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Source: (consider it)
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Thread: Glory heere, Diggers all: gardening 2012
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Ariel
Shipmate
# 58
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Posted
Somehow the slugs (we think) have got into our vegetable plot, which is actually a raised bed in a wooden frame surrounded by stones and gravel. Either way, the bean leaves look like green doilies, the pea leaves are frilly, the young courgette leaves have been mostly eaten, and chances of recovery look slim while this is going on.
The people who share the plot with me are reluctant to put down actual pesticide, but we need to deal with slugs efficiently. Any suggestions? In this weather salt is unlikely to stay around for long.
Posts: 25445 | Registered: May 2001
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Firenze
Ordinary decent pagan
# 619
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Posted
I have some virtuous organic slug barrier stuff which I'll put down when I have some leaves to protect. I only planted the peas and courgettes the other day, and I've still to dig over the last 10 % of the patch for salads.
I feel I'm in a kind of horticultural phoney war, waiting for the Spring offensive: neither weeds nor pests have really put in an appearance yet.
Though I did have a giant cactus hit me on the head today, as I was trying to wheedle its pot on to a new base.
Posts: 17302 | From: Edinburgh | Registered: Jun 2001
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QLib
Bad Example
# 43
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Posted
I planted out flat-leaf parsley the other day, and within 48 hours, it was just stalks. Slimy little bastards. ![[Mad]](angryfire.gif)
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Tradition is the handing down of the flame, not the worship of the ashes Gustav Mahler.
Posts: 8913 | From: Page 28 | Registered: May 2001
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Moo
Ship's tough old bird
# 107
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Posted
This is something I recently heard of but have not tried. You scatter coffee grounds around where the slugs are. Please let me know if it works. I don't have a problem at the moment.
Moo
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Kerygmania host
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See you later, alligator.
Posts: 20365 | From: Alleghany Mountains of Virginia | Registered: May 2001
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Ariston
Insane Unicorn
# 10894
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Posted
For the love of all things green, don't put salt anywhere near your plants! Slug salting is a "hunt and destroy" strategy, and, well, salting the earth is a good way to make sure nothing ever grows there again.
Vigilance and a salt shaker may be your best options. Some people try eggshells around their plants (sharp edges and all that) while others swear that a pan filled with beer sunk into the ground level with the surface will trap the slimy bastards. I've heard doubts about both (apparently the latter strategy is good in theory, hard to execute in practice), but I suppose they're worth a shot.
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“Therefore, let it be explained that nowhere are the proprieties quite so strictly enforced as in men’s colleges that invite young women guests, especially over-night visitors in the fraternity houses.” Emily Post, 1937.
Posts: 6849 | From: The People's Republic of Balcones | Registered: Jan 2006
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Ariel
Shipmate
# 58
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Posted
Thanks, all. We already decided not to go down the salt route, partly because it's been raining pretty hard here, but also because we don't want it affecting the plants, and because I once tried that in sunnier days and it's a cruel and horrible way of getting rid of them, especially on the larger ones. I like the idea of coffee grounds, we can do that easily enough and it's bio-degradable, so thanks for that suggestion, Moo, we'll give that a go - but if anyone has any other ideas do say.
Someone suggested leaving half a hollowed out grapefruit on the ground - apparently they like to congregate underneath one, then they can be scooped up and relocated/disposed of, but I'm not convinced about this.
Posts: 25445 | Registered: May 2001
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Ferijen
Shipmate
# 4719
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Posted
You can buy - or custom make - beer traps, which slugs will fall into and die happy.
Posts: 3259 | From: UK | Registered: Jul 2003
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Chamois
Shipmate
# 16204
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Posted
I recommend going out first thing in the morning, picking the slugs off the leaves by hand, putting them down on a paving stone and stamping on them.
It protected my beans last year. And it's totally organic. If a bit messy.
In this wet weather you might have to go out in the evening as well.
Incidentally, other slugs eat dead slugs, so about half an hour after a stamping session is a good time to go out and catch some more of the little b*****s in the act.
