P is for Potted Plant Problems and Phuqing Phungus Phlies

We haven't had as much garden or insect stuff as I'd imagined I'd post, but that may change at some point, as it's all piling up on the PC, but here's one I've been battling with which might be of some help to some of you.

 

One of the most depressing things of the last few years has been the loss of the garden, which will obviously go to the new owners of the house, and while I managed to get as much as I could to Mum's friends and neighbours, I've ended-up with 20-odd pot plants which are down the bottom of a neighbour's garden, but they need to sell now, too, so I may lose them, unless someone knows someone in North Hampshire/Surry with a quiet corner of a farm or estate where I could leave them for a few month 'till a year or so?

 

In addition, there were houseplants and cacti which wouldn't survive down the bottom of someone's garden, so I gave away as many as I could, and brought the rest to the flat, where I have one of each I think, with a few duplicates where the flowers or foliage are different, like the Geraniums which apparently aren't Geraniums (Pelargoniums), I think one of the Cacti has finally died, and the Amaryllis is looking poorly, but I think they always do at this time of year, and I should cut off the floppy old leaves and wait for it to go-again, later?

 

But in the biggest pot was this thing, I think it's some kind of Iris or Lily, but a non-hardy one, it may be perfectly happy outdoors though, I don't know, however it was in the 'summer-room' (a fancy kit of plastic panels and oversized Meccano I built for Mum, with Mimi's help, about 14-years ago), so it came here, and as you can see, a week ago it was not looking very happy.

 

Six months ago this pot was full of greenery, up to 8-inches tall in the middle, but shortly after I moved it here, one of the last to arrive, I started noticing these little flies, and took great delight in dealing with them every evening after work four, one night, eight, another, Ohh, more than ten, I've lost count!

 

However, I soon noticed that the plant was dying off slowly, and I'd water it, it would put out a few new shoots, but a dozen old ones would die-off! Google revealed the problem was these little fruit flies, called Fungus Gnats, and I re-started my efforts at eradication with more earnestness, getting dozens every night, and a bunch in the mornings before work (my PC table is next to the plant, so I was 'on site'), days-off were fly-carnage!

But still the plant ailed, as you only have to miss a couple of adults long enough for them to get together and do the jiggy-thang, get the eggs in the pot, and another batch of grubs has to be waited for, until they hatch, meantime they are eating the roots of the plant! So war was declared, more Googling done, and the little yellow thing above is part of the campaign.

The first purchase was these sticky pads, from the cheapie-hardware store up in town (Fleet Essentials, previously Ziggy's, but with one of the Ex-Baker's staff now helping them get in the right stuff), and this was the 'right stuff', look at it!

 

You have a single line of sticky on the back, which you peel to stick the sheet down, then you peel the backing sheet off the front (almost an oxymoron there?), and all the little flies go "Wha-hay a sunflower", and die, slowly, and quietly, producing little guilt as you can see what they and their kids have done/are doing to your precious plant!

Yet, it was a slow process, and I was still killing lots of flies by hand, every day (f'ousands of 'em since December Sah! F'ousands!), so after a return to Google I spent £4.50 on this at B&Q, chemical warfare had come to the flat!

Ladies and Gentlemen, two months later, and it hadn't killed a single fly, the plant was looking as it does in the first shot, and I was clearly losing the war . . . against phuqing flies! Indeed, the only use I will ever get from it is as a possible rocket-engine on a scratch-build!

The apparently non-toxic (and non-attractive to Fungus Gnats) liquid went down the drain, revealing seven glass beads? The magic ingredient in this complete rip-off of a fake solution (in both senses of the word) is the remains of some shot-blasting, sunk in snot? Somebody should go to jail for this scam!

Yeah! In the spares pile they go, they're not even the same size - so not much use for anything!

I then took the pot back to the old house, took it down to the bottom of the garden, and dug-out the remains of the plants with a desert-fork, carefully, as the greenery is very snappy. And with two bits of root (Holmes, Rhizomes?) and three plants, drowned them while I was at work, to kill any hidden larvae or eggs.

