Wednesday 29 January 2020

Fig - another Myth but this one is true!

A while ago, I wrote an article on Figs: Myths and Mythstakes which focused on the forbidden practice of winter pruning a hardy fruiting Fig shrub (oh yes you can), and the fully accepted concept of these Figs not fruiting on anything younger than 2-year old wood (oh yes they do).

But there's another myth which I forgot to mention because I didn't think of it at that time, and that's the one about the dangers of Fig sap.

There are many species of Ficus, ranging from our fruit-producing Common Fig - Ficus carica - through a wide range of houseplants: all of them have sticky white sap, and all of them are toxic.

Now, when dealing with plants and the internet, you quickly realise that the terms "poisonous" and "toxic" are used interchangeably.  I  normally use poisonous to mean something that, if you eat it, will make you ill/dead, and toxic means that it will hurt you in some way, physically, on the outside, as it were.

In this case, Fig sap appears to fall into both categories, as there are mentions on the internet of houseplant fig leaves being poisonous to dogs: and certainly all types of Ficus have sap which contains furanocoumarins, those pesky chemicals I wrote about at length in the newest eBook, Horrors of the Hedgerow (now available on Kindle Unlimited for free, folks! And only a couple of quid otherwise, well worth it!)

If you don't know what furanocoumarins are, they are chemicals which, on contact with our skin, make it photo-sensitive. That means sensitive to sunlight. Doesn't sound too bad, I know, but in real life it leads to horrific blisters, and subsequent scarring - and can leave the unlucky person with a long-standing sensitivity to sunlight. No more sunbathing! No more going outdoors without covering up the affected areas - it's no joke!

So why am I writing about Fig sap, today?

Well, after carrying out the drastic Fig pruning referred to above, my Trainee and I cut the debris up into wheelbarrow-sized chunks:

then raked up all the debris, made the area look as neat as we could, and went on to work in another area, full of the satisfaction of a job well done.

When we were packing  up to go home at the end of the morning, I noticed that I had a big sticky patch on my leg, just above the knee.

"Ooops!" I said, "look, I've got Fig sap on my knee, drat!"

I grabbed a wet-wipe from my car, and tried to scrub it off, but it was quite resistant to the wet-wipe. But I didn't think anything of it. That was on the 19th March.

A couple of days later, I noticed that there was a discoloured patch of skin where the sap had been.

I didn't think anything of that, either: I assumed that the sticky patch had just picked up some dirt: not unusual for a gardener wearing shorts, after all! 



Here we are - right - on the 15th May!  Two months and many, many hot showers/baths/attempts to scrub it off, and I still had a dark stain on my leg, where the sap had been.

So there you go, there is indeed truth in the suggestion that Fig sap can be nasty stuff!

From my point of view, it didn't hurt at all: it was stinging slightly on the day that I did it, but that could well have been because I'd been scrubbing at it with a wet-wipe. 

I didn't have any blistering, or itching, or feeling sensitive, nothing at all.

So to me, Fig sap is not something that I'd be particularly careful about, as it doesn't seem to do me much harm.

But we are all different, and some of you might react much more painfully, so heed my advice and be careful when pruning your hardy outdoor figs: wear gloves (I always wear gloves! And eye protection!) and do try not to get it on your bare skin.

Has the stain completely faded yet? *rolls up trouser leg to check* Not entirely! It's now the following January, and if you know where to look, you can still just about see it, so that shows that it can take ten months or more for the effects to fully fade!

 

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Tuesday 21 January 2020

Plant Passports: possibly the final word?

After a hectic week of the "small" plant growers of the UK collectively shouting at APHA (Animal and Plant Health Authority) concerning the unworkable and unenforceable new Plant Passports (PPs) Directive which, as it stood, was the DEATH of plant sales in the UK - cheers and applause, APHA have changed their guidance.

For a while, they were telling us that we needed to undergo Registration (free, quick, easy) AND to also apply for Authorisation to Issue Plant Passports (PPs), which is potentially very expensive.

