Cruelty to Trees: Pots. Part II Soil and Feet

I wrote about this subject Cruelty to Trees: Pots  and again in a recent article about Salix Kilmarnock  and, as a few people have asked about it, there are a couple of points I'd like to add.

Soil: I'm often asked what soil should be used when putting trees in pots. 

First rule - don't use multi-purpose compost, bought in a bag from the garden centre.  It's too "light": it won't hold the tree firmly in place, and it certainly does not hold water well. If it once dries out, you will really struggle to re-wet the compost. 

Don't use garden soil, it's too heavy and will be full of bugs and - in particular - worms. It will tend to become waterlogged in winter, and although it might seem like a good idea to have living organisms in the pot, worms will tunnel around and create air gaps, which will be detrimental to the roots of the tree. You might think about picking out any worms before you use the soil, but there will, of course, be lots of worm eggs, which you won't spot....

What about home made compost, then? The problem with home-made compost is that it's invariably full of weed seeds: domestic composting simply doesn't get hot enough to kill the seeds. You can still use it: but you must be prepared to weed it, and keep on weeding it.

Best option? Use bought-in topsoil, soil from a loam stack, or bought-in organic matter, ie farmyard manure, which should be pretty much sterile.

Don't add water retaining granules - just use good quality planting material.

Top dress once a year:- this means, gently scrape off the very top layer and top it up with fresh. Add a small fistful of granulated feed, if you have any.

Feed regularly: liquid feed, maybe once a month. Growmore is fine, tomato feed is fine, my personal favourite is Liquid Seaweed: they are all much of a muchness, but I feel that the seaweed is the most natural product, and it certainly works.

Keep the ants out: ants ruin the roots of trees in pots, because they mine and tunnel through the rootball. Air on the small feeder roots will kill them, and eventually kill the tree.  Plus, ants will "farm" aphids, so any aphid infestation will become a major problem if you have ants in your pants - err, sorry, in your pots - because the ants will defend the aphids from all predators.

I have two methods for keeping ants out of pots: firstly, when I am planting the pot, I line the very bottom of the pot with a piece of horticultural fleece before I start adding the compost. Secondly, I put my pots up on feet, which can be lovely decorative ceramic things, or just blocks of wood: even old bricks would do, but they are not particularly pretty to look at. 

These ones - left - are on terracotta feet. Usually, three is sufficient, and it's quite an art, to space them out evenly!

Another reason why I always advise standing pots up on feet, is to prevent the tree rooting through the central hole.

And it helps with drainage in winter... however...

Watering:

The drawback of pots-on-feet is that you have to water them more often.

If the compost dries out, it's really hard to re-wet it: see this article on Hot Weather Watering for details on how to deal with dried out compost in pots. You'll know if  your compost has dried out, because the water will run straight through the pot and out of the bottom.

This is a bad thing.

Not only is the water not staying in the pot, it is washing out what few nutrients remain in the soil, so it must be dealt with. As per the article about Hot Weather Watering, the best way to re-wet a potted plant is to plunge the entire thing underwater. But this can be tricky, if it's a big heavy pot, or if you don't have a sufficiently large bucket. An alternative is to stand the pot on a large "saucer" which can be terracotta, ceramic, or plastic - it really doesn't matter. This will catch the water which runs through, and hold it just below the pot, so that the pot can soak it back up, slowly. 

It's a bit catch-22: in winter, you need the pots up on feet for drainage, to prevent the pots getting waterlogged: this also reduces the risk of frost damage to the pot, where waterlogged soil expands as the water freezes, and bursts the pot.

But in summer, you need them in saucers, to retain the water and prevent them drying out.

What are we to do? (*laughs*)

The answer is, you keep an eye on them. If they start to dry out too much - if we have a spell of very hot and/or windy weather, for example, or if you are going away for a few days - then take them off the feet and put them on saucers. Likewise, if when watering them, you spot that the water is running straight through, then put them on saucers for a few days, until the water stays inside the pot as you add it.

This is not as onerous as it sounds: in many ways, it's nice to have to keep checking on your trees in pots (and other plants in pots, as well) because it gives you the opportunity to look at them, to admire them, to enjoy them.

And I do like people to enjoy their trees!

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Willowherbs: Weeds which might, actually, have a use!

Well, I never thought I would say these words, but the other day I found a Willowherb which was, for once, more than just a weed.

Here it is:

Can you see all those scoopy round holes in the leaves?

Those are from Leaf Cutter Bees, a subject about which I have written, some years back: solitary bees who replicate by burying their eggs individually, inside tidy little cocoons made from circles cut from leaves: each egg gets a store of pollen, and a secure little pod in which to grow and develop, safe from predators.

Previously, I have noticed this damage mostly on Rose leaves: occasionally on other garden plants, but mostly on Roses.