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The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases
Posts: 978 | From: Hill of roses | Registered: Feb 2011
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Beethoven
Ship's deaf genius
# 114
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Posted
I have heard that slugs and snails will not crawl over copper - it's supposed to give them a shock, or something, IIRC. A few years back I got fed up with removing the slimy things from the rabbits's food bowls in their hutch, so bought some copper tape which I wrapped around the hutch legs. Never had another snail in there. However, attaching this to a raised bed mightn't be quite so easy!
At the moment I'm wondering how well sweet peas swim. Mr Beethoven bought a couple of half-barrels which he then planted up - but neglected to drill drainage holes first. With the amount of rain we've had since planting them, they're so far beyond waterlogged that there's actually a couple of centimetres of water standing above the soil level! I've tipped out what I can a couple of times, but I'm not optimistic that the plants will survive...
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Who wants to be a rock anyway?
toujours gai!
Posts: 1309 | From: Here (and occasionally there) | Registered: May 2001
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Sandemaniac
Shipmate
# 12829
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Posted
The Leopard Slug* has the advantage of being omnivorous, and preying on other slugs - not to mention having the most incredible mating habits.
AG
* You gotta love a Wikipedia page with drawings of slug's willies on.
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"It becomes soon pleasantly apparent that change-ringing is by no means merely an excuse for beer" Charles Dickens gets it wrong, 1869
Posts: 3574 | From: The wardrobe of my soul | Registered: Jul 2007
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Flausa
Mad Woman
# 3466
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Posted
I was discussing slug control with another shippie yesterday, and he's apparently had brilliant success with homemade beer traps. He did mention that you have to regularly empty the traps of dead bodies which I'm not sure I'm up to just yet. He said last year he had to lay a trap for every 4 lettuce plants, but none of the lettuce plants were touched. He's also gone for the copper tape around his raised beds this year, and I'll be curious to see how that works out. I'm thinking of just growing all my veg in containers that are well off the ground. I've also put a bird feeder in my back garden which has subsequently attracted starlings who've been feasting on sluggy bodies as well. Though attracting more birds means I'll have to work on protecting the fruit bushes and trees should they decide to produce.
My other thought is investing in a good greenhouse to 1) protect from nasty slugs, 2) encourage a longer growing period, and less work on trying to get things to grow in clay. Currently I have a host of plants growing in our sun room quite happily, but I can't keep them in there forever! And I have planted pretty much everything I could get my hands on this year ... aubergines, beans, carrots, courgettes, dill, tomatoes, onions, peppers, peas, 3 varieties of pumpkins, nasturtiums, sunflowers, and sweetcorn. We've also planted a host of fruit bushes and some dwarf fruit trees. I'm hoping that I won't just be feeding the slugs and birds this year!
[ 13. May 2012, 07:27: Message edited by: Flausa ]
Posts: 4610 | From: bonny Scotland | Registered: Oct 2002
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Scots lass
Shipmate
# 2699
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Posted
I'm not much of a gardener, but I decided to plant some things in pots on our (sizeable, 1st floor) balcony and opted for sunflower seeds. The squirrels ate them. I re-planted. The little buggers did it again. Does anyone have any suggestions for how to stop them doing it if I re-plant a third time, or should I just give up on sunflowers?
Posts: 863 | From: the diaspora | Registered: Apr 2002
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Firenze
Ordinary decent pagan
# 619
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Posted
Netting? Chicken wire? Or even a couple of layers of clingfilm (has the advantage of greenhousing the seeds/shoots)? Top dressing of chili powder?
Posts: 17302 | From: Edinburgh | Registered: Jun 2001
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Moo
Ship's tough old bird
# 107
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Posted
Something dug up a peony I planted this spring. I got another one and planted it with wire mesh around it and a lot of bamboo skewers sticking up.
I think perhaps the bamboo skewers alone would have done the job, which would have saved me some work.
Moo
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Kerygmania host
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See you later, alligator.
Posts: 20365 | From: Alleghany Mountains of Virginia | Registered: May 2001
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Jemima the 9th
Shipmate
# 15106
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by AristonAstuanax:
For the love of all things green, don't put salt anywhere near your plants!
Aha! Thank you. I wondered if this is one of the reasons we had such a bad year last year. Well, that and the lack of sunshine, and trying to grow the same vegetables in the same place year after year...Tut tut.