 

You wouldn't believe the pot-sized ball of dried, hollowed-out, root remains, that tumbled out, it had been fighting the grubs for years, and while looking OK on top, was being absolutely decimated underneath. Another couple of weeks and it would have been gone.

 

Heading off to Redfield's garden centre, which I discover has become not a garden centre, but a multi-function, high-end, leisure-destination/tourist-facility, mall, restaurant and day-care centre, for the young and old? 

 

Almost single-handedly responsible for the death of half the shops in the High Street, including the aforementioned Bakers (another post for another day), they even have a clothes section, not out-door or garden apparel, but chic, fashion and everyday-wear? A toy shop and grocery store, it's like the world's most expensive Trago Mills!

AND, you are forced by shelving, and displays, and phuqing little-phences, to go round 9/10th's of it! Fortunately, a fifth-columnist in the houseplant section let me go through her secret passage, direct to the tills, so I got a fresh-bag of compost, and saw a surface layer, expressly for Fungus Gnats!

This was all last week, and I re-potted last Thursday-night, after washing the pot (and crocks) with bleach, and drying thoroughly, before the remains of the plant drowned as well as the larvae/eggs, and after pay-day last weekend, I went back for the surface treatment, a crushed pumice, which I applied as above, about a centimetre deep (that's about half a banana stalk for our N. American readers), on Saturday last.

 

As you can see, three fresh shoots are already up/out, and I'm hoping the two little pieces will germinate in a few days, they are buried at 4 and 7 if you know what I mean; on the clock face as viewed. There will be a follow-up photo' if anything happens!

 

Now to maybe being of some help to you - 

• Don't buy the liquid traps, they are just another capitalist rip-off.
• Do buy the sticky-traps (there were four in the pack, about a fiver), the second is now on the window, just in case!
• Understand the sticky-pads won't cure the problem, but they'll hold it in check for a few weeks while you work-up the will for the serious bit of faffing!
• The pumice would make ideal model-railway ballast, and there's a lifetimes supply in one 9-quid bag, ten times cheaper than modeller's scatter, and probably the same stuff?
  

Over the next few days I killed another four flies, which were probably lone operators who'd meandered to other parts of the flat, and came back looking for a feed, or somewhere to lay their eggs, but since last Monday or Tuesday, it has been fly free!

T is for Tulips in containers

Sometimes it takes a while for a plan to come together, especially in the garden, and while the second set of photos were taken with Giles’s camera, which I seem to be using more than him these days! (Thanks Giles), the early one's are taken with the failing Finepix (buy something else...I can recommend a Casio Exilim!)

These were planted in November (19th), after I'd emptied the old soil out, well, soil is a bit of a misnomer for the collection of sandy-mud and polystyrene twists! Planted 4/5 inches down and equally spaced on a bed of compost/leaf-mould and soil mixed with a little ash from the bonfire.

Then you just sit back and wait...


...untill the 26th April

As well as the two pots on the stairs I also replanted the end boxes of a retaining wall, (the maroon ones were already in there, and although planted deeper, came first and are just finishing in the upper-right shot.

It's pure luck that the middle one in the pot grew taller than the four outer ones, almost makes you think I know what I'm doing huh?!!

Sweetpeas

Last year the Sweetpeas were a bit girly and pastel for my taste, but this year's batch have a bit of gravitas about them with dark reds, blood-scarlet and imperial purples, so - especially for Mimi - here they are, on a rather damp August afternoon.

Roses

My Mother's Roses giving a fine show this week.

Went for a walk....

Well given the glorious spring weather and the beautifully quiet skies today (thank you 'Mount Unpronounceable'), I went for a quick walk at lunchtime, camera in hand.

Loved this twisted log, looks like it's fossilized already!

Another of my favorite Polyanthus, this is a hybrid gold-laced one which had been planted outside a back gate to the woods.