So it was quite a surprise to find a nasty old Willowherb showing the same holes in the leaves.

Alas, this damage is only cosmetic and does not harm the plant, so I had to weed out the Willowherb anyway... but it's nice to know that someone finds them useful!

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Fasciation - now it's occurring on the roadside!

Every so often I get all excited about a new example of fasciation, a subject with which I am fascinated, as regular readers will know....

This one cropped up at the beginning of May, but I've only just got around to writing about it - I had a few days' holiday in the Peak District, and on one walk, I spotted some Petasites growing alongside the track.

This is Petasites hybridus, common name, hilariously, Butterbur. Very Harry Potter, don't you think?

It's one of those plants which may well have a place in a woodland glade, but isn't really sufficiently interesting to allow into your garden, particularly as it is a rampant spreader.

There is a "garden" species,  Petasites fragrans (common name Winter Heliotrope) which,  allegedly, smells of cherry pie. It's not a native, it was imported in the late C19th, and unfortunately it has also proved to be a rampant spreader, having escaped into the wild, and is now cheerfully making a bid to take over the south of the UK.

Interestingly, though, all the Winter Heliotrope, and most of the Butterbur, are male plants: they spread by underground rhizomes rather than by seed. Probably a good thing, bearing how invasive they are, merely from spreading sideways...

So, on balance, not something I would want to plant in any of "my" gardens, but it was quite nice to see a long stretch of it growing out in the wild, as it were.

And then...

I noticed....

Fasciation!

Fasciation really is all around us: once you start looking for it.

If you want to read more about it, just type the word into the Search box, top left of the screen....

On this example, you can see that the individual flowers have fused together to make one flat plate of a flower.

Very strange!

As I've said before, it's a spontaneous mutation, it's not infectious, it's purely cosmetic, it won't harm the plant, or affect its continued prosperity - it just looks a bit weird!

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Aconitum - Monkshood, Wolfsbane - is it really a killer plant?

The other day, I had a question arrive in my inbox ("Hi, Corine!"  *waves enthusiastically* )  asking about the danger or otherwise of Aconites.

Aconitum - proper summer Aconite, or Monkshood - is one of those much-maligned flowers which gets a lot of bad publicity for no real reason.

Yes, it has toxic/poisonous capabilities, but so do many other plants (daffodil bulbs will kill you if you accidentally eat them): I think that Aconite has such a stigma because it, like Foxglove, and Hemlock, is one of those plants which was famously used as a poison in "olden days" so everyone knows about it. 

This is the plant which are we talking about today: 

Aconite, Monkshood, Wolfsbane: Aconitum napellus is the proper name of the one you're likely to have in your garden, and the one in this photo is my personal favourite cultivar, "Spark's Variety".

Aconite is a perennial, so it comes back year after year: it grows to about waist height, it has flowering stems with a column of usually blue flowers: it spreads moderately slowly by just enlarging the clump, and it also spreads by seed, which can easily be prevented by dead-heading early, if you want to control it.

When talking about "poisonous Aconites" it's important not to be confused with Winter Aconite, proper name Eranthis hyamelis, which is an adorable little plant, with a bright yellow flower, which appears in winter, as the name would suggest - right.

Winter Aconites are only called "aconites" because their foliage is somewhat similar to that of the big blue Aconite... they are not related in any way, and Winter Aconites are not poisonous.

This is a perfect example of the importance of learning the proper names of plants, and not relying on the common names... I have encountered any number of people who have hysterically demanded the removal of these inoffensive little plants "because they are poisonous".  They are not.

Proper Aconite, however, is indeed poisonous/toxic: especially if you eat it. So don't eat it!! The stories of people dying from Aconite poisoning fall, if you take the trouble to read them properly, into two categories: accidental eating, or deliberate murder.  

Accidental occurs where someone has mistaken the root for something edible: there is a story (unsubstantiated) of a Canadian on a camping trip mistaking an aconite root for wild parsnip: they ate it, they died. Now, I have dug up a lot of Aconites over the years, and there is no way I would ever have mistaken the knobbly, gnarled root for the smooth tapered fatness of a parsnip... but the lesson here is, don't forage unless you are very sure what you are dealing with. And don't eat the roots of anything if you can't observe the foliage. The other story is described as "an older case" which could be fifty years ago, of the root being mistaken for horseradish. Again, the lesson has to be said, don't eat things unless you know what they are. 

I suppose I would add, at this point, don't mix flowers and veg. I know there is a trend for making veg patches "pretty", and using companion planting to deter harmful bugs, but honestly, there is a reason why allotments and veg plots are tucked away out of sight: they are not supposed to be "pretty" they are supposed to be functional and efficient, and that means keeping the flowers in the flower garden. End of lecture. (*laughs*)

And as for the murder part: well, yes, people have used Aconite root in the past for poisoning other people, which is lamentable but not exactly the fault of the plant.