We've certainly had some success using coffee grounds as slug repellants. A couple of years ago one of the high street coffee market chains was giving away their grounds for the purpose, which was good for us as we don't drink much coffee. Tended to make the back garden smell interesting though... We've also had some success with beer traps, though I loathe emptying them, and copper tape round pots. We suffer more with snails than with slugs, though. They get picked off & lobbed over the garden wall.
Posts: 801 | From: UK | Registered: Sep 2009
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Ariel
Shipmate
# 58
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Posted
Slug pellets are down - no sign of any dead slugs yet but let's see what happens. The plants we put in at the start of this week look terrible - ragged and diseased with leaves dying off already, and I've put translucent plastic cups over the smaller seedlings but combination of frost and too much rain isn't helping.
And this evening when I passed by on my way home, I saw a monstrous crow in the next plot, which makes me think that it may have been responsible for having a go at the pumpkin plant with its pretty orange flowers, as I found the plant snapped off and drifting loosely round the topsoil.
It's an uphill battle this year to grow anything other than onions and spinach. Three years ago we had the most fertile allotment anyone could wish for, this year it's as if it's been cursed. Do we just keep on replanting? It seems cruel under these conditions when a plant will be dead in 3-4 days.
Posts: 25445 | Registered: May 2001
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daisydaisy
Shipmate
# 12167
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Posted
Thanks for the tip about salt - I was just about to plant my 2nd attempt at sprouts this year, this time with a liberal helping of salt, but instead I'll try beer, eggshells (I've been saving them up for several years now - baking them so they last) & maybe coffee grounds too.
My allotment is so unpromising this year that I am half wondering about paving it over - not sure the rules allow that though ![[Razz]](tongue.gif)
Posts: 3184 | From: southern uk | Registered: Dec 2006
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Steve H
Shipmate
# 17102
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Posted
Organically-approved slug pellets exist, as well.
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Hold to Christ, and for the rest, be totally uncommitted.
Herbert Butterfield.
Posts: 439 | From: Hemel Hempstead, Herts | Registered: May 2012
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Ariel
Shipmate
# 58
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Posted
We have those. The rain seems to have stopped for the time being, but if it resumes I'm turning the allotment into a rice paddy and planting water chestnuts round the side.
Posts: 25445 | Registered: May 2001
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daisydaisy
Shipmate
# 12167
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Steve H:
Organically-approved slug pellets exist, as well.
I've tried those but they didn't make much difference, and seemed to dissolve rather quickly in the rain.
It's a shame there isn't much one can do with beer-marinated slugs.
Posts: 3184 | From: southern uk | Registered: Dec 2006
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Sandemaniac
Shipmate
# 12829
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Posted
Gardening Which seemed to reckon that the organic pellets (based on one of the iron sulphates, IIRC) worked as well as the rest. I think the difference is that the slugs crawl off and die elsewhere, rather than undergoing a slimy supernova on the spot as they do with metaldehyde.
They don't last very long, though, you are quite right there!
AG
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"It becomes soon pleasantly apparent that change-ringing is by no means merely an excuse for beer" Charles Dickens gets it wrong, 1869
Posts: 3574 | From: The wardrobe of my soul | Registered: Jul 2007
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Photo Geek
Shipmate
# 9757
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Posted
My tomato plants are finally in the ground. ![[Yipee]](graemlins/spin.gif) I planted 2 each of Brandy Boy, Momotaro, Champion II, and 1 each of Sungold, Homesweet, Fire Works, Moskovich, Siberian, Bucks County and Ultimate Opener.
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"Liberal Christian" is not an oxymoron.
Posts: 242 | From: Southern Ohio, US | Registered: Jul 2005
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joan knox
Knoxy is my homeboy
# 16100
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Posted
*sits on rocking chair chewing tobacco and knittin'*
weeeell, lemme tell you, yesirree, I was there in the good burgh of Edin the year of the great May storm of 2012... reckon as I recall the winds were so strong that they not only picked up and threw around the rare lesser spotted haggis running freely over Arthur's Seat...my oh my, they even had tourists clingin' horizontal-like to the railings by the Scott Monument. Why, I heard tell of an entire coachload of 'mericans who were headed to Glasgy, but were blown clear 'cross the country to Aberdeen...