This is now their policy concerning the new Plant Passports (PPs) Directive, as it applies to those of us who propagate our own plants at home:

" For all these situations you would only be required to be registered. (ie You are growing the plants yourself, and selling them face-to-face; you are growing them yourself, advertising them online, but handing them over face-to-face with money exchanging hands on the doorstep; you are growing them yourself, advertising them online, taking payment online (ie Paypal etc) then handing the plant over face-to-face.)"

In a nutshell, if you sell plants by post/courier, ie not local, then you need to do Registration, and you also need to go through the (expensive) Authorisation process as all plant movements require the plants to have PPs.

However, if you sell plants face-to-face, ie from your garden, at boot fairs, locally, then you do need to do Registration, but you don't need to issue PPs.

Thank heavens for that! A huge sigh of relief is now wafting up from all the millions of specialist "amateur" growers, the hobbyists, the clubs, the charities, and all of us who supplement our jobs/pensions with selling a few plants on the side.

The email finishes:

"Our guidance on this has changed following feedback and a review of the application process. As we deal more with the application side rather than the specifics of policy, we can only follow the guidance we are given, but I apologise that the initial guidance you were given on this has changed."

Yay! That beeping sound is APHA reversing their decisions, changing their minds, responding to our somewhat heated feedback, and amending the restrictions! So hooray for common sense, and well done to everyone who pestered APHA with endless emails!

UPDATE JUNE 2020

Guess what: there's another squiggle in this ridiculous story.

The latest twist is that APHA are now saying that Amateurs and Hobbyists do not need to Register ("if they are only selling face to face".... if you sell by post, you still have to do the full Passport thing).

And what is their definition of an Amateur/Hobbyist? Someone who does not make a profit, does not have a website offering  the plants for sale, and does not have a Price List.

If you do any one of those three things - make money, have a website, or have a price list - then you are officially a business, as far as APHA are concerned, and need to Register.

They seem to be trying to exclude the very, very small people who just flog off half a dozen plants once a year. Anything more than that, and you have to Register.

To the best of my understanding so far, if  you sell them by post - then yes, you still have to have Plant Passports, which means by definition, you have to Register first, then apply for permission to issue PPs. Some people are being told that the first inspection will be free, but this has NOT been confirmed officially by APHA.



 

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Sunday 19 January 2020

Salix caprea - dead or alive?

I had an email from a chap called Eddie yesterday - Hi, Eddie! *waves*.

He has a couple of really sickly-looking miniature weeping willows (the grafted ones) and he's wondering if they'll be  live again, or whether they are dead.

Here's the first photo, and oh dear, it does look a bit sad, doesn't it?

Mind you, almost everything is looking sad, or beyond sad, at the moment, which is not unreasonable considering that we are just about in the middle of winter.

(What do you consider Winter to be? I think Winter is Dec, Jan Feb, spring is then Mar, April, May: summer is June, July and Aug, and autumn is Sept, Oct and Nov. Seems fair to me?)

Here's the other photo, the right-hand tree is also looking very sad.

So, what do I think?

Well, first the good news: there are some small branches there, Eddie, which are pale brown in colour, can you see them? There's one going across in front, in this picture. Those are almost definitely still alive.

More good news: all willows look like this at this time of year. Usually they drop the dead leaves, so they don't look quite so alarming.

So, what would I advise?

Firstly, "wait until spring" - whatever you do, don't be tempted to chop anything off, just because it looks dead. With these little grafted trees, cutting them back ruins their form, and if  you are too heavy-handed, you could lose all the lovely weeping branches altogether. So don't try to "tidy up" the upper part.

But in the meantime, you can make them look better by very gently cupping your hand loosely around each branch, and running it downwards to gently nudge off the dead leaves.

Sweep them all up, get rid of them.

Then look at the surface of the pots - they are both covered with green stuff, and from this distance it looks like mostly Marchantia, or Liverworts. This is really not helping the trees, as they are stealing all the nutrients and a lot of the moisture, and willows need their water!