A side issue is the "contact" aspect: most sources will state that Aconite foliage is also toxic, but brushing up against the plant is unlikely to cause you any problems: partly because such contact would be fleeting, and partly because the roots are the really toxic part: according to the pfaf.org website - a very reputable source of properly-researched information - "Simple skin contact with the plant has caused numbness in some people". Not in everyone, you note, just "some people" and  numbness, whilst worrying, is not exactly the same as being poisoned.  And they go on to state that 90% of the toxicity is in the roots.

Personally I have spent 23 years handling Aconite plants: digging them up, moving them, planting them, splitting them, admiring them, dead-heading them, and they have never so much as brought me up in a rash. But you have to consider that many people are "sensitive to" or "allergic to" things which other people are not: so I can't make a blanket statement saying that it's fine to work around it with no precautions at all.

At home I deal with Aconites in my own garden bare-handed with no ill effect: at work, I always wear gloves anyway (because of broken glass, pottery, sharp stones, animal poo, slime mould, squishy slugs, you name it!), and eye protection (that callous expression, "better than a poke in the eye with a sharp stick" might have been created for gardeners), but other than that, I don't wear long sleeves or cover my face, or anything like that: to me, Aconite is just another perennial, and one which I much prefer to Delphiniums because it looks just as lovely, and does not have to be staked.

I suspect that the current concern about plant poisoning in general is due to sheer ignorance: we now have a generation of children who know absolutely nothing about nature and plants: and they can't ask their parents, because their parents are the ones who weren't allowed to go on nature rambles because of health & safely rules for schools. 

And their grandparents, who might be called on, are probably out climbing Mount Kilimanjaro, or abseiling down the Empire State Building, or whatever exciting things grandparents do these days: and of course they probably live miles away, so these split generations don't get to spend time together, as they used to.

This is such a worrying trend that I wrote an entire eBook about it (brace for shameless plug) called The Horrors of the Hedgerow:

... which specifically explains, with photos, the commonest toxic and/or poisonous plants which you are likely to encounter in the UK while out for a walk.

But those are mostly what you might call "weeds", and Aconites are a garden plant, and I might well say at this point that the list of toxic and/or poisonous garden plants is very long indeed!

So why is there so much concern over Aconite, specifically?

It could well be due to a much-publicised story from a few years back when someone's gardener keeled over and died in their garden, and he had been moving Aconites, so they were blamed for his sudden demise. 

The story made headlines, but there was never a follow-up: the results of the autopsy were never publicised, nor was his medical history, so we still don't really know why he tragically died, but Aconites got the blame. 

It is possible that he was one of those people who were extremely sensitive to this particular plant, but it is also possible that he had an underlying medical condition that was not related to it at all - we simply don't know. 

My personal opinion on that sad episode is that anyone who is a professional gardener for more than a year will KNOW what they are allergic to, because they will have encountered it: so they would take precautions when working closely with something which they know could harm them.

Personally I am a little bit sensitive to working with a particular conifer, it brings my bare arms up in a slight rash, so if I'm pulling ivy out of one, or carrying out a task which means that I have to push my arms into the foliage, I either wear long sleeves, or mutter curses and put up with a bit of itching later.

So, is it "safe" to grow Aconites in your own garden, then?

Yes, of course it is: as safe as it is to have any of the long, long list of poisonous/toxic plants in your garden.  

Just look at those beautiful flowers! Bumble bees love them, as they are large enough for the bees to clamber inside them. And ooh, look, there I am, touching them bare-handed! Ooh! (*laughs*)

There are ways to make it safer, if you are concerned, so here are some suggestions.

Aconites within a garden don't need a lot of care: unlike Delphiniums, they don't need staking, so you don't have to have much contact with them, you can just let them get on with flowering. All you have to do is dead-head them after flowering if you want them to flower again, and then to cut down the foliage at year end, as you do with all perennials.Wear gloves when you do it, and you should be fine.

If you concerned, I would suggest ensuring the Aconites are in clumps rather than dotted around the garden, so that they are easier to avoid:  and are the back of borders rather than the front, so that sensitive souls don't brush up against them by accident.  

I would keep a small zone around them clear of other plants, so that you can access them to weed, without having to push them about too much: I would certainly suggest dead-heading as soon as they have finished flowering, to remove the seeds (just to be super-careful, don't compost them, put them in the council green waste bin if there is one) and then do the autumn cutting-down sooner rather than later, ie as soon as the foliage starts to look tatty, chop it right off. 

In my opinion it's ok to compost the foliage, but you might prefer to put that foliage in the council waste bin as well.

Personally I would happily have a garden full of Aconites, but I would exclude each and every Euphorbia, which I would condemn to the fires of hell! But that's just my opinion!

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