Friday, January 19, 2018

My wonderful bottle brush wreath is now complete.



A few years ago I asked my mom to keep a look out for a green bottle brush wreath like the one we had when I was little. At Christmas dinner she brought a gift for me and it was this lovely vintage bottle brush wreath. It had a gap at the top so I tied a red ribbon on it. This year I put a Christmas Cracker at each plate. When dinner was over someone mentioned the wonderful red berries that they had tied up the crackers with. Everyone allowed me to have the berries, so that I could put them on the wreath. The originals had berries very much like these. It is perfection!! Thank you family.

Sunday, January 14, 2018

Buggy Cotoneaster 101. Guess what we used to clean this mess off!



So this is my Cotoneaster. It is HUGE. If you have one, you know what a pathetic situation this is. I think this was caused by Porphyry Knothorn. You never see the moths or caterpillars, but you can see the webbing and huge amount of dead leaves. This winter while it was in a dormant state I decided to try brushing off all the dead stuff and hopefully eggs. This has been going on so long the black debris along the trunk and branch crotches is so solid I literally could not remove it with a brush. I have discovered that the whitefly infestation in the greenhouse every winter has been largely managed by removing or cutting back annuals etc and meticulously cleaning up leaves in the gardens. Cleaning is everything!!! So I wanted to apply the same method here. I stood staring at it for a while. Eureka! I had an idea!!!! I asked Allan if he could set the pressure washer soft enough to remove all debris without tearing off the bark. Watch this!!!

Before

Left side done

After

On close inspection, he didn’t even tear off the new leaves! I raked up the leaves from the maple next door that I had always just left to mulch these plants. I am going to remove the lower branches on the ground and I will be vigilant with the cleanliness.