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| Careful
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Last
updated:
25 May 2005 1713 BST
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Gloucestershire's Gardening Guru Reg Moule gets his wellies on to
answer more of your green fingered gripes.
Gardening Questions & Answers for January 2005 |
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 See
also: The Reg Moule Gardening Q&A Archive
See
also: Send in your gardening question for Reg
Moule
JANUARY
QUESTIONS & ANSWERS:
Ms.
T Dandiker from Abbeydale asks:
I would dearly like to grow passion fruit that you can eat! Granidollas?
or the ordinary green/violet passion fruit sold in supermarkets, each
year they simply will not fruit? WHY? please help - (I have managed
to grow the passion fruit flowers sucessfully - so why not the actual
fruit variety - and where can I buy the seeds?) |
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Reg
answers:
Hi Ms. Dandiker,
You
seem to be able to grow the plants successfully if you can get them
to flower, so I think that the problem lies in pollination, which
means getting the pollen from the male parts of the flower on to
the female part. In nature
this is done by various insects, principally bees, but I expect
that you are growing your plants in some sort of protection, e.g.
a greenhouse or conservatory which could be limiting the number
of insects likely to visit
the blooms. If you are not growing the plant indoors you should
be, as they are used to
sub tropical climates free from extremes of both hot and cold temperatures.
High temperatures cause the vines to grow luxuriantly but not to
flower very well while at the other extreme frost kills the plant.
In greenhouse cultivation the minimum temperature on a cold night
should be 13C (55F) and the max. in hot weather should be about
29C (85F). The vines can be housed successfully in large pots for
many years in an 18-24 inch pot, provided that the top 3 inches
or so of compost are replaced annually in spring. It is also important
not to put the young plants straight into large pots but to grow
the seedlings on, first in a 9cm pot and
gradually move them up into larger ones. When the flowers open take
a fluffy artists' paintbrush and lightly "tickle" it around
in the bloom in order to move the pollen on to the female part of
the flower. A reasonably local source of Passiflora edulis is Jungle
Seeds and Gardens, Watlington, Oxford. ()
With Best Wishes,
Reg.
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P
MacGillivray from Morebattle asks:
What direction should my 8"x15" polytunnel be facing? We
live on rather a windy hill but are prepared to put in a living willow
screen to act as a wind break Wind to the side or front/back? |
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Reg
answers:
Hi,
As your site is windy putting in a living screen would be a good
idea as poly tunnels are liable to gale damage, but once you have
yours erected you will soon wonder how you used to manage without
it. Inside an unheated poly tunnel spring comes 6 weeks earlier
and winter arrives 4 weeks later than in the garden outside. Providing
some kind of shelter from cold prevailing winds will also help to
keep temperatures up inside your structure. A windbreak is usually
effective for a distance of 10 times its height. The ideal orientation
for a greenhouse / polythene tunnel is East - West with any tall
rows of cropping plants running North - South. However, as we do
not all garden from books, the actual position where the tunnel
is built is usually a compromise between what is ideal and what
is practical in your garden. Avoid deep shade as this can make a
big difference to how well plants grow at the vital times when the
tunnel gives you greatest benefits i.e winter and early spring.
So make sure there are no overhanging trees. There should be a clear
area of at least 1.2m (4ft) all around the tunnel so that you can
replace the cover reasonably easily. Frost pockets and hollows should
also be avoided whenever possible. If you are going to add services
such as electricity, or more importantly water, try to position
the tunnel reasonably close to the mains. Are you going to grow
crops in the soil in your tunnel? If so soil condition could also
be a factor worthy of some consideration before you decide on the
site. If the soil in the best position is poor I would just build
raised beds, using a mix of imported topsoil and compost. I think
that raised beds are a great way to grow veg. crops anyway.
I hope that this will help you.
With Best Wishes, Reg.
|
Lynda
from Sheffield asks:
My husband bought me a small lemon tree. On the packaging it said
to repot immediately using the compost provided. The next day the
leaves started to drop off, and over the last two weeks 70% of the
tree leaves have fallen. Why? If you could shed some light on this
problem I would be very grateful. P.S. I have fed it with winter food
each week as recommended. |
Reg
answers:
Hi Lynda,
Citrus trees as a group, and lemons in particular, have a habit of
shedding their leaves whenever they become disgruntled. However once
you have put right what is upsetting the plant new growth will soon
appear, so there is no need to cut the shoots back. There are several
possible reasons for this but in your case I would say that it is
due to the plant needing to settle down in its new environment. Firstly
ensure that it has enough humidity by standing the pot on a wide saucer
of moist gravel and misting over the stems with a hand sprayer containing
tepid water at least once a day. Next make sure that you are not over
watering the plant, or on the other hand under watering it either.
What I do is to stick my finger into the compost to the depth of my
nail, then pull it back out and see if the tip of my finger is moist.
If it is the plant is wet enough if it is dry give some water. Bear
in mind that the plants will require less water between October and
March than they will the rest of the year. Keep the plant in good
bright light, as our winters can be dull, especially in houses. Of
course if your plant has the benefit if a conservatory it is probably
OK for light. Another possible reason for leaf loss is a big difference
in day and night temperatures, if you think this might be the case
keep the plant warmer at night by covering it with some bubble insulation
film, but remove it next morning.