*continues rocking and reminiscing*
Hmmm, gardening... so this time last year the big storm hit and with it went my greenhouse as was. This year, I am being less ambitious: cultivating yellow scallopini in tubs inside at the moment. Tumbling toms are outside, carrots sorted, and that is pretty much it on the veg front. Pathetic.
I've also heard that copper bands are the way forward with the slugs, so am trying them this year to see.
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Jesus saves, Allah protects, Buddha enlightens, Cthulhu thinks you'll make a nice sandwich
Posts: 906 | From: edinburgh | Registered: Dec 2010
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daisydaisy
Shipmate
# 12167
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Posted
Just off to put in my 2nd attempt at brassica, and maybe some beans..... with handfuls of organic slug pellets.
Posts: 3184 | From: southern uk | Registered: Dec 2006
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Jack the Lass
Ship's airhead
# 3415
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Posted
We got back today to find a slug trail indoors near the kitchen door (*shudder*). We have different theories about where it came from, but have declared war on the slimy bastards in any case. The copper wire is in the post, and I will have a look out for the organic pellets. Though given the amount of the wet stuff up here that might not be the way to go.
In other (much better) news, next week we are viewing a potential allotment site. We are quite far down the official list, but as the list is so big they have decided to open up some more ground for smaller plots. It will apparently need a lot of work - if we get to the top of the list and bag a regular allotment it will probably be reasonably well and recently worked-over (but we won't get one of those for a good few years probably); this land is old allotments which haven't been worked for 30-odd years, so it would probably take a year of digging before we could even think about growing anything. But I'm quite hopeful at the prospect.
I've planted a handful of dwarf beans, and will put them in the front garden. I finally got round to doing some weeding, so we now have somewhere we can put them ![[Smile]](smile.gif)
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"My body is a temple - it's big and doesn't move." (Jo Brand)
wiblog blipfoto blog
Posts: 5767 | From: the land of the deep-fried Mars Bar | Registered: Oct 2002
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Firenze
Ordinary decent pagan
# 619
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by joan knox:
.. so this time last year the big storm hit and with it went my greenhouse as was.
The wind-tattered remains of my greenhouse were finally finished off by the tree falling on them in the January storm. My strategy for this year is mini houses designed to fit over a grow bag. The forecast for next week is that temperatures might actually achieve double figures and stay there, so I may look about for seedlings to start up.
Posts: 17302 | From: Edinburgh | Registered: Jun 2001
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Chamois
Shipmate
# 16204
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Posted
All the perennials in my garden are growing well (especially the rhubarb) but the only seeds doing anything much are some broad beans. I'm trying leeks this year, they've been in for a month now and all I've got are a few tiny thin threads of green about two inches long. Does anyone know if this is usual for leeks? Should I have started them off in a cold frame? They're in good soil in a sunny position.
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The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases
Posts: 978 | From: Hill of roses | Registered: Feb 2011
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Nenya
Shipmate
# 16427
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Posted
I'm peeping shyly into this thread hoping for inspiration. I'm an armchair gardener - I read all the books, I watch all the programmes, I just don't get out there and do it. ![[Roll Eyes]](rolleyes.gif) But I'd love to catch the gardening bug (and I don't mean slugs although they are a pest... I tried the beer traps once... they loved them and died happy but dealing with the traps afterwards with dead slugs in them was ![[Projectile]](graemlins/puke2.gif) ), I love a pretty garden and it's got to be good to be outdoors at times... I just wish I was better at it and knew more about it...
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They told me I was delusional. I nearly fell off my unicorn.
Posts: 1289 | Registered: May 2011
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jedijudy
Organist of the Jedi Temple
# 333
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Posted
I am pleased and proud as punch to announce that one of my two grapevines has buds on it! It was a close thing as to whether it even survived the winter...or whatever that strange season that we had here was.
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Jasmine, little cat with a big heart.
Posts: 18017 | From: 'Twixt the 'Glades and the Gulf | Registered: Aug 2001
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Sandemaniac
Shipmate
# 12829
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Posted
Chamois, assuming you are in the UK, with the weather we've had I think your leeks are probably pretty normal.
