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- If you have spotted the fan like fungus on a fruit tree lately, it’s
probably the bracket fungi that colonises dead wood. While the whole tree
may not be dead parts of it can be. Dead wood in a tree can be due to
sunburn on a limb, exposed after some summer pruning, or dieback caused by
borers or even Eutypa.
- Eutypa can cause gummosis on peaches, nectarines and almonds or dead arm
on vines but not always. Best to scrape them off and spray with a copper
compound. Only after two years remove a whole limb. If you detect lichens on
the bark of your fruit trees, this is not cause for alarm, as lichens are
symbiotic and will not kill your trees. However if you want to remove it for
cosmetic reasons, a spray of a copper compound will do that too.
- If you still haven’t pruned your roses and there’s no drama in store
if you haven’t, make sure you keep the old leaves picked up rather than
accumulate underneath your bushes. These old leaves are the perfect
over-wintering hosts for black spot and other fungal diseases and will
return in spring to plague your roses, demanding attention.
- There’s a lot of interest in cow pads at present. Beats me why, but
maybe a few are getting turned over by mushroom collectors anyhow, they make
a great additive to your camellias, azaleas, gardenias and all the other
acid loving plants, but only as a mulch. Place them on the surface don’t
dig them in. When dug in they can cause a short-term nitrogen deficiency as
they continue to break down.
- Broad beans in the hills this year will be several weeks retarded in their
bean set. They may be flowering now, but it’s too cold for them to set
beans, so the best measure is to remove the tips, in flower or not and rely
on subsequent laterals to flower and set broad beans. If your crops fails
altogether and they occasionally do, then dig the whole plant in as a green
manure source.
- Avocados in the hills will grow, providing they are protected from frost
while young. The best cold tolerant cultivar is ‘Bacon’, which
unfortunately is the largest tree too. Mulch the area under the canopy with
straw or other well rotted organic material, to keep the root run a bit
warmer in winter and provide a cool root run in summer, as well as acidic
leachate into the shallow root zone.
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