Squirrels Ate My Fruit Bags!

 Last week I shared a picture of my chewed-upon watering can:

 

..showing the destructive power of squirrels. For those who have asked me why the squirrels were chewing my watering can handle, I have no idea: other than just “to be a flaming nuisance”.

They also chewed their way into my propagation units, as mentioned in May's newsletter, which was pretty annoying.

I won't even mention the hose pipe, or the bird house....

 

 

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Ivy Myths: No. 2 - “It will absorb water from the air”

 

Following on from my earlier article on getting ivy down from a wall, here's another myth about ivy:

“If you sever the trunk at ground level, it won't die, because the upper leaves will catch water and sustain it, and it will keep growing.”

Definitely not true!

 

Before we look at the reasons why this myth is not true, let's take a quick look at the ivy plant itself.

Ivy, as a plant, is quite remarkable in many ways.....

 

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How do Honey Bees process poison?

 Here's an interesting question:- Carol asked me (“Hi, Carol!”) about Aconites: why some had suddenly popped up in her garden, and whether the honey from them would be poisonous.

 Carol is talking about Aconitum, and the usual garden ones would be Aconitum napellus, or Aconitum carmichaelii: the common names of which include Wolfsbane (because it was reputed to be fatal to wolves, which were more of a pest back in medieval times than they are today), and Monkshood (because the shape of the flowers looks a wee bit like the hood of a monk, assuming it was a liberated order who wore shades of blue instead of the traditional brown, black or grey)......

 

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Fruit trees: time to spray against aphids

 Yes, it's that time of year again: this is how it starts, with just a few black dots on the undersides of the leaves, this is on a Pear tree which is being trained as a cordon:

 Can you see those black dots? Those are the first few blackfly, or aphids - same thing, they are all sap-sucking critters which ruin our plants. You might also observe that the leaves are starting to curl under: this is a very typical sign of aphid infestation, because the aphids are not content with just sucking the sap from the leaves and getting a free meal: no, they have to......

 

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