I've got Birds at the moment, and I'm not impressed. Despite our open situation it's unusual to get bird damage, but it seems to be all or nothing - some years nothing, others the lot goes. My second sowing broad beans were just coming up nicely, and every one has been pulled up and flung to the side, my caulis have been skeletonized, and my poor few beetroot seedlings that have struggled to the surface are all looking distinctly munched. Ho hum, all part of life's rich tapestry...
AG
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"It becomes soon pleasantly apparent that change-ringing is by no means merely an excuse for beer" Charles Dickens gets it wrong, 1869
Posts: 3574 | From: The wardrobe of my soul | Registered: Jul 2007
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daisydaisy
Shipmate
# 12167
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Chamois:
All the perennials in my garden are growing well (especially the rhubarb) but the only seeds doing anything much are some broad beans. I'm trying leeks this year, they've been in for a month now and all I've got are a few tiny thin threads of green about two inches long. Does anyone know if this is usual for leeks? Should I have started them off in a cold frame? They're in good soil in a sunny position.
A cold frame might not have made much difference - my leeks look a lot like the description of yours. This year everything is slow and late, or simply not starting a all. Not just for us amateurs but for farmers too, I am told.
Posts: 3184 | From: southern uk | Registered: Dec 2006
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Chamois
Shipmate
# 16204
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Posted
Sandemaniac and daisydaisy
Thanks for the reassurance about my leek seedlings, I was wondering what I'd done wrong. It's supposed to get warmer this week so I just hope that gets them growing.
Sandemaniac, I'm sorry you've got Birds. I've got Foxes. The local vixen has 3 cubs this year and they are romping in my garden every night and flattening my plants. The b*******s haven't started digging yet but I know it's only a matter of time. Last year's cubs dug up my potatoes. I'm not growing potatoes this year but I'm sure they'll find something else to destroy.
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The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases
Posts: 978 | From: Hill of roses | Registered: Feb 2011
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Firenze
Ordinary decent pagan
# 619
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Nenya:
I'm peeping shyly into this thread hoping for inspiration. I'm an armchair gardener - I read all the books, I watch all the programmes, I just don't get out there and do it. .
Not too late. Buy bedding plants, which are cheap, but will give you a summer's worth of colour in borders and tubs. Stick in a few things that will bat year after year with little attention - the ones that work for me are cranesbill geranium (rather too well if anything), monbretia, lemon verbena, lavender, aquilegia (which arrived of itself) and heuchera.
I know sod all (so to speak) about gardening, but plants are pretty damn eager to grow.
Posts: 17302 | From: Edinburgh | Registered: Jun 2001
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Graven Image
Shipmate
# 8755
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Posted
This is my first garden since lining the planting beds with fine chicken wire last fall. So far not a single gopher. I have beat you little fuzzy plant eaters.
Posts: 2641 | From: Third planet from the sun. USA | Registered: Nov 2004
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Ariston
Insane Unicorn
# 10894
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Posted
You really shouldn't have said that out loud. They're just plotting. Waiting. Biding their time.
There is no defeating gophers.
[ 20. May 2012, 18:33: Message edited by: AristonAstuanax ]
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“Therefore, let it be explained that nowhere are the proprieties quite so strictly enforced as in men’s colleges that invite young women guests, especially over-night visitors in the fraternity houses.” Emily Post, 1937.
Posts: 6849 | From: The People's Republic of Balcones | Registered: Jan 2006
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daisydaisy
Shipmate
# 12167
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Firenze:
..... Stick in a few things that will bat year after year with little attention - the ones that work for me are cranesbill geranium (rather too well if anything), monbretia, lemon verbena, lavender, aquilegia (which arrived of itself)
They're all my favourites and are reliable year after year. I'd add alchemilla mollis (lady's mantle) and foxglove. Early in the winter you can cut back everything that looks dead and it'll come back next year.
Thugs to avoid (unless you've got plenty of room) are Japanese anemones (windflowers), ivy and passion vines. I put all these in as a novice and 20 yrs on now realise I'll have to move if I want to have a garden free of them!