So, get something like an old pencil and see if you can get rid of them. I'd put the pot up on a bench or table to make it easier to work with, and wear eye protection or just be careful not to get a branch in the eye. Lever our the top layer - you'll probably find that you can peel off whole slabs of Liverwort, which is strangely satisfying.

Get it all off, then very carefully and gently check around the trunk, at ground level, to make sure you got it all. If you leave just one bit, it will regrow. You might need to use a fingernail to very, very gently remove the Liverwort from the base of the trunk. I'm trying not to use the word "scrape", as you really don't want to damage the bark.

Top up the pots, as you will have removed a good inch of the top layer, with some fresh compost, and maybe a layer of mulch on top.

Remove those labels: labels with elastic ties can often strangle a small plant, because the wind makes them twizzle round tighter and tighter, and those plastic tickets will degrade in sunlight, so one day you'll come back to find bits of fractured plastic all over the ground and no sign of the label.

I always suggest that people get themselves a Garden Notebook, in which they can make notes of when they buy plants, stick in the labels and the receipts, print out photos and stick them in, write comments about parts of the garden which are really good one year, or which are not so good, etc. So pop the labels in your Garden Notebook. 

Then replace the pots, having taken the opportunity to sweep away all the debris around and behind where they were standing.

If you can barely lift the pots because they are so heavy, put them up on a couple of bricks to aid drainage. (Or those nice little decorative "feet" for pots.)

If they are so light you nearly drop them in surprise, then after mulching, give them a good watering.

Now wait until spring, and see what happens. Willows are very tough, and will do their best to recover from any amount of damage and/or neglect, so there is every chance that they will produce buds and then leaves, and  be lovely again this year. Be patient!

Oh, and you might like to reconsider where they are standing: to be covered with Liverworts like that suggests that they are somewhere a bit damp, and a bit shady. They might grow better and recover faster, if they get a wee bit more sun?

I hope this helps, Eddie, and do send me pictures in spring!







Did you enjoy this article? Did you find it useful? Would you like me to answer your own, personal, gardening question? Become a Patron - just click here - and support me! Or use the Donate button for a one-off donation. If just 10% of my visitors gave me a pound a month, I'd be able to spend a lot more time answering all the questions!!

Wednesday 15 January 2020

How to be a successful self-employed Gardener

I'm delighted to say that the WFGA have again asked me to run this one-day workshop:

To book, follow this link to the WFGA website .

This is a great chance to really hear about the nuts and bolts of taking up this profession: so if you've ever thought about it, if you've ever gazed wistfully out of your office window and wished you were working outside in the fresh air....

.... and if you can get to Grove, Oxfordshire, then come along!

Sunday 12 January 2020

Selling plants - Working with plants - new Law - what you need to know!

There is now a  newer post, on this subject, but I'm leaving this one up, because a lot of people have linked to it.

Heads up, folks: a new law came into operation on 14th Dec 2019 and ALL OF US who sell plants and ALL OF US professional gardeners need to know about it, and understand it.

DISCLAIMER:  This is the best information that I have as of today, but cannot be taken to be legally binding in any way!! Don't take my word for it, don't base your opinion on what "other people on the internet" are saying, go and read it for yourself.

Here's the link to the Directive:

Like all government statements, it's badly written, and at first sight is contradictory, confusing, and frustrating, but stick with it and read it all the way to the end. 

Right, have you read it? Are you crying quietly, or sobbing wildly? Never mind, be strong, we will find a way to work together to make things right, but let's start by running through the basics.

There are two points to this that need thinking about - selling plants, and working with plants.

1) SELLING PLANTS

This bit affects all of us who sell a few plants as a hobby, as a small off-shoot of our business, to supplement our job/pension, or for charity.

What does it mean? In short, every plant which moves around the country, now has to have a Plant Passport (PP), so that its movements can be tracked. That means into and out of the country, and movements within the country.

