As any gardener will tell you: when spring has sprung, it’s time to get to work on your green spaces. The to-do list for spring gardening in NZ tends to be quite long, as New Zealand – more than many countries – comes to life in springtime in a way that can be difficult to keep up with.
NZ lawn care and gardening tasks can add up quickly around this time of year, enough to become fairly intimidating. The key to staying on top of your garden this spring is prioritisation (and delegation, if you need an extra hand).
With that in mind, the Paramount Gardening team has put together a list of the top seven garden tasks NZ homeowners should focus on this spring. With these priorities checked off, your garden will be the envy of your neighbourhood all the way through to winter.
1. Feed your grass enough.
Winter isn’t New Zealand’s most nourishing season. Heavy rains and reduced sunlight, not to mention the cold, spend the season compacting your lawn’s soil and washing nutrients away. When winter finally breaks and spring appears, the most important thing to do is bring those nutrients back.
So, the first step in any NZ lawn care routine is feed, feed, feed. We recommend a two-step approach to this aspect of spring gardening in NZ:
Aerate.
Break up the compacted soil with a garden fork or mechanical aerator. This lets the air, water, and nutrients reach your lawn’s root zone. This is best done in early spring.
Fertilise.
Follow up your aeration with a slow-release fertiliser in September or early October. The newly aerated soil will be primed to absorb those nutrients, creating lush, green grass from early spring.
This is one of the most effective spring garden tasks NZ homeowners can add to their list.
2. Clear out winter debris.
Winter weather brings a lot of debris, either from rain or from reduced maintenance over the colder season. This can form a layer of dead grass, old clippings, and other debris that builds up over your lawn and thickens over time. You don’t want to leave a thick layer of thatch over your grass, as that quickly leads to suffocation.
Grab a spring-tine rake and clear away the debris, exposing the soil surface to the new springtime sun. This is one of those tasks for spring gardening NZ homeowners find so satisfying, both in how it feels and the results it yields almost immediately.
3. Prune away the frostbite.
Most subtropical plants can endure winter, but that doesn’t mean they’ll look or feel their best by the time the cold season draws to a close. Extended cold spells often leave damaged or diseased growth on bushes and trees, so spring is the best time to remove these patches of rot.
Add this to your spring gardening list in NZ: a Sunday afternoon in the garden, pruning away the frost-bitten tips of your bushes, trees, and florals. Take a minute to cut back or deadhead any perennials that may have died back in winter, or structurally prune your hedges if you have them.
4. Prepare your garden beds.
Another aspect of winter that’s tough on your garden is, funnily enough, the rain…but perhaps not in the way you might expect. While the rain’s moisture creates problems of its own, the real issue is nutrient leaching from the soil. Constant rain washes the nutrients out of the soil, so garden beds don’t have everything they need to host healthy, strong growth when the weather turns warm again.
If you want your garden beds to be productive this spring, one of the best garden tasks in NZ to add to your list is to turn some compost through your soil. Dig in a generous layer to improve your topsoil’s structure, and work in a balanced fertiliser tailored to how you intend to use the garden beds.
Dig out any dead plants or weeds first, so your garden beds are healthy for spring planting.
5. Handle weeds quickly.
This is one of the garden tasks NZ homeowners most consistently avoid, and that’s understandable. Weeding can be boring or frustrating, and it’s easy to pull off the top layer of plants and just get on with it.
But spring is the season of growth for everything, including weeds. Leaving their root systems in the soil will invite an explosion of weeds into your garden come late spring.
The best way to handle weeds when it comes to NZ lawn care is with simple hand plucking, ripping out those root systems one by one. If you’re tackling a large area, a targeted herbicide applied carefully can deal with certain weeds more quickly.
Of your entire to-do list for spring gardening in NZ, this entry might be the most important. Pour some much-needed TLC into your soil and your entire garden will reap the rewards.
6. Look after your garden equipment.
A quick service at the start of spring will do wonders for all of your equipment, which was likely sitting dormant for most of winter. After all, spring is the worst time to discover your tools no longer work properly.
Here’s a quick checklist to add to your list of NZ lawn care tasks:
- Sharpen your mower blades
- Change the mower oil and clean the air filter
- Test your trimmers and sharpen their blades
- Check your hoses and irrigation pipes
- Check on your gutters to make sure they aren’t blocked
All of this shouldn’t take more than an hour or two at the start of spring, and you’ll be very glad you did it.
7. Plan your planting for the season.
Once your garden foundation is healthy and ready to go, you can start getting excited about what’s ahead. This is New Zealand’s main planting season, so planning your rotation for the year to come is the best way to get the most out of your space.
Different people tackle this aspect of spring gardening in NZ in their own unique ways. In general, it helps to plan seasonally. List what you’d like to grow season to season, from cool-season vegetables to spring perennials, and build your rotation from there.
This is also the time to tackle any structural garden tasks NZ homeowners want to complete before summer. Any hard landscaping is best done in spring, before summer makes outdoor work downright uncomfortable.
These seven essential garden tasks NZ homeowners need to tackle in spring will keep your garden and lawn healthy all year. Work through them in early spring and watch your space flourish!
Spring into your sanctuary with Paramount Gardening.
We are Paramount Gardening, your elite property care partner. We specialise in NZ lawn care and property maintenance, helping Kiwis like you tackle their spring gardening NZ-wide.
If you need a helping hand this spring, get in touch for a free quote today.