Posts: 3184 | From: southern uk | Registered: Dec 2006
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Marvin the Martian
Interplanetary
# 4360
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Posted
Horsetail is the bane of my life right now. It doesn't help that the only certain way to achieve a garden without the stuff is to move to a new house, ideally a long way away ![[Frown]](frown.gif) . Even roundup doesn't kill the whole plant.
The bluebells are looking nice though.
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Hail Gallaxhar
Posts: 30100 | From: Adrift on a sea of surreality | Registered: Apr 2003
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Steve H
Shipmate
# 17102
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
Horsetail is the bane of my life right now. It doesn't help that the only certain way to achieve a garden without the stuff is to move to a new house, ideally a long way away . Even roundup doesn't kill the whole plant.
Click here.
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Hold to Christ, and for the rest, be totally uncommitted.
Herbert Butterfield.
Posts: 439 | From: Hemel Hempstead, Herts | Registered: May 2012
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daisydaisy
Shipmate
# 12167
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Steve H:
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
Horsetail is the bane of my life right now. It doesn't help that the only certain way to achieve a garden without the stuff is to move to a new house, ideally a long way away . Even roundup doesn't kill the whole plant.
Click here.
Wouldn't it be great if "click here" could eradicate horsetail. Meanwhile maybe we need a dinosaur to graze it.
Posts: 3184 | From: southern uk | Registered: Dec 2006
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Miffy
Ship's elephant
# 1438
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Posted
I've a crack in my butt! ![[Biased]](wink.gif)
I was going to blog this but hadn't the nerve with a post title like that!
Yes, really. We've been trying to do the green thing these last couple of years. When we couldn't get water out of the rainbutt last summer we just assumed it'd evaporated. I checked today - not a sausage...A few minutes and a couple of watering cans full run through the guttering later we discovered cracks round the base of the container. All our precious water has been leaking out into the earth. Back to the drawing board then....or Homebase.
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"I don't feel like smiling." "You're English dear; fake it!" (Colin Firth "Easy Virtue")
Growing Greenpatches
Posts: 4739 | From: The Kitchen | Registered: Oct 2001
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Steve H
Shipmate
# 17102
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Posted
Went to the lotty today. Didn't need to do any watering - did loads on Sunday and the beds were still damp. I created a new compost ridge, my second. A few weeks ago, I was making a compost heap outside the back of the polytunnel, when I had the bright idea of making it inside the tunnel instead. There are eight deep beds in the tunnel - four on each side of the central path - with six sunken paths between them, and four at either end, sunken because all the topsoil from them went onto the deep beds. I decided to put all the compost material into one of the sunken paths, and heap it up as high as possible. The pt gets pretty warm inside, even without doors, so that'd help the heating up, and I could control the moisture too. Of course, it meant one-side-only access to the two deep beds on either side, but they're narrow enough to reach across all the way from the other side, at a pinch. Anyway, the first one rotted down very quickly, because the material was too sappy (I knew that when building it, but went ahead because even a too-sappy heap is a lot better than nothing). That one is now at the cold-composting stage. The new one, opposite, is, I think, somewhat better balanced between 'browns' and 'greens'.
While I was there, I also earthed up the spuds, which are outside the tunnel.
On Sunday, when I went previously, I took with me a big bag full of well-rotted compost from my garden bins, and mulched the beans (French and Runner) and Pumpkins. Things are finally starting to grow, after the delay caused by the miserable April and early May. Hopefully, they'll catch up, and today's beautiful weather is not just a one-off.
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Hold to Christ, and for the rest, be totally uncommitted.
Herbert Butterfield.
Posts: 439 | From: Hemel Hempstead, Herts | Registered: May 2012
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Ariel
Shipmate
# 58
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Posted
Our allotment is no longer a problem - most of the replacement plants are now dead. But the tomatoes, six of the runner beans and the last remaining courgette may just about pull through.
It's been so disheartening growing beautiful, healthy replacements, putting them into the ground, and seeing them dead within 3-4 days. I'm wondering if we should make a fourth attempt and try to get another lot in, but it may be too late to start growing things from seed yet again.
Posts: 25445 | Registered: May 2001
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Steve H
Shipmate
# 17102
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Ariel:
Our allotment is no longer a problem - most of the replacement plants are now dead. But the tomatoes, six of the runner beans and the last remaining courgette may just about pull through.
