very easy to
grow. Roses are very tough plants,
so long as you don’t go near them
with weed killer, but I think that
applies to most plants. If you look
after them well, they should last a
very long time. Once planted, they
remain there. It is a bad idea to
try and move them. I did this a
couple of years ago and ended up
losing a few, so I don’t recommend
it. Think very carefully before you
plant a rose!
Types of roses
 Bush (perhaps the most
common variety)
 Standard (grafted—this is
the kind we have in our gar-
den)
 Climbing (perfect for arch-
ways and against a wall)
 Old fashioned/David Austin
(perhaps the most influen-
tial rose breeder of all time)
 Miniature/patio (perfect for
pots)
Interesting facts about roses
 Roses are either scented
(fragrant) or unscented.
 They can be very easily
propagated by cuttings but
beware of any Plant Variety
Rights, which prevents you
from doing this. It is best to
check before taking cuttings,
even from your own roses
 Every year sees new releas-
es. One to watch out for this
year is a lovely pink variety
called Earth Angel
A NI T A ’ S G A R D E N
I recently planted a new rose called
Cappucino in our garden
 Beware that roses are sus-
ceptible to the disease gall,
so it may be a good idea to
keep them away from other
plants that are also prone to
gall, such as dahlias and
lilies
Tips for planting roses
 Roses hate being moved so
think very carefully before
planting!
 Choose a sunny site
 I recommend mixing com-
post and sheep pellets into
the soil prior to planting. To
get new roses off to a strong
start, I also recommend us-
ing Kings 24 Plus Slow Re-
lease Fertiliser, which feeds
new plants for two years.
This means you won’t need
to use granular or slow re-
lease rose food for that time
 Standard roses may require
some support. It is a good
idea to insert stake(s) at the
time of planting to avoid
damaging the roots later on
 New roses usually don’t re-
quire pruning or spraying in
winter as this has already
been taken care of at the
PAGE 3
nursery.
Caring for existing roses
 In NZ, pruning is usually
done in winter. I try and do
mine in June. I also do a
tidy up mid-summer as by
that stage they have lost
their shape. Pruning means
beautiful blooms in late
summer and autumn
 I don’t like using sprays in
the garden but I find I do
have to spray my roses oth-
erwise they end up getting
black spot. In the winter
months I use Lime Sulphur
and in spring I use Liquid
Copper. If I am diligent
with spraying in winter and
spring, I find I don’t have to
do any spraying in summer.
By then it is usually too late
to prevent fungal diseases.
Prevention is the key and I
do find that doing the hard
work in winter and spring
means I can spend the sum-
mer enjoying our blooms
 Scatter banana peels (easy
for us as we have a very pro-
lific Misi Luki banana tree
in our garden!) around your
roses. They contain potassi-
um and will nourish them
 Roses are easily propagated
by cuttings. A good time to
take cuttings is when you
prune your roses.
 Feed roses with granular
rose food or a slow release
fertiliser specifically formu-
lated for roses
 To encourage flowering, I
recommend feeding roses
weekly with a water soluble
plant food formulated specif-
ically for roses or an organic
seaweed tonic such as Sea-
sol
Happy gardening!
Have a great weekend