Hobbies and Crafts

Ours have always done well before, one is a very pretty peachy pink colour but no flowers at all this year, had it 4 or 5 years now, always treat then the same.

Got a Hedge of them Ann,doing pretty well ,cut them as if cutting a Privet Hedge,seems to work OK, keeps them decent and they come back strong a nice bright Red. getting the second Flush of roses now after cutting back and feeding well.**M** :-)

No gardeners around today?

Apples: We have a lot of apples on our tree this year but they are all very small. I assume this is because of the weather. Anyone else having problems with fruit trees?

Fuchsias: It has not been a good year for fuchsias, the flowers were not as profusive as usual and then most of our plants got rust. We grow then every year and this is the worst year for a long time.
Hardy varieties: We have four fairly large hardy fuchsias which are usually covered in flowers, this year plenty of green growth and either very few or no flowers at all.

Last night OH had a beer so I asked him to leave an inch in the bottom of the can for me to use as slug bait.

This morning when I was putting the beer in the garden I was expecting to attract wasps but not expecting to get stung on the inside of my left arm specially as I was carrying the saucer of beer in my right hand.

The beer went flying:-( so did the pesky wasp that I had to brush off my arm:-| :-| :-|

Next time I will take the beer out at dusk:-D

Hope your camellia survives Nolls.

Thanks Lesley have found something think it might be grey blight doesn't seem too serious just needs more space and light , hopefully, so we will see, don't want to have to run out and buy a new one before friend find out if this one dies on me :-D :-D

No Von I haven't tried beer but I will put some out tomorrow to see how it goes.

Thank you

Lesley
Have you tried beer traps?

I use beer and it's amazing how the slugs gravitate towards it . :-D :-D :-D :-D
Only down side is disposing of the remains. :-( :-(

I don't grow hostas anymore because of slugs but I use the beer traps around other vulnerable plants.

Thank you Ann sounds like I will have to bate the blighters :-0

Nolls I just googled re camellia diseases and this site show pictures and treatments hope it helps. http://www.lovcam.org/camelia-maladies-gb.php

I don't know anything about Camelias but somebody will I'm sure. However , mouldy leaves don't sound right.

I have been given a beautiful Camellia today from a friend I know she would pay a lot but when I looked at it the bottom leaves are all grey mouldy anyone any ideas are they supposed to be like that don't want to say anything to her. She gave me last year for our anniversary a beautiful tree rose which was covered in white flowers this year only one little one nothing else so don't want to tell her about this one . :-(

I have to admit to resorting to slug bate because I found gravel etc didn't work. I just put it down a couple of times, because it is under the hostas, birds don't seem to go in that bit of garden, we have no hedgehogs and the cats don't get in our back garden either. I usually give up about now and let them get on with it. It isn't slugs in our garden, it's snails.

Help please!!!

This is my worse year ever for slugs attacking my hostas or what is left of them :-(

Anyone any ideas of how to stop the blighters?

I have tried eggshells and gravel.

Lesley.

Is the standard Hardy Rose?

It's humid here today Ann, so I am wilting too lol. It's a done deal that it's in the ground now, but it is a shadier spot, so it may pick up. No earwigs or wood lice, I did think it might be slug damage to the root as it was near the compost bin and small slugs were crawling up that yesterday, but no sign of slugs on it either.

There's a fuchsia just opposite where it was and that is doing fine, but I know that's hardy as it survived all the snow :-D

Strange that it should just wilt suddenly. I wonder if it is the change from very hot to very damp and humid that has sapped its energy (know the feeling! :-D).

The thing is it may not be a good thing to put it in the ground, better to put fresh compost in and repot it. I assume there is no sign of earwigs or woodlice?

We have lost most of ours this year to rust. They were fine for a couple of months then one after the other succombed. :-(

I've just been out peering at the leaves Ann lol, a few greenfly, no sign of rust, when I took it out of the pot the soil was just damp enough to adhere to the root ball but not wet. I think I will take off all the wilted leaves, when I have a spare hour lol, there are some new ones that aren't wilting, and then see how it goes.

try this site Rose

http://www.communigate.co.uk/london/fuchsia/page5.phtml

Rose, does it have orangy marks on the leaves? It could be too uch water but if the leaves have browny orange marks on it, it has a fungus called rust.

Help! please, have you ever grown a standard fuchsia? and if so any ideas why mine is looking at last gasp. It was given to me a couple of months ago, in bud, flowered well, but a few days ago the leaves started to wilt horribly, putting it down to the heat I watered well, but within an hour it looked even worse!

Moved it out of the pot yesterday, to see if it had anything eating the roots , but it doesn't. have planted it straigh in ground but looks very sick. :-(

Would it be because our water is very hard?