Fireblight

 

Aucuba japonica - in a bad way

The first plant I put into this garden (relatively bare when we arrived) was an Aucuba japonica, a Japanese spotted laurel.  No particular reason, other than that it was going cheap and, being a large, colourful and easy-going shrub, was a good fit for a shaded spot where I wanted some shelter from the prevailing winds.  It’s now very large, but useful on the rare occasion when I want some variegated foliage for a flower arrangement (and it still provides shelter from those winds).  Over the summer, I noticed that it was looking very poorly, with brown and dying leaves; I gave it some water, assuming that the drought was affecting it, but it continued to look bad.

Brown bits on the Cotoneaster horizontalis

I also noticed that the Cotoneaster horizontalis by the cellar steps, an old plant that was here when we moved in, had brown tips to some of the stems.  This happened last year also; I cut the brown bits off and thought no more about it, but with a recurrence this year there was obviously a bigger problem.  Pondering the issue from the kitchen window, my eye travelled across the drive to where a hawthorn bush has self-seeded – and I realised that this wasn’t an isolated occurrence.  I had been uncertain what to do about the (now fairly large) hawthorn; with the neighbouring ash tree gone, having another tree nearby as a replacement was a good thing, although it was going to cast shade on the neighbours’ garden as it grew (this didn’t seem to bother the neighbours when I asked them, so I left the matter as something to deal with later).  But part of the hawthorn has also been turning brown and dead, and on closer examination even the bits that I thought were healthy are starting to show signs of disease.

So I sent a photo to the Royal Horticultural Society, and in due course the answer came back.  It’s fireblight, caused by a bacterium that attacks shrubs including cotoneaster and hawthorn (and apple trees, although I haven’t seen any signs of it on ours, fortunately).  And, looking around more widely, I can see traces of the same problem on the big cotoneaster by the drive entrance, and there’s a cotoneaster in a garden across the road that looks completely dead.  The remedy, such as it is, is to cut affected stems out and dispose of them carefully, sterilising tools as you go, although I think it may be too late to do anything for the hawthorn, which I will need to take out (somehow).  I wouldn’t be too sorry to lose the cotoneasters; they support a lot of wildlife (bees like the flowers and birds the berries) but they seed themselves too freely and there are some seedlings that I would be glad to be rid of!  However they’re useful plants for difficult places and not easily replaced with something else, so I’ll do what I can for them.

Fireblight also affects other plants that I have around the drive, photinia and firethorn (pyracantha).  They're not showing any signs of the disease, so fingers crossed.  However I recall that, some years back, the main part of the firethorn on the house wall died off, with symptoms that were very similar to what I've got now on the cotoneasters.  I managed to remove the dead part and grew on a healthy shoot in its place, and that is now a well-grown plant showing no sign of distress - but maybe that too was fireblight.

But is that the problem with the aucuba?  It’s in a different plant family, and not apparently likely to be attacked by fireblight.  They're pretty bomb-proof plants.  Now that the temperatures have started to cool (although the weather this week is set to be just above 20C, with sun) and we’ve had a few showery days, the plant is looking a little better; it may be enough just to cut out the really bad bits.  Perhaps it was the lack of water, or too much heat (they like cool, shady places); it can get scorched by hot sun.  Sunburn?!  I had taken some cuttings just in case – they are now in the greenhouse – and in the process discovered that the plant had layered itself on the shady side, and the layering looked healthy, so perhaps, if necessary, the original old plant could be taken out and the new one left in its place.

Cyclamen hederifolium

While I was investigating the aucuba to find healthy material for cuttings, I noticed that the cyclamen (Cyclamen hederifolium) in a weedy corner under the holly tree are in flower – a welcome autumn flower.

Battling the wildlife

Now that we have rain (intermittently) and some more temperate warmth, autumn vegetable growing is resuming, in fits and starts.  Partly the fits and starts are the result of having other things to do, but partly also because wildlife gets in the way.  My late August sowing of brassica seeds had to be repeated when the seedlings were grazed off by a snail or slug in the cold frame (I can’t find the culprit to remove it!); the new sowing is in the greenhouse on the staging, where the seedlings will be relatively safe.  The slug/snail didn't seem to have a taste for the radicchio seedlings which were also in the cold frame, but just in case I've planted them out in one of the veg beds, under plastic bottle cloches, where they seem to be at least surviving.  

Down in the veg plot, the spring/early summer-sown brassicas had just started to shrug off the damage caused by the ravages of the flea beetles and to put out fairly undamaged leaves, but it looks as though the pigeons or the partridges have been grazing on the new growth, taking almost all of it off.  Only the taller of the two sprouting broccoli plants seems to have been spared (too high for the birds to reach?).  Some old fleece and net bags have been deployed to keep them off!  It’s not pretty but if it works …

When I mentioned in the last post that the wildlife was returning, I omitted to say that, unusually, we don’t seem to have a squirrel visiting, even though the hazels are dropping their nuts.  Normally there’s a grey furry visitor burying hazelnuts all over the lawn, but not this year.  It can’t last; presumably the vacancy will be filled in due course by another squirrel!

The cooking apple tree is also dropping its fruit, but – again, unusually – there don’t seem to be any birds pecking at the apples.  No blackbirds or thrushes at all; and where are the starlings?  About a month ago I did find a dead male blackbird in an improbable position under the old Belfast sink that acts as an alpine trough (I buried him next to the ‘Comte de Chambord’ rose on the edge of the veg plot), but I haven’t seen any blackbird, dead or alive, since then.  There was talk some months back of a disease affecting blackbirds; I hope that’s not the reason.  And even the green woodpecker, which was around a couple of times in the summer, seems to be absent, despite his love of apples.  Still, it won't be long before the Scandi-avians (redwings and fieldfares) will blow in for the winter.

On a more positive note, a little group of warblers - possibly a family party - was fly-catching round the big cotoneaster at the entrance to the drive the other day, and one or two have come to the patio for a drink, as has a greenfinch – so not all the birds are staying away!

Rain at last

So finally it has rained: over a week or so, with some periods of steady rain, punctuated here and there by a dry day or two.  Temperatures are around 20C most days, which is reasonable for early September but feels chilly after the heat we’ve been having.  When the sun is out, it is very pleasant but the breeze is rather fresh, especially first thing in the morning. 

Along the terrace

Most plants are slowly recovering from the dry weather; so too are the weeds, and the lawn has not only started to turn green but is likely to need cutting if this continues.  The drought has shown me which plants are real survivors: along the terrace, for example, the sage, achillea and sweet cicely have carried on regardless of the lack of water.  Admittedly they probably have their roots down under the terrace flagstones, which would help.  The achillea has behaved rather better this year than last, probably because of my staking of it: two rings of green link-stakes at different heights, with a cat's-cradle of twine between.  Most of the flowering stems have been kept more-or-less in place by all of that.

In the pots, the dahlias are gradually getting back to normal, though still hardly any flowers.  The one most affected has been ‘Sam Hopkins’, which I shoehorned into a too-small pot for its rootball, but even it is now putting out green shoots from the yellowing stems below.

New shoots on Dahlia 'Sam Hopkins'

One or two plants have even taken the opportunity to put out new, very belated, flowers - the sweet cicely and the wisteria among them.

Too busy with non-gardening things to do much out on the plot this week, although I have spent some time clearing the self-sown leaf beet plants from the veg beds and sowing seeds of winter brassicas etc in the cold frame. 

Down by the entrance to the Dump, a sparrowhawk (probably) seems to have dispatched a woodpigeon – lots of feathers, but fortunately no corpse.

Feathers by the Dump