| With bulbs of all sorts in the stores and at
your door from mail order this month, there are a few timely reminders, like take your
bulbs out of their mail order packaging and allow them to air in a dark well-ventilated
place. Tulips and Hyacinths can be stratified
in the fridge, which means they are put into the crisper of your fridge for 4-6 weeks at
3-5 degrees C to replicate a cold northern winter, then when planted they come into growth
immediately and flower uniformly in August-September. Left to their own devices Tulips
generally flower in late September to mid October in this area and if they get a few warm
days the flowers are cooked. The likes of Daffodils, Freesias Anemones and have no need
for stratifying.
When planting, use a sprinkle of sharp sand at the soil
contact point to the bulb to reduce likelihood of basal rot on the bulb, which is common
on Daffodils in our heavy soil. If you use organic pellets make sure they are not in
contact with the bulb, as they all harbour fungal spores and can wreck a well laid out
bulb scheme.
A desperate letter from a Clapham reader about how to control
the white flowering rampant Convolvulus creeper that has overtaken her whole backyard. It
just laughs at glyphosate because it has a woody permanent rootstock and so it needs an
aboricide with the active agent triclopyr. These are variously sold as "Axit®"
and as blackberry and poplar controls. It works best when applied by sponge to a freshly
cut stem, close to the ground.
A Clarence Park horticulturalist sheds some experience about
the life of glyphosate when mixed with water and stored. He notices that after 2 months it
is totally ineffective as a herbicide, so the message is mix what you can use immediately
as it does not store well and use tank water if you have a supply as the colloids or
turbidity in some of our reticulated water cause a rapid breakdown of the active agent.
Another surfer e-mailed me this week to say he had some ready mixed and when it was 12
months old poured it onto his lawn (What sort of dawk would do that anyhow?) and surprise
surprise it killed that patch of his lawn. Maybe sunlight and colloids break iot down who
knows. One thing for sure Monsanto (Melbourne technical office) are staying mum over it.
I see Feijoas ripening all round the district at present.
Many folk don’t even realise they are not only edible, but absolutely delicious,
providing a very fragrant and exotic taste to fruit salads. The green fruits are almost
undetectable when on the tree, but are still edible when they fall to the ground. If firm,
squish them between your palms before scraping the mushy contents out and don’t eat
the skin, its altogether too tart. |