Closer to home, our Magnolia is bursting into life now.

A Bit Of Colour In The Garden Now !

Primulas and Polyanthus, among my favorites since I was a small boy.

Daffodils and Narcissus, Spring is really sprung, when these are lighting up the lanes and gardens, I have to admit, a couple of these are from last year and won't come out for a week or so!

Other colour in gardens this weekend, the Tulips and Viola's are in Berkshire, the rest are North Hampshire.

Polyanthus

I took the first photograph two weeks ago meaning to put it up as 'The first rays of spring' type thing, but because I'm really lazy at updateing all my non-toy Soldier blogs, it didn't happen, then doing the greenhouse on Friday I took the second photo and voila! A post worth looking at....I hope?

Two Weeks Ago

Two Days Ago

Fritillaries

The fritillaries need to be protected from pheasants, who like to snack on them, but it's 'snacking' as only usually practised by the likes of Billy Bunter! So I cast a network of garden string over the whole patch, set at two levels to stop 'flyers' landing in the middle and 'walkers'' snucking underneath.

[If you click on the first image, you'll see one 'flyer' got through!!!]

Daffodils...

Some of the nicer daffodils currently gracing the garden...




I'll post some of the other shots from this sequence on my Imageshack account later this evening.

A rose, by any other name, is still a thorny bastard

Well, I finally tackled my first bird's nest! This thing (I'll try and find out what it's actually called - Latin/Linean, not common, I know it's a moss-rose!) has thorns on it as close together as the hairs on a Kiwi fruit, but much longer and much stiffer! I hardly ever wear gloves in the garden, I just can't be doing with them, I like to keep in touch with what I'm doing, even if it means I have to constantly super-glue the cracks in my right thumb and forefinger until they heal (Hey, try it - it works!), but for this I did wear gloves on and off, mostly the left hand to hold while I worked with the right, but it was three weeks ago and I'm still getting thorns out of both hands!!

The before photograph, the trick is to work very slowly, first take the whole thing apart, untie everything and pull out all the remains of the old frame (which was a couple of years old, this was given a half-a-job last year) and any fallen dead wood, at the same time cut-out any dead and weedy bits from this year.

Once it's all loose, divide it into four bunches and hold them out of the way with a bit of wood, then build the new frame. I used fresh-cut hazel and went for a basket of overlapping sticks, this left four arches that were in tension with each other and in compression with themselves (I knew that bridge-building project in First Year Architecture would come in useful one day!).

Then working round the bush, cut last years growth back to the longest of this years shoots, pull the shoot under the edge of the frame, then up-and-over and finally down across the basket and tie in. After you've had the best two or three from each of you four bundles, you'll realise you've still got far too much and you can start cutting some right out. Start with those that are silvery lower down, those that have short or weedy new shoots, and then those that won't bend over very gracefully or that will snap if they're bent that far, you'll be left with the rest of the good ones which you use to 'fill the gaps'.

It took about 4 hours. I'll post it again when it's in bloom.

Spring is sprung!

Well, once the snows had passed (Bets we have another lot?...mid March?), and underneath were all sorts of pretty things...

A far better spread of Snowdrops than the other day, there seem to be three distinct types in the garden and I'll try to find out what they all are! There are big 'drops' that hang down, medium ones that may open in a day or two, and smaller traditional one's that have opened and are touched with little green flashes and edges. These are all the big 'Drops', I don't know if they open or hang, time will tell!

Off to one side of the same patch (under the twin Hornbeam's) is this little patch of bright yellow aconites, which are better in the flesh than the photo, and shine from the other side of the meadow. We had snow for nearly a week after the rest of the south, and even the bottom of the hill, but when it did melt, these were out in 24 hours.

Finally some Crocuses, these are a small 'Old English' breed, and have come out first, but that's first for the Ridgeway, down the valley in Chieveley or over the hills in Wantage, the commercial yellow and purple ones have been open for a few weeks already!!