Flowers Encyclopedia
Indian Floriculture Guide
The Garden Plants In Pests
May 7th
You can then prune out the distorted areas. With cropping plants such as tomatoes, if they are showing quite heavy symptoms, then I regret to say that I think you ought to remove them and start again, if necessary buying in some ready-grown plants from a garden centre or nursery so that you can catch up on lost time.
Contamination is particularly likely to have occurred if you have allowed the spray to drift, perhaps because you applied it on a slightly windy or gusty day or because you applied it using a watering can or spraying equipment that you did not wash out sufficiently well before using on some of the affected plants. It is essential that in future you take great care when applying any weedkillers. You should, to a large extent, be able to avoid the problems by not spraying on a windy, gusty or hot day; if you wish, you could take extra precautions by protecting any plants near the lawn using polythene sheeting, polythene bags or cardboard boxes. I would suggest applying weed killer using a watering can with a dribble bar attached, rather than by using a sprayer, as the dribble bar will produce larger droplets, which are then much less likely to drift. You should also keep any equipment that you use for weed killers purely for this purpose and not use it to apply fertilizers or water.
Several plants in my greenhouse have started to shrivel up and I have now noticed some fine webbing on some of the plants. I can’t see any pests, so what might be causing this If you look really closely on the under-surface of the damaged leaves you will see some tiny little creatures – these are red spider mites, Tetranychus urticae. Unless you have extremely sharp eyesight you will need to use a magnifying glass or hand lens to spot these sap-feeding mites. Despite their common name, for most of the year they are a yellowy green color and only turn reddish-orange in the autumn and winter.
Red spider mites are particularly common on plants growing in greenhouses or conservatories or on anything that you grow as a house plant, because they thrive in hot, dry conditions. Occasionally, in hot summers, you will find them infesting outdoor plants as well. If you look closely at the upper surface of infested leaves, you will see that it is marked by numerous very tiny pinprick-sizes flecks, which mark the points where the mites have been feeding. The webbing you have seen is likely to develop only on plants that are heavily infested. The mites spin the webbing to create ‘ropes’ down which they escape to find new plants, once they have exhausted the food supplies on the original plant.
The Garden Grow In Tree Plants
May 6th
There is a range of trees that are tolerant of both high alkalinity and high acidity, including beech , birch, hawthorn and Swedish whitebeam . Eucryphia x nymansensis will grow to columnar evergreen tree with clusters of pure-white flowers in late summer and early autumn. Another white flowering deciduous tree is the Pacific dogwood with tiny flowers in spring each surrounded by large white bracts, and good autumn leaf colour.
One of my favourite flowering trees is Emboth_rium coccineum, the Chilean fire bush, with dark evergreen leaves and masses of scarlet flowers in late spring and summer. It will grow to iom high and dislikes biting cold winds. Famous for its autumn leaf colour, the sweet gum makes a big tree growing to , but the variety ‘Moonbeam’ is slower-growing, with variegated foliage that turns deep red and yellow in autumn and grows to ram. Magnolia ‘Heaven Scent’ is deciduous, with glossy green leaves, and flowers from mid-spring to early summer with goblet-shaped pink flowers that are white on the inside.
There is no cure available and it sounds as if all your plants are quite badly affected. I’m afraid that all you can do is remove them and dispose of them. If you do this promptly you may be really lucky and find that any remaining, potentially susceptible plants manage to escape infection. I suggest that you change all the soil in the border before you try to grow any more plants in there. When watering, you should also avoid using anything other than mains water. Water in water butts has often become contaminated by just this sort of organism, which is likely to cause either this or damping- off disease, so it is best kept for established plants growing in open ground outside.
The first thing you should do is ensure that you always avoid trying to store any tubers that could have been infected by blight. Blight-infected tubers have somewhat sunken, dark patches on the skin with a reddish- brown discoloration of the flesh beneath. It is usually secondary organisms that cause the rotting and revolting smell, which are likely to occur while the potatoes are in store. It is essential that next year you do not grow potatoes or tomatoes on the same piece of ground, as it is highly likely that the soil will now be full of the motile stage of the fungus responsible.