It's been so disheartening growing beautiful, healthy replacements, putting them into the ground, and seeing them dead within 3-4 days. I'm wondering if we should make a fourth attempt and try to get another lot in, but it may be too late to start growing things from seed yet again.
You might be in time with peas, runner and French beans, and the gourd family (courgettes, pumpkins, etc). Also, brassicas (cabbage tribe): there are varieties suitable for sowing at all sorts of times.
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Hold to Christ, and for the rest, be totally uncommitted.
Herbert Butterfield.
Posts: 439 | From: Hemel Hempstead, Herts | Registered: May 2012
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Graven Image
Shipmate
# 8755
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Posted
My Japanese Maple tree has a number of small dead branches near the top. Leaves brown and curled. Any ideas? I have removed all the dead wood but wonder what the cause might be. Someone told me it was not enough water in our very hot summers. We had plenty of water this winter, and as we are in May it has yet to get to the high summer heat.
Posts: 2641 | From: Third planet from the sun. USA | Registered: Nov 2004
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Firenze
Ordinary decent pagan
# 619
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Ariel:
Our allotment is no longer a problem - most of the replacement plants are now dead.
Is it the varieties? I see the first rosettes of Orla and Kestrel that I put in 4 weeks ago - Irish and Scottish potatoes respectively, so perhaps bred up to cold and sodden conditions.
The bedding plants are still looking pretty frightened, and I can't anything where I've sewn flower seed that doesn't look like nascent chickweed.
Posts: 17302 | From: Edinburgh | Registered: Jun 2001
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Ariston
Insane Unicorn
# 10894
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Graven Image:
My Japanese Maple tree has a number of small dead branches near the top. Leaves brown and curled. Any ideas? I have removed all the dead wood but wonder what the cause might be. Someone told me it was not enough water in our very hot summers. We had plenty of water this winter, and as we are in May it has yet to get to the high summer heat.
The top is a bit odd (I'd say water—you'd be surprised how much trees, especially ones from wet Asian lands, require), but iron or nitrogen deficiency would be my first guesses. Is there any yellowing of the leaves, or whatever other symptom red Japanese maples have? That's your first clue to iron or nitrogen problems, but especially the former.
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“Therefore, let it be explained that nowhere are the proprieties quite so strictly enforced as in men’s colleges that invite young women guests, especially over-night visitors in the fraternity houses.” Emily Post, 1937.
Posts: 6849 | From: The People's Republic of Balcones | Registered: Jan 2006
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W Hyatt
Shipmate
# 14250
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Posted
I had a somewhat similar problem two years ago with a mature, healthy Japanese Maple where half of it died suddenly one year. I was also talking recently with a colleague who had problems with the tops of his Maple trees dying so I googled "maple tree problems dead branches at top" and came up with several links about girdling roots and about verticillium, including this one that included the following:
quote:
Dig down and check to see if there are girdling roots.
Also look to see if it is verticilium wilt. Both problems will cause the tree to die from the top down.
I think my problem was probably verticillium.
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A new church and a new earth, with Spiritual Insights for Everyday Life.
Posts: 1565 | From: U.S.A. | Registered: Nov 2008
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Ariel
Shipmate
# 58
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Steve H:
You might be in time with peas, runner and French beans, and the gourd family (courgettes, pumpkins, etc). Also, brassicas (cabbage tribe): there are varieties suitable for sowing at all sorts of times.
Well, I suppose so, but we've already put in two lots of peas, three lots of beans and a succession of pumpkins, courgettes and squashes over the past four weeks. I don't know whether it's the variety; I might see if there are any seedlings left on sale at the Saturday market.
Posts: 25445 | Registered: May 2001
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Steve H
Shipmate
# 17102
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Posted
Patience, dear heart: we're only just starting to get the sort of weather we ought to be getting at this time of year. Hopefully, all the plants which have been languishing for weeks will start to flourish. My poor tommys are still tiny, even though I started them very early this year. I'm hoping that a week or two in the polytunnel with decent weather will enable them to catch up.
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Hold to Christ, and for the rest, be totally uncommitted.
Herbert Butterfield.
Posts: 439 | From: Hemel Hempstead, Herts | Registered: May 2012
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