Who is doing all this?  APHA = Animal and Plant Health Agency,  the government organisation responsible for implementing this Directive.

Why are they doing it?  Duuuh, to control the spread of pests and diseases. Remember when Ash Dieback appeared from nowhere, rushed across the country and devastated half of our Ash trees? We, in the UK, demanded that something be done about it, and this is it.   However, the powers that be didn't quite think it through properly: I honestly believe that they had no idea just how many people in the UK grow plants and sell/swap/trade them. So they've produced legislation that appears, to us, to be extremely heavy handed. But take heart, they are listening to our pleas, and have already made concessions to the interpretation of the Directive. More of that below.

So what do we have to do?

It's a two-stage process:  Registration and then Authorisation.  All plant sellers have to be registered, and many of them have to further be authorised to create the Plant Passports (PPs).

You can't be Authorised without being Registered first, and there are going to be a whole lot more people just Registered, than there will be who are both Registered and Authorised. You'll see why, in a tick.

So do we really all have to Register?

Yes, anyone who sells plants, or swaps them, or gives them away to charity, has to Register. Don't scream at me, I didn't make this law!

What, all of us?

Yes, even if you only sell a couple of plants a year.
Yes, even if you sell for charity or not to make a profit.
Yes, even if you propagate them yourself. Especially if you propagate them yourself!
Yes, even if you are a hobbyist, or a specialist, or a small business, or self-employed, or a small nursery, (or a big nursery!), or a club or group: if you do it as a hobby, as a business, as a way of earning a few bob on the side. In ALL of those cases, you - the person who grows the plant and sells it, or trades it, or swaps it - have to be Registered with APHA.

If you then sell the plants "online", and by that they mean if you post them (and yes, that includes courier/horse and trap/sending your mate on his moped - anything other than face-to-face) then the plants now have to have PPs, and you will have to get Authorisation to issue those PPs.


What plants are included?

All of them. The Directive starts off (misleadingly) by saying "Plant passports are an EU official document to move regulated plants and plant products within the EU. If you’re based in England and Wales and you’re moving plants or plant products in the EU they may need plant passports." (Scotland is having a similar but slightly different system)

Many people are reading that first paragraph, and pick up the phrase "regulated plants", and say "ah, but I don't sell any regulated plants, I only sell common everyday plants, they're not on a regulated list". Wrong! Further on, the Directive states that regulated plants includes:

"all plants for planting
- some seeds
-  seed potatoes
-  some fruits with peduncles attached"

I think we can all agree that "all plants for planting" covers everything from annuals, perennials, bulbs, shrubs, trees etc. No loophole there, sorry.

Isn't it just for online sales?  Not quite: it's for "distance sales" which means anything other than face-to-face sales, where you physically hand the plant to the person who is going to plant it in their garden. So if you advertise them online, on your website, on ebay/gumtree etc, or if you advertise in a specialist magazine, or if you belong to a specialist plant group who have members all over the country: regardless of  how you advertise them,  if you send the plants out by post/courier etc, then in addition to getting Registration, you also have to get Authorisation, so that you can issue PPs.

If  you only sell/swap face to face, then you only need to do Registration.

What about buying plants from a retailer, and selling them on?

Plants which you buy from wholesalers, trade retailers etc will all have their own PPs on them when you buy them.  If all you do is buy them, and then sell them on locally, face to face, you need to do Registration but not Authorisation.

What about if I buy in plugs and grow them on, or buy in a big plant and split it, and then sell it? 

Oooh, now it's getting complicated. If you buy a tray of plants and divide them up before selling onwards - whether that's by post or face to face - then the plants "no longer meet the definitions of their original plant passport." so you will have to be Authorised to re-PP them.  Same if you buy a big plant and split it up: you've "changed" the plant, so its old PP is no longer valid, and if you want to sell it on, whether that's by post or face to face. Either way, you will still need to be Registered.