I hope that this will help you.
With Best Wishes,
Reg. |
Marion
Hardy from Macclesfield asks:
My mother
has a stephanosis plant (sorry if spelt wrong) which all of a sudden
has lost nearly all of its leaves. The plant must be about 10 years
old and has never been a problem before. Have you any ideas what she
can do? |
Reg
answers:
Hi Marion,
Something must have happened to make the plant drop most of its leaves.
I wonder did they go brown around the edges or did they begin to go
slightly limp and yellow before dropping? I would make sure that the
plant has not been over-watered (this is what would make the leaves
become limp and yellowish) and ensure that it is out of draughts.
It would also be a good ploy to place the pot on a wide saucer of
moist gravel as this would help to build up the humindity around the
foliage - often a problem where plants are kept in centrally heated
rooms - symptoms: browning around the leaf edges before leaf fall.
When we get to late February/ early March try to stimulate the plant
by giving it a feed. Just dilute some natural seaweed fertiliser,
like the
Vitax or Maxicrop one - I would go for the version with added Sequestered
Iron. It's the one in the blue bottle. Give it some about once
a month until late September. If you think that the plant has outgrown
its pot, move it up BY ONE POT SIZE ONLY in mid April.
With Best Wishes,
Reg. |
Sarah
asks:
Please can you tell me how to stop badgers coming into my grandads
garden and ruining his lawn! |
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Reg
answers:
Hi Sarah,
This is a very difficult question to answer with any conviction
that my suggestions will actually work well in practice. Badgers
tend to travel the same paths in order to reach proven good sources
of food and once they have decided to visit a particular garden
it is very hard to dissuade them. So why are the badgers visiting
your Granddad's lawn? I would suggest that they are digging it up
because it is yielding food. Possibly earthworms but I would guess
that it is more likely to be either leatherjackets or the even more
succulent ( if you are a badger) chafer grubs. If the lawn has been
looking a little yellow and grass growth has been poor this is even
more likely to be the case. In order to check this have a bit of
a dig around in the badger holes to see if you can spot either any
dark grey/brown grubs or thick white "C" shaped ones,
which are the chafer grubs. If they are present I'm afraid that
there is nothing that you can do to
control them until next August/September when you could use biological
control nematodes. Two things that you could try to use as badger
repellents are a product called Renardine, available at garden outlets,
while I have known people to have success by sprinkling male human
urine (from bottles) around the spot where the badgers enter the
garden. However, as I wrote earlier, this is no easy solution to
this problem.
With Best Wishes, Reg.
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Jenny
Perris from Tuffley asks:
Hello Reg,
I have bought a holly shrub named Silver Van Tol to try to pollinate
my existing shrub. How far away should I plant it from my existing
holly shrubs?
|
Reg
answers:
Hi Jenny,
As
long as your existing holly is female the pollination should be fine
as Silver Van Thol is hermaphrodite. The planting distance can be
variable, as long as a bee is likely to visit both shrubs during a
single outing from the hive berries should appear. As a guide I would
think a distance of about 4m (13ft) or so should suffice.
With Best Wishes,
Reg. |
David
Limerick from Nottingham asks:
I have
an Acer Osakazuki, just over 7ft high and now in it's 3rd year. It
was originally labelled as a bush but I have gradually pruned out
lower growth to train it into a small tree. The tree did suffer from
leaf scorch last back end (I assume) but gradually since then approx
50% of the bark on the wood has turned black. I have been unable to
identify what the problem is, either from books or the internet. I
would hate to lose the tree, can you please help me? |
Reg
answers:
Hi David,
I think that the first thing to do is to find out if the portion of
tree that is immediately under the black bark is dead. You do this
by lightly
scraping back a small section of the black bark, using either your
fingernail or the blade of a knife. Now take a look at the tissue
that you have you have exposed by the bark
removal. Is it:
1. Fresh, green and moist - in which case it is alive or
2. Brown, dry and brittle - in which case the wood is dead.
If the wood is still alive and particularly if the black areas of
the bark appear to have been dusted with soot and may also be slightly
sticky, this indicates that the tree is probably suffering from an
attack by scale insects. These live on the bark and suck sap from
the tree but as they cannot digest all the sugary sap some of it is
simply excreted on to the bark where the black fungus, sooty mould,
grows on it. If this is the case spray the affected areas with Bio
Provado Ultimate Big
Killer, a systemic insecticide that travels around in the sap of the
plant for several weeks and is taken in by the feeding scale insects.
This is likely to be more effective once the sap is rising again.
I'm afraid that if the areas under the bark are brown and dead then
the only option is to prune out these dead areas and try to establish
why this has happened.
The most likely ones being:
The plant has become too dry.
The plant has become waterlogged.
The roots have been attacked by a root rotting fungus, such as phytopthora
- in which case there is no treatment available for amateur gardeners.
If the dead areas are mostly at the tips of the plant or only a few
stems are affected - this could be due to a fungal infection that
blocks the food and water conducting tissue causing the area above
the blockage to die. The best remedy here is to simply prune out the
dead section of stem cutting back into healthy tissue. This should
remove the problem and the new growth should be healthy.
With Best Wishes,
Reg. |
See
also: The latest
Reg Moule Gardening Q&A page
See
also: Send in your gardening question for
Reg Moule
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