In some instances when you are looking closely at aphid infestations you may see strange buffish-coloured objects, which look rather like very plump or inflated aphids, clustered in among the living aphids. If you see these you should be careful not to destroy them as they are aphids that have been parasitized by a naturally occurring parasitic wasp and they could, therefore, contain a new developing parasitic wasp that will help to control more aphids. Aphids can be very effectively controlled in much of the garden if sufficient natural predators are available. Support the adult predators by giving them nectar and pollen with large numbers of flowering plants, and give them plants that get their favourite aphids, to build up their numbers vetches and sweet cherries, for example.
The Trailing Plant In Grow
May 3rd
Palm whose leaflets resemble the ragged tails of exotic goldfish, is slightly more difficult to grow, because it needs consistent warmth and greater humidity.I was given a bowl containing five mixed house plants, three of which died and two of which I have removed and potted separately. I would like to replant the bowl, which is 3ocm in diameter and will stand in the light from an east-facing window.
Bowls are a good idea because plants benefit from the moisture being given off by their leaf surfaces and from the moist compost around them. Before repotting, empty the container thoroughly, wash it out, let it dry and then spread a layer of expanded clay pebbles or chunks of polystyrene at least deep in the base. When choosing new plants, remember that they must all like similar conditions of light, watering, and so on. One possible combination might include a maidenhair fern (Adiantum) and a dumb cane as the taller plants. Around them arrange an aluminium plant a dark-green, glossy button fern (Pellaea rotundifolia) and a low-growing prayer plant (Maranta), or leave space for a flowering plant, which can vary according to season This could be a small red-hot cat’s tail (Acalypha hispida), with long red tassels of flowers, a Madagascan periwinkle (Catharanthus roseus), a small gardenia, or anything else that takes your fancy. The main plants can be expected to last for at least two years before the bowl will need remaking.
The first plant that springs to mind is the succulent rosary vine from South Africa, whose trailing pinkish stems will reach great lengths, strung with small, silvered, heart-shaped leaves. This gem is easy to grow and makes small, but exquisitely structured, tubular flowers topped by fuzzy maroon crowns. Another succulent, the string-ofbeads (Senecio rowleyanus), from south-west Africa, is of bizarre appearance. Long, slender stems support spherical succulent leaves. Then there is the lipstick vin, which will love the warm, humid kitchen conditions and good but not direct light. The tumbling stems of foliage are handsome, but clusters of maroon calyces and red, tubular flowers are the real attraction. It is obviously unwise to site any plants near to the surfaces where food is prepared, as dead leaves and so on will fall periodically from even the best-behaved plants.
A Growing Willow House Of The Garden
May 2nd
The plants that you choose for your native hedge will depend on your soil type, and on how you want your hedge to perform. My soil is very free- draining and quite alkaline. In my garden I have therefore used a mix of hawthorn (Crataegus monogyna), native privet (Ligustrum vulgare), guelder rose (Viburnum opulus), wayfaring tree (Viburnum lantana), dogrose (Rosa canina) and field maple (Acer campestre). The guelder rose apparently becomes particularly rampant in moist conditions, but on my dry patch it seems very happy too. Holly (Ilex aquifolium) would have been a good addition too, but it is much slower than all the rest and you would have to make sure that it did not become smothered before it had a chance to make its presence felt. Spindle (Euonymus europaeus), sea buckthorn (Hippophae rhamnoides), alder buckthorn (Rhamnus frangula) and common buckthorn (Rhamnus cathartica) could all be included. All of the plants listed are robust plants and will survive in most conditions. If you examine local hedgerows you can see what thrives best in your area and be guided by that. For moister soils I would include common dogwood (Comus sanguinea), too.
If you want to create a dense and eventually stock-proof fence, whatever soil you are on, then put in a large proportion of hawthorn – in the region of 70 per cent. Even if the hedge does not need to be stock-proof, I tend to plant about 50 per cent hawthorn as it is an excellent, inexpensive filler that will form a good stout backbone. Choose about six other favourites and plant about 5 per cent of each of these to fill the hedge. Plant the shrubs in random groups of variable numbers, to give a good mix to the hedge, but thread the dogrose throughout the hedge, planting it singly so that it laces through the other shrubs.