OK, everybody still with me? Two layers of bureaucracy:

A) Registration first (quick, free, easy) and then

B) Authorisation (quick, easy, darned expensive) if you buy plants and change them (ie grow them on, split them up etc) regardless of  how you sell them, OR if you grow your own plants and then sell them via post/courier, ie anything other than a face-to-face transaction.

It's pretty clear that we all have to do Registration, but that most of us will be able to stop there, and not go on to Authorisation.

However, those who propagate rare plants, or who live in the back of beyond, and who rely on the wide marketplace that the internet gives us, to get customers, and to get good prices, and who therefore have to send plants out by post: well, at the moment, this Directive is the Death Of Plant Sales to those people.

Why? Read on....

So, how do get these Plant Passports then?

Good news: we can issue them ourselves. Bad news: to do so, first we have to "Register" as Plant Sellers (free, easy, do it online, quick) then we have to apply for "Authorisation", which is a licence to create PPs, and that part is hideously expensive and complicated. The application itself is quick and easy, you get approval in 5 days, BUT then you have to be inspected. And the inspection could cost as little as £123.16, but could cost a great deal more, as - get this - they charge for inspections at a pile-it-up rate of £61.50 for every 15mins of the inspection, INCLUDING travel time (bastards), and doing the paperwork afterwards. Others have already worked out that if you are a long way from one of the APHA offices it could cost as much as £900 for an inspection, and they occur 2-4 times a year. Or less. Or more.  Once inspected, and approved, you can then print your own PPs, which are very specific, and are described in detail in the Directive.

So, to summarise: this is DEATH to plant sales via post.

I can't think of anyone I know who sells enough plants by post to make it worth while getting authorisation. 

"But ebay and facebook still have lots of plants for sale with no mention of PPs, why shouldn't I carry on?"

You're on your own on this point: I can't offer any advice, it's up to you.  Personally I'm not actively selling anything by post until I know what's going on for sure:  but it has been said, with fair accuracy, "how on earth are they going to know?"

But I only sell half a dozen a year - surely they don't need me to Register? 

Yes, they do. *sigh* Look at it this way: it's free to Register, it takes about two minutes to do it online, and if there's an outbreak of anything nasty, they can contact everyone in that area and warn them about it. It's not like Big Brother Is Watching You Grow Your Plants - they just need to know who is moving plants from one place to another, and the first step is to get everyone who passes plants on, whether for money or love, onto a list.

What about us Professional Gardener who buy plants for our Clients, or for our neighbours if they can't get out?

Well, it doesn't matter if we make a profit on the sales or not, it's all to do with the plants already having a PP.  APHA say:

 "You are ok to buy for your neighbours and for your clients, as you are essentially the “end user” of the Garden Centre, so they do not need to supply you with one." [ie PP]

APHA seem to count that as a separate transaction - so buying them from the garden centre is one face-to-face transaction, no PP required, then we sell them to our Clients, face-to-face, no PPs required. As long as we don't split up a tray, grow on plug plants, or divide a bought plant before passing it to the Client.

One thing to look out for, though, is that retailers (garden centres, B&Q etc) take delivery of plants with PPs attached, but already people are reporting that some trade suppliers are selling trays of plants to the garden centres with one PP for the whole trolley: and as the gardener centres are selling them to us - the "end user" - face to face, they don't need to give us the PP.  So, each individual plant does not necessarily have a PP on  it.  If you think that you are going to grow on some bought plants, or split them, or propagate from them, then you will need to ask the garden centre etc to give you a PP, and I can see this being a bit of an issue.
 

Points of note: this is an EU Directive, that means it was created by the EU but don't start with the "oh but we're leaving the EU" , because a) virtually all EU directives are being transferred to UK law as we speak and b) we, the UK, and specifically the HTA (Horticultural Trades Association), are the ones who asked for this Directive.

What exactly is a "Directive" and is it actually law?

"Directives lay down certain results that must be achieved but each Member State is free to decide how to transpose directives into national laws" so the directives turn into laws, usually pretty much unchanged

"What idiot asked for this?" see above - we did!

