May and June are the months to prime your garden, ready for the big chill. But there are many early winter flowerings to enjoy, writes Helen Young.

Timely tasks
Fallen autumn leaves are wonderful for adding to your compost, or shred them with the mower to use as nutritious mulch on garden beds. In May you can still plant tulips, hyacinths and lily-of-the-valley in cooler areas. Lift and divide kangaroo paws and native grasses, and clumping perennials such as catmint, Shasta daisy and penstemon. Cut whirling butterflies (Gaura lindheimeri) and ornamental grasses back to ground level in late June. Move cold-sensitive potted plants to a sheltered and warm position and be ready to provide frost protection where necessary. Now is also the stage to re-program automatic timers to decrease irrigation schedules.

The productive garden
Grow a fast, green-manure crop to improve your soil between vegetable plantings by sowing a mix of mustard, alfalfa, broad beans or cow peas and when knee-high, dig the whole lot into the soil. It's time to plant garlic, beetroot, broccoli, peas, leeks, cabbages and English spinach. Sow broad beans in blocks in May - the shoot tips are delicious through winter, the roots add nitrogen to the soil and in spring the pods are unbeatable when picked fresh. Sow fast-turnover lettuce, rocket and Asian greens every few weeks. Prepare beds to plant asparagus and rhubarb crowns in mid-June by digging deeply, adding plenty of manures and compost. Spray deciduous fruit trees with a copper or sulphur solution to limit fungal diseases. Bare-rooted fruit trees such as peach, apple, nectarine, nashi pear, plum, apricot, fig and almond are available in June.

May & June in bloom
Hellebores, winter iris and wallflowers are just some of the pretty flowers blooming now. The dear little 'faces' of pansies add colour from autumn through to late spring. Autumn-flowering sasanqua camellia finish and camellia japonica varieties, which are winter-flowering, begin their long blooming period. Natives in bloom include banksias, croweas, correas and some wattles.

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