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| Go greener |
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| With a growing number of gardeners eschewing chemicals in favour of natural alternatives, we can suggest some effective products from our organic gardening selection |
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| Relax and refresh |
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| Good food freshly prepared daily, aromatic coffee, chilled wine and a grassy play area for the children. What more could you need? |
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| Our Farm Shop is heaven for food lovers! Delicious handmade food, top quality groceries, fresh fruit and vegetables and stylish cookware and gifts. |
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| The Discovery Walk |
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| As thousands of daffodils herald the spring, stroll or stride around our Walk while the youngsters enjoy the Nature Trail |
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Pesky pests and debilitating diseases…
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| Thursday, 5th June 2008 |
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IN THE GARDEN WITH PETA MARSHALL
If there is one thing in gardening that is guaranteed to get my nostrils flaring and my hackles (whatever they are) rising, it’s the dreaded ‘P & D’ phenomenon. Pests and diseases!
Plants can get eaten, chewed and gnawed. They can get attacked by spots, rusts and mildews. Leaves can drop, buds can rot and flowers can fail to open properly.
There is a seemingly never-ending range of foes and woes and, considering the amount of money, time and energy spent on our gardens, it makes me so angry to think that some little blighter (literally) will come along, ruin my hard work and, possibly, damage my plants in such a way that they either fail to develop properly, or that they are killed off completely.
So, as gardeners, we owe it to ourselves to do what we can to protect our plants. Pest and disease control is, after all, as much a part of gardening as planting, propagating and pruning.
And it is now, in mid- to late spring, when the majority of foes are being most aggressive through their feeding and breeding.
Before I go any further though, I have to mention the ‘O’ word. It gets a great many fervent supporters hot under the collar. Of course, I’m talking about ‘organic’.
True organic gardeners would no more contemplate using chemicals to control pests and diseases than, well, fly to the moon. Other supporters of the organic movement – and Alan Titchmarsh himself has admitted to this – will do most of their gardening organically, but they will occasionally use chemicals when it is absolutely necessary (such as when there is no organic option available, or when it is perceived as appropriate to the long-term organic good of the garden). Alan has claimed that he sometimes uses RoundUp weedkiller to clear a plot, in order to make it workable, so that it can then be used to grow organic crops.
Anyway, what are the problems facing our gardens and our plants right now? Well, there are hundreds (possibly thousands) of pest species and disease pathogens to which our plants are exposed, and a whole year of articles in The Guide would be needed to cover just a few of them.
However, apart from slugs, snails, rabbits and deer, the following five rank, for me, as some of the worst offenders.
1. Black spot This is a condition affecting roses (through a fungus) and many other plants (through bacterial infection). You can use a fungicide on roses in the early part of the year to prevent the disease from occurring, but with most other plants there is no real cure for leaf spot. Removal of the leaves and burning them can help to reduce the spread of the disease.
2. Rust A fungal disease that affects roses, pelargoniums, antirrhinums, hollyhocks, irises, leeks and a host of others. Masses of tiny orange spots appear on the leaves and sap the plant’s strength. In most cases there are fungicides to help the control; in the case of leeks remove affected leaves, at planting time apply sulphate of potash (to harden the plants). If you have had trouble in the past, use rust-resistant varieties such as ‘Neptune’ and ‘Apollo’.
3. Mildew A fungal disease that affects many plants, from roses, apple trees and gooseberries, through to begonias, asters and hundreds of others. There are fungicides available, but remember that the disease usually affects plants that are being stressed in some way: this could be as a result of dryness, lack of nutrition or through some other check to growth.
4. Caterpillars These are arguably the worst group of pests, as there are so many different types affecting so many different types of plants. And many of them are invisible under ground, or which have buried themselves deep into stems, fruits or buds. A caterpillar is the larval stage of many types of insect…flies, moths and butterflies mainly. Some of the worst offenders are the sawfly, winter moth, vapourer moth, cabbage moth, elephant hawk moth, lackey moth, but there are many other grubs and larvae that do damage. There are chemicals available to kill the caterpillars.
5. Aphids These are greenfly and blackfly. They infest buds and young shoots of many different types of plant, and they suck the sap. Bad infestations will cause plants to be disfigured (and in some cases die), and the insects are known for spreading viruses from plant to plant. There are plenty of chemical controls available.
One customer at the garden centre once said to me: “With all these problems, I sometimes wonder why we bother with our gardens at all.”
I answered this, and I say to you now, that it is not difficult keeping a garden healthy, and the enjoyment and pleasure you get from it when it is in top form is inestimable. But what IS difficult is contemplating life without plants around you. Unthinkable! Happy gardening!
Biological control
This is the organically approved way to control many types of plant pests.
Aphids can be controlled by releasing a predatory midge or a tiny parasitic wasp (harmless to humans).
Whitefly can be controlled by a similar parasitic wasp.
Vine weevil, chafer grubs, leatherjackets and slugs can be controlled by pathogenic nematodes that infects their hosts with a fatal disease.
Mealybugs can be controlled by a predatory ladybird beetle.
Red spider mites and fungus gnats can be controlled by predatory mites.
Boxes containing vouchers are bought from the garden centre; send the vouchers off and the suppliers send you live mites for distributing around your plants or for applying to the soil. Couldn’t be easier!
This week in your garden
Prune deutzia and other May-flowering shrubs when the blooms fade. Also prune Clematis montana (if it needs to be controlled) when flowers die.
Feed aubergines, capsicums and cucumbers twice weekly with a high-potash fertiliser when fruits start to swell.
Sow spring-flowering biennials, such as wallflowers, forget-me-nots, sweet Williams, Canterbury bells and double daisies in shallow drills in an out-of-the-way bed in a sunny spot.
Peta Marshall is the plant centre manager at Priory Farm in Nutfield. Website: www.prioryfarm.co.uk
NEXT WEEK: Gooseberries and currants
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