Best tips for picking the perfect Mother’s Day blooms

If you’re buying flowers for Mother’s Day on Sunday, let us help put some extra love and thought into your purchase.

If you can’t find local cut flowers, consider a potted chrysanthemum or other flowering plant, which will be even longer lasting.

If you’re buying flowers for Mother’s Day on Sunday, put some extra love and thought into your purchase. Buy from a local florist if you can, and choose Australian-grown flowers – locally grown is even better.

Supermarkets sell mostly cheap, imported flowers that are treated with chemicals and flown around the world after being picked. About half of the cut flowers (and the majority of roses) sold in Australia are imported from countries such as Colombia, Ecuador and Kenya, where workers and less stringent environmental standards are often exploited.

Australian flower growers and sellers have been under attack from a rising flood of imports for the past two decades. More than 40 per cent of family-owned flower businesses in Australia have closed over the past 20 years due to imported flowers undercutting the local market. If you can’t find local cut flowers, consider a potted chrysanthemum or other flowering plant, which will be even longer lasting. Either way, you’ll be supporting local jobs and businesses, reducing your carbon footprint and giving your Mum flowers that are fresher and healthier.

Mother’s Day - Pick these

Locally grown flowers available now include natives such as banksias and leucadendrons.

Dahlias

Snapdragons

Plus lilies, roses, gerberas, tulips – and these four...

Chrysanthemums

Lisianthus

Q&A

Recently several branches died on the 50-plus-year-old liquidambar tree on our front lawn and I’ve had it cut back. What can I do to improve it and preserve its wonderful shade?

Eileen Nichols, by email

Mature trees are difficult to treat. Their feeding roots extend far beyond the canopy, often into neighbouring properties. Damage can take years to show, from root compaction/loss to changes to the water table or diseases. Gas and swimming pool leaks can also kill trees quickly. Clear as large an area as possible under the canopy, removing all grass. Add a light layer of organic matter such as compost and/or cow manure. Products such as Seasol, Seamungus, Popul8 and SoiLife can improve soil and tree health. Keep the area mulched; in dry periods, deep water the tree.

Is it possible to establish the sex of my 1m-tall, seed-grown ginkgo tree? How would I take cuttings?

Marcus Gunaratnam, Sydney

Ginkgo (Ginkgo biloba) trees are either male or female. Only females bear seeds but they’re rarely grown in Australia because the fruits are squishy and smelly. You can’t determine a tree’s sex until they “flower”, usually after 20 years (being conifers, they don’t produce actual flowers). Males produce hanging yellow, pollen-laden cones. Females produce an inconspicuous structure. Nurseries propagate male trees from cuttings. Take 15cm-long cuttings in mid-summer, dip in rooting gel and place in pots of propagating mix.

On several of my citrus trees, the grafted top has died and thorny offshoots come from the rootstock. Why does this happen? Can I prevent it?

Adam Redman, Melbourne

Citrus are grafted onto vigorous rootstocks to improve performance. Suckering is common, so the trick is to promptly remove any shoots from below the graft. Otherwise these steadily take over until the top dies, making the tree useless. Suckering is stimulated by stress and root damage. You can buy Meyer lemons on their own roots.

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