Trugg and Barrows Garden Diary October 2012
Most of September’s weather was quite benign. There were some lovely sunny days as well as many breezy and cloudy ones, along with the occasional grass frost and daily heavy dews keeping conditions underfoot a bit damp. Typical autumn weather. The last few days of the month were anything but typical; heavy persistant rain caused flooding around the garden, with paths partially washed away, and the ground so wet that any thought of working on it was out of the question. So a few days painting benches and barrels was the order of the day.
Bountiful Fruits of Autumn.
To me nothing is more redolent of the bountiful fruits of autumn than a Rowan (Sorbus) bedecked with berries.
Rowans are attractive, slender trees with silvery-brown bark and frothy white flowers in spring-summer which are especially attractive to bees. In autumn they bear berries in tones ranging from pinkish white to orange and scarlet which provide welcome sustenance to birds, especially blackbirds and thrushes. The foliage is also light and airy making them perfect for under planting.
In the garden they prefer light, sandy, slightly acidic soils and will often thrive in exposed places. Often in the most exposed places they will be no more than shrubs clinging precariously to rock faces. When transplanted to the garden however, many make handsome trees of 15-20m tall. All are extremely hardy and cold tolerant and indeed do best in cold, temperate climates. What follows are a few of my favourites.
Sorbus commixta
The Japanese Rowan is most notable for its superb autumn colour, the leaves glow bright orange, red and finally purple. The orange-red berries seem a sideshow compared to the foliage although they do persist longer than the foliage, until the birds take them anyway. In cultivation it can reach over 20 feet but is more tolerant of heavy soils if good preparation is made when planting. The cultivar ‘Jermyns’ is especially choice with outstanding autumn colour and orange berries. ‘Embley’ makes another excellent autumn feature and in a good year the display of red, gold and purple foliage can last up to a fortnight.
Sorbus cashmiriana
The flowers of this species appear in summer and are tinged pink followed in autumn by heavy bunches of pure white berries which are often ignored by birds. Although it comes from a warmer area of the world it is perfectly hardy.
Sorbus vilmorinii
This is an ideal tree for the smaller garden. The foliage is made up of small leaflets giving a ferny effect. The berries are especially striking as they develop from rose pink to bright mauve fading to near white in the winter.
Sorbus sargentiana
This is one of my favourite trees despite being slow growing. Although the flowers are quite tiny they are born in profusion and develop into large clusters of shiny scarlet fruit and crimson sticky winter buds as well as orange autumn colour.
Sorbus hupehensis
This is one of the most distinctive trees in leaf as it has blue-green undersides to the foliage. The berries are pale pink and often left alone by the birds which means they will persist in winter. This has been the parent of some outstanding cultivars including ‘Pink Pagoda’ which has a well deserved AGM.
Sorbus aria
Native to northern Europe, including Britiain, this is one Sorbus that will thrive on chalk. The emerging foliage is covered in a silvery down which is soon shed on the upper surfaces whilst they remain brilliantly white below. The white flowers are followed by red berries.
The year of the mollusc.
In thirty years of gardening, I can’t remember a worse summer for damage to garden plants caused by slugs and snails. This includes to the foliage high up on established shrubs and to the tops of taller herbacacious plants. A number of the garden’s Hostas, many of which usually show little sign of damage have been chewed to the ground.
Slugs and snails can feed on live or dead plant material. They have tiny teeth (within there radula or mouthparts) that rasp away at foliage, stripping it to the midrib. They feed throughout the year, stopping only in dry conditions, when they look for moist conditions lower down in the soil or a damp place under rocks and the like. Snails hibernate in winter and dozens can often be found clustered together in a sheltered nook.
There are many species of slugs and snails that you may come across in the garden. The most common slug is the Field Slug. But also common is the Garden Slug, which is black with a yellow sole, producing yellow tinged mucus. The largest of the main pest species is the Black Slug, growing to more than 10 cm. It is black or dark brown with textured skin and an orange fringe and grey sole. One of the biggest nuisances, I find, is the keeled slug, which feeds underground, ruining root crops such as potatoes, carrots and turnips. The Common garden snail is widespread. They have a grey-brown patterned shell that grows up to 3 cm in diameter.
Both slugs and snails are hermaphrodite, which means that an individual can produce both eggs and sperm. Slugs lay up to 50 eggs in or on organic matter, hatching in a few weeks. Snails lay upto 100 eggs at a time in the soil throughout the summer, with the adults living for many years.
Over the years I have heard many weird and wonderful ways of controlling these pests, most of which are ‘pie in the sky’, although some are amusing. One lady told me how she would place a ‘fence’ of holly leaves around a plant that she wanted to protect, inventive, but not very practical. Beer traps have been shown to work with some species of slug, and it may be worth having a go, if you have the stomach for it. Nematodes that are available from several biological control companies work, but are expensive.
Cultural control includes keeping hiding places such as weeds and old plant debris to a minimum. Keep algae and moss on paths etc down to minimum. Sand and small sharp gravel used as a mulch may prevent slugs amd snails moving across a surface. It is worth encouraging natural predators, such as hedgehogs, birds and ground beetles.
Chemical controls are available and include products with ferric phoshate, metaldehyde or methiocarb as their active ingedient. Care should be taken to ensure that other wildlife and the environment are not damaged when using products containing these chemicals.
In the kitchen garden this month, we will continue to harvest apples, pears and raspberries (the latter as long as the weather stays dry). Carrots, turnips, potatoes, chard, cabbage, early sprouts, late courgettes are all in plentiful supply and will provide for the ‘Big House’. I will continue to do the autumn tidy up, as well as try to do some of the summer jobs that have not yet been done , such as cutting back the old raspberry canes.
Please note: images have been removed from this pages because some of them may have been used without permission.