"But why?" Remember Ash dieback and how we all screamed about imported plants bringing disease into the UK? That's what prompted it, so let's not all whine too much about it, it's for our own protection.

I know it seems heavy-handed (and it is) but it's intended to provide full traceability for all plant movements other than very local.

And if, like me, you're pulling out your hair and screaming "why did no-one tell us about this?" well, it was put together and issued THREE YEARS AGO.  If you've followed my link, and actually read the thing, you will have  noticed that the webpage in question was published on the 29th July 2015.

So the government gave us all well over 3 years grace to get ready for it. Pity no-one actually publicised it, eh? If you want to know what the government is going to introduce in the way of new laws, you have to be extremely vigilant, persistent, and have a private income because you would need to spend all day every day trawling the government websites to spot new things as they go through the system. It's simply not practical for us, at ground level, and I must say I'm pretty pissed off with people like the RHS and the various gardening organisations, for failing to even mention this to their members.

Ah, but now, once they have a list, they have no excuse for not communicating this sort of thing to us.

Oh, and a final annoyance: what are the penalties for non-compliance? Well, they're not stated, are they, so they could be anything!!

2) WORKING AS A PROFESSIONAL GARDENER

There's another aspect of this wretched Plant Passports business that has slipped by: I was just looking idly at the registration form, and look what I found:




 

the very first line is:

"You will need to complete this form if you are professionally involved in planting, producing, breeding, moving, storing, dispatching or processing of plants or plant products."

Errr, doesn't that mean that every Professional gardener in the UK will have to do Registration?

To my knowledge, no-one in the gardening world has mentioned this over the past three years - not the PGG (Professional Gardeners' Guild - mostly for employed Estate gardeners), not the GG (Gardeners' Guild, I think this one is just for self-employed gardeners), not the WFGA (fantastic charity gardening organisation for amateurs and professionals alike, focusing on training and improvement), nor, to my knowledge, anyone else.

Maybe I was wrong, then: surely the government can't introduce compulsory Registration of all professional gardeners without telling them about it beforehand? So I emailed APHA and asked:

"Does this mean that every single professional gardener in the UK, whether self-employed or employed, needs to individually register?"

And a Jack Butcher of APHA responded:

"You are correct, all professional gardeners in the UK, need to register.

"You can register to become a Professional/Registered Operator or to become the former and an Authorised Operator.

"To register and become a Professional/Registered Operator, you will need to complete one form, Application for Official Registration form.

"To register and become a Professional/Registered Operator and an Authorised Operator who is authorised to issue Plant Passports, you will need to complete two forms, Application for Official Registration form and Application for Authorisation form."

I checked with APHA, and yes, it's the same forms as for plant sales. I further asked them if I, as a professional Gardener, therefore have to fill in two forms, one for being a Gardener, and one for private plant sales, and they said yes! Bizarre, eh?

Again, I honestly believe that APHA dropped the ball here, and completely overlooked the huge number of individual Professional Gardeners to be found in the UK.

Some weeks later I was contacted by my local APHA Inspector ("ooooooooooo!") who very nicely asked me if I had any further questions, and of course I had dozens.  One of them, expressing my concern about how APHA have completely failed to contact individual gardeners, and asking how on earth they thought they were going to do so, was passed by my Inspector to someone else in APHA, presumably someone higher up the chain, and I received this reply from Dan Munro of APHA:


"Hi Rachel
In reply to your questions:
1. The scheme does not apply to ‘every employed and self-employed professional gardener’. Only those that carry out commercial contracts, planting on ‘3rd Party land’ are affected e.g. Council Land or planting on behalf of Building firms. Building firms doing their own planting would not be affected. Gardeners working for Private individuals are not affected."

So there you have it, more "beep beep" noises as they reverse away from their earlier comments.
All of us "private" gardeners, whether employed or self-employed, do NOT have to Register with APHA.
Unless we also sell plants, in which case yes, we do: as mentioned above, and here's the direct link to the form: scroll down to Documents, and click on the first one, Ref: AppREG . It should open as a pdf, you can type direct into the boxes:  save it somewhere safe, then email APHA and attach your completed pdf to the email.

