Green With Envy: Sabrina Hahn answers readers’ gardening questions on ivy, rats eating vegies and potted figs

Every Saturday Sabrina Hahn sets out to help West Australian gardeners get the best out of their plants. This week, she’s tackling an unwelcome plant, sharing some essential fig advice, and identifying a mystery tree spotted in Mandurah. To submit your own question to the Green With Envy column, published inside Saturday’s The West Australian, write to Ask Sabrina, GPO Box D162, Perth, 6001 or email home@wanews.com.au. Please include your full name and suburb. Due to the volume of questions, not all of them will be answered. Fabulous find Q Just over the external perimeter of Creery Wetlands’ fence in Mandurah is this smallish 170cm tree with these wonderful non-perfumed flowers. What is this please? Lynda Hiini, Mandurah A This is Bauhinia variegata alba, known as the white Hong Kong orchid tree, which is native to China through to South-East Asia. It makes a fabulous deciduous shade tree with a wide canopy growing to 8m high. It requires regular summer watering and pruning in the early years to form a good canopy and compact shape. They are found in a few nurseries in Perth that sell deciduous trees. Rat attack Q For years I have grown my own vegetables. Unfortunately, this year rats are eating my lettuce and snow pea seedlings but leaving untouched bean and tomato seedlings. I have put baits and traps near the seedlings, but the seedlings are still being eaten. Could you please advise me as to how to eradicate these pests? Pip Brady, Coolbinia A Some people have used strips of cloth soaked in Phenyle cleaner and placed around their small veggie plants, and another solution is to smear peppermint oil on plastic yogurt pots that go around the base of the plants. Fig facts Q I enjoy reading your weekly column and advice. I have purchased a fig and decided to put it in a pot. It has been in the pot for a month. Now I can see lots of little shoots coming from the main roots. I wonder should I let it grow or take it off? And what’s best fertiliser for it to bear fruit? R. Lessnau, Palmyra A Always remove the suckers from fig trees because they grow rapidly and you will end up with a massive bush where you can’t get close enough to pick the fruit. Pruning in winter is essential to keep fig trees small enough to manage and grow superior fruit. The best fertiliser is one that has good levels of potassium and all the trace elements, similar to citrus fertiliser. Hibbertia help Q Love your column. Eagerly await it every Saturday. Got your book How To Do It In The Garden for my birthday last year and just love it. I have enclosed a couple of photos of my hibbertia. Do you know what is wrong with it? It faces south-west and gets a bit of afternoon sun. The ones near the fence get morning sun, then from about 1pm are in the shade of a fence. Is it too much water or not enough, or is it missing something like trace elements? They have been in since about 2017. Do they have a life expectancy? They seem to go brown and then the leaves drop off, and then there are just sticks. They did the same last year and rallied a little in winter and spring. I did trim them last year at the wrong time so we could get past on the narrow path. Everything around them, which are mostly natives, are doing OK. I have a different hibbertia which you can’t see which is doing fine. Joy Mikulandra, Rockingham A Hibbertia actually need watering at least twice a week in the heat, and prefer to grow in the shade. They like soil that has a bit of clay or gravel, so adding some clay and compost around the base of the bushes will definitely help. You may need to dig it into the soil with a garden trowel to get the clay to move further down into the soil profile. Foliar trace elements will help to protect the leaves from sunburn — apply in the morning or evening.