Under attack
A few days ago I was potting on my euonymus cuttings when I found a nasty surprise. In fact, a few nasty surprises. They were little white bugs in the compost. Afterwards I looked them up in my RHS Gardening Encyclopaedia, but I already knew what they were. Vine weevil. The good news is that there is very little evidence of damage to any of my plants, so with luck I have caught them early. I shall have to go to Wilkinson’s to find something to kill them with. I have read that there is a special sort of compost you can buy that kills vine weevil, but that’s no good for me because (1) it only works for one year and (2) you have to wash all the old compost off the roots and not mix it with anything. I always mix my compost with garden soil and I have no intention of repotting everything every year.
Just for once I can’t complain about the rain because we are in the middle of a heatwave. I have been out watering the plants in the communal areas every two days. Unfortunately I have to use a watering can because my hose doesn’t reach far enough, so I am now hoping that we get some rain soon. There is lots to do in my garden – mainly weeding – but I decided today that I would transplant some of the campanula in the front garden to the area under my Discovery apple tree. If it grows as vigorously in its new position as it does in the front, I will not have to do any weeding until the Plan reaches that area of the garden. The problem with this plan is that the campanula may not be too happy about being transplanted in the middle of a heatwave. I decided to try anyway in the interests of furthering my gardening knowledge, given that there is effectively an infinite supply of campanula in the front garden, so the only thing I lose if it dies is my labour.
My scheme to plant as much marjoram as possible underneath the other apple tree, Charles Ross, has been very successful.
However, the poor apple tree is upset with me about something and has refused to blossom this year, so I won’t be getting any apples. I hope it’s not because it doesn’t like marjoram.