Confessions…

September 2021

I‘ve never made any secret of my mixed feelings about social media platforms and the damage that their endless stream of picture-perfect photos and stories of seemingly perfect lives can have on our well-being. Now with the recent negative publicity about Instagram and Facebook this seems to be undeniable. 

So, in scraping around to find anything good to post this month I feel I have to come clean and admit that the garden is looking disappointing. Possibly you will find this cheering - no fake news here:-)

I’ve had little time for gardening and it shows. Wisteria vines are rapidly winding their way up into a nearby tree, bulbs are still waiting to be planted and shrubs need pruning. Leaves of a cloud-pruned viburnum are riddled with holes made by insects as yet unidentified and late-flowering stems of Gaura lindheimeri have succumbed to the recent rain and ferocious gales. Last year quince and medlar trees were laden with fruit, this year there are none. 

And there’s worse - the prized mature box balls that are such a major part of the garden’s structure are under attack from the dreaded Box tree caterpillar that is causing such devastation throughout the country. James Todman the topiary specialist has lots of useful advice but Xentari, the organic spray he recommends hasn’t proved completely effective for me.  Dipel DF, a natural, biological insecticide used by farmers to control caterpillars on their brassica crops is what I may try next but I’ve been researching alternatives should this fail.

I took the picture (bottom right) of Hebe rakiensis, at Marks Hall Garden where it lines a pathway. It’s a compact, rounded evergreen shrub with small leaves and spikes of white flowers in June and July. Other recommended substitutes are Ilex Crenata and Taxus baccata which is drought tolerant, another important consideration.

By the way, according to Uri Geller the recent outage of FaceBook and Instagram was caused by the activities of ‘extra terrestrial beings’ - something else to (not) worry about.

If you have been, thank you for reading…