A couple of days later, you'll get  your Registered Professional Operator number, which can then be proudly displayed on all your paperwork.  (yes, I'm laughing as I say that.)


Oh, and if you have no  idea where to find your "ten figure grid reference" , go to something like google maps, find your home, zoom right in and double click on the road, then look at the page address bar at the top of the screen.  It will say something like https://www.google.com/maps/place/(yourtown)/@... and then a string of numbers. Those numbers are your grid reference, and the form wants the first five of each half of the reference.   That is, if the reference numbers are something like:

@51.5056252,-0.2307532,

then they want you to type in 51505 from the first set, and the first five after the comma, ie 02307.

There you go, no excuse now!

So there you have it: going by the number of plants for sale on ebay yesterday (over 76,000 listings) there are an awful lot of people who are going to be affected by this.  It is possible that APHA might agree to producing a hard and fast list of susceptible plants, and that anyone who grows things not on the danger list maybe doesn't have to issue PPs to sell them via post: or maybe even not be Registered.  I can't quite see all those dear elderly ladies who pot up a few bits for the village plant sale, having to be Registered before they can do so... it's just ridiculous.

So there are a lot of aspects of this new law which might change: there has been a perfect storm of emails, forum posts and comments starting "...but APHA told me...." and they have already made a few changes to their interpretation. I am quietly hopeful that there will be more changes yet to come, making it simpler.


It might be a while before we get all the answers: it would seem that APHA are somewhat inundated with emails asking questions and - no doubt - complaining bitterly about it, to the point where they are now apparently responding with a form email saying "we are seeking clarity and will get back to you in due course".

In the meantime, I am taking the advice of, and following the example of, a lady called Daniela who said:  "There is so much misinformation floating about it’s mind boggling. When I try to educate I am told that I am incorrect. Oh well. I tried. I am not going to lose anymore sleep over it. I am registered. I am aware. I am not going to spend much more time on it. I see plants, seeds and bulbs sold with and without PP. It’s not working me up anymore. I am doing my bit. That’s all I can do."

Yay, Daniela! That's where I am going to be, until such time as APHA get some "clarity" and stop contradicting themselves and just muddying the waters until none of us can see where we are going, and all of us are thoroughly sick and tired of the whole thing.


So do please keep coming back to this article to check for updates.





Did you enjoy this article? Did you find it useful? Would you like me to answer your own, personal, gardening question? Become a Patron - just click here - and support me! Or use the Donate button for a one-off donation. If just 10% of my visitors gave me a pound a month, I'd be able to spend a lot more time answering all the questions!!

Wednesday 1 January 2020

Why is the lawn not full of Cotoneaster seedlings?

Exhibit One, M'lud:

This is the lawn under a spreading Cotoneaster tree - probably C. waterii, I'm not sure.

And just to remind you all (I'm grinning at my current Trainee, who struggles with this one), it's pronounced K'Tony-aster.

Not cotton-easter. K'Tony-Aster.

Every year this K'Tony-Aster  produces hundreds of berries, which blanket the ground underneath the tree - it's partly in a shrubbery, partly overhanging the lawn.

I rake up the berries on the beds with ease, but it's a lot harder to get them out of the lawn, and a lot of them get "squashed" into the grass as people walk over them

So why is this lawn not knee-deep in Cotoneaster seedlings, I wonder?

In fact, I wonder this every year! I have yet to see a single seedling, in the lawn or in the bed,  which seems odd, bearing in mind the sheer volume of them.


There is a Sycamore tree in next door's garden, and every year we have hundreds and hundreds of Sycamore seedlings: they pop up in between the patio slabs, in the beds, in the lawn, everywhere: I regularly spend several hours in early spring just weeding the patio!

So why isn't there an equivalent Cotoneaster  seedling forest?