Ruud Kleinpaste: It's the time of the year for feijoa pruning

It's the time of the year for feijoa pruning. When the last feijoa has fallen off, you can have a real go at it  No difficult techniques needed (as with apples and pears and grapes - thinking a year or more ahead!): Feijoas fruit on new wood that grows in spring. So even if you literally whack them with a hedge trimmer (I do that!), next spring’s new growth will give you fruit. But what about a tree that’s getting a bit too high? Easy: you can really cut them back quite hard, because they’ll grow again; but seeing you’re going to do some surgery, you might as well do it real well: thin some of the branches inside the tree; That opens up the interior and gives the new growth a bit of space. It also gives the birds a bit of wriggle room to move  Birds – like blackbirds and silvereyes – are the main pollinators of the feijoa flowers! Hence the colour red – birds can see red well). If you see a blackbird violently attacking the red flower stamens in late spring, don’t panic! It’s doing its job. For those of you that consider having a feijoa tree in the garden, here are two tips:  1) plant two trees next to each other (they require crosspollination)  2) Plant them now, while there is still some warmth in the soil – otherwise they’d sulk most of the winter. Sunny, well-drained soil - little bit of fertiliser each spring, topped by compost of good mulch, to keep roots moist during dry periods. For people on the sixteenth floor (remember, Jack?) may I suggest a reasonably large pot with quality Living Earth Tub mix and the variety Bambina, a small grafted plant with small feijoas that can be eaten skin-and-all. Just a bit of liquid fertiliser and regular watering – you’ll love it! Feijoas have very few pests and diseases I thought we were lucky – so far – in Canterbury: no guava moth?  Guess what: a week or so ago, Julie found at least three larvae (caterpillars) in our fruit, resting in trugs on the kitchen floor. Guava moth is a real bugger from Oz, no products registered for control as yet. A regular dose of Success on developing fruit might stop caterpillars getting in. LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.