Plant bare-root plants (except in the case of holly and privet), about 45-60cm ( 1/2-2ft) high, in the dormant season. Bare-root plants will establish better than container-grown ones and are less expensive. Plant in a double staggered row with socm (zoin) between the rows and the same distance between the plants in the rows. Weed control is particularly important in the first three or four years as the competition for moisture can slow down growth spectacularly. If you plant into clean soil – preferably soil that you have left fallow and kept continually free of weeds for two months or so prior to planting – then you are off to a good start. Add a mulch of bark, well-rotted manure, compost or something similar and then its weeding demands on you will be greatly reduced. I do not put rabbit-proof guards on hedges: if the rabbits do nibble the plants over the winter, the plants sprout back, forming much bushier plants. I recommend that even if you do not have rabbit problems you cut all the plants back after planting to about .With all these recommendations there can’t be much space left but, if a gap should appear, plant a couple of scramblers, such as traveller’s joy, also called old man’s beard (Clematis vitalba), and hops (Humulus lupulus).
The Garden Design In Fruit
May 1st
From each side, and join them together by introducing a middle cutting, which will overlap both the side cuttings. Bind them in place. Work your way along the sides, continuing until you get to the end, then commence work on the front. Form the archway for the door by bringing the two willows together that are on either side of the doorway and join them together at the top. Tie the remaining ones for the front to the top and cut off the excess willow. Repeat this for the back.
To make the willow more rigid, weave the horizontals in place. Denser weaving at the base usually gives way to a more open weave at the top, but this is only a suggestion — there are many possible permutations. This horizontal willow will die, as it is not anchored in the ground, but it should still last for several years. Do not use the thick ends for weaving as they are usually difficult to manipulate. Willow is easier to bend if it is soaked overnight prior to weaving, so if you have a problem with it try doing this. Bark chippings are ideal for the floor.
The following spring water the willows in dry periods, to hasten their establishment. When the growth commences, you will find that new shoots grow rapidly, which you can then weave in. By the end of the first season you will probably have to cut a lot of growth back to keep it looking fairly tidy. The next year and subsequent years involve more of the same: weaving in and cutting back. The main cut-back is best carried out in spring.
I would like to establish a native hedge at the bottom of the garden to form a natural-type boundary with the fields beyond.
The more you want maximum yields of perfect fruits, the harder you have to work and the more water is required. If you want trained forms, then you make much more work for yourself than leaving them to grow naturally, but you get much better quality fruits and more variety in the same space. Initially all the different fruit trees and bushes require about the same amount of work to plant them – they all need watering and the weeds controlling under them for the first year – but after that they vary. Trees need staking for that first year, and those on dwarfing stocks will always need stakes to stop them snapping off at the grafting point. Most trees can be left unpruned to little disadvantage, but all the trained forms, such as espaliers, need to be tied onto frames and given regular careful pruning. They almost all benefit from thinning the fruits to prevent overcropping and biennial bearing, but unless trained will get too big to enable this.
Although they may all get attacks from pests or diseases, tree fruits are generally so productive that few problems need much attention. In order of reliable cropping, for least work, I rank apples first, then quinces, plums, pears, hazel nuts and mulberries, though these last get big! Soft bush fruits and vine fruits are even more reliable than tree fruits, but are much more prone to bird damage. Indeed, if you want any at all you need netting, or better still a cage – which is quite an expense and effort to make initially, though no regular attention is needed unless you live in a snowfall area, when you need to remove the net each winter.
Almost all the soft fruits need pruning every year, and if they are trained shapes they will need supports and tying in each year as well, but this is light work done safely at ground level. No thinning is necessary for most soft fruits, though gooseberries and grapes benefit from it. Red-, white- and blackcurrants are without doubt the least work for your effort; raspberries come next; and then the hybrid josta berry.
Are any fruits bird-resistant?
Birds will eat almost all fruits – after all, they are the rightful owners – although they do have their preferences. Cherries, redcurrants, tayberries and strawberries are great favourites; indeed, it is almost worth planting these as sacrificial crops so that the stuffed birds have no room for other fruits! Raspberries, loganberries and blackcurrants soon disappear, but blackberries are so productive that the birds rarely manage to eat the majority. All ripe tree fruits are eaten, but often the unusual ones, such as peaches, are not spotted for several years, then one year all the birds find out about them. Quinces are so hard that the birds leave them until they soften.
