Salvia cuttings, sweet cicely and butterflies
Weather has restricted what I can do in the garden, so I have been potting up salvia cuttings and sowing seeds. On a brighter note I have seen 4 species of butterfly this week
I hope you all had a lovely Easter and managed to dodge the rain. We experienced the full brunt of Storm Nelson - it delivered high winds, hail, thunderstorms and almost 40mm of rain!!! A further 12mm came on Good Friday and even more on Monday.
I was reading Ben Probert’s Instagram post, @bensbotanics, and he made the observation that gardens open to the public over Easter might not be as perfect as visitors would hope due to the unprecedented rain for the last 9 months, saying trhat despite the best efforts by their gardeners, grassed areas were saturated and not as resilient against foot traffic and daffodils had been hit by slug damage. I see the same problems around my own garden, just two of us walking along a path every day has created a mud bath that is now subject to compaction.
Slugs …..
Sorry, the topic of slugs keeps on popping up. I decided to go the nemaslug route to get some control early in the season as the numbers of slugs in the kitchen garden were of epidemic proportions, as you saw from some of my photos. Newly planted veggies won’t stand a chance.
If you have not used it before, Nemaslug is a biocontrol. Most nematode treatments are supplied in a sachet, the nematodes being suspended in a powder or paste and being a living product, they must be used immediately or stored in a fridge for up to 14 days. When you are ready to use them, the contents of the sachet are mixed with water and applied as a drench using a watering can with a coarse rose or hose end feeder. For the treatment to be successful, the ground temperature must be above 5C, even at night and the soil must be moist. You may have to water the soil to keep it moist and allow the nematodes to thrive, although that wasn’t a problem this year. .
The nematode, Phasmarhabditis hermaphrodita hunts slugs. Juvenile nematodes actively seek out slugs and when found, they enter the slug’s body through its breathing pore. Once inside, they release loads of bacteria from their gut and it’s these bacteria that cause the slug to die, not the nematode. The slugs stop feeding and retreat underground to die. Nematode treatments works for up to 6 weeks. It takes several days for the nematodes to become active and several weeks for their effects to be detected. But often you don’t see anything as there are no dead bodies lying on the soil surface! If you have a particularly slug-ridden area, you may want to apply the treatment at 6-weekly intervals from March to September when slugs are active.
Propagating salvias
I have stumbled across a neat way of propagating my salvias. Last autumn, I took lots of cuttings as usual to ensure I have some salvias for this year. I usually take cuttings and push them in a sandy mix in a large container and leave over winter to root and pot up in spring. I was short of suitable containers so I decided to use my root trainers, which I filled with a sandy mix and inserted cuttings.
It was brilliant as you can see – cuttings rooted well as usual but it was so easy to remove the cuttings without damaging their roots. Will definitely do more like this in autumn.
A natural sweetener
I noticed last week that my sweet cicely Myrrhis odorata is flowering but I have to be so careful as its frilly leaves are so very similar to hemlock, which grows in proliferation round here. Sweet cicely has very downy, soft leaves with a velvety texture and tiny white flecks and it lacks the purple stripes seen on the stem of hemlock. The leaves smell strongly of aniseed, another distinguishing feature.
I like to grow sweet cicely beside my rhubarb as its leaves can be used a natural sweetener, so can be added to a pan of rhubarb to reduce the need to add sugar – really! I let some of mine flower so I have plenty of seed – the seed itself is ridged and also has a strong aniseed flavour.
Butterfly ups and downs
This morning saw the publication of Butterfly Conservation’s Butterfly Winners and Losers of 2023. As climate change makes itself felt, its clear that some of the more generalist butterflies are gaining ground but the specialists are suffering. Of the 58 species monitored, half had a better than average year, including the chequered skipper, brimstone, large blue, red admiral, brown argus, marbled white, comma, black hairstreak, and holly blue.
2023 really was the year of the red admiral. Never before has I seen as many as 20 in one area. Over the last 20 years, the organic management of our farm has really boosted butterfly numbers. The spread of knapweed has attacted hoards of marbled whites. While I lived in Surrey, I spent hours on the North Downs trying to find and photograph them and to think that now I can see them from my window.
Another species that I spent hours trying to find was the small pearl-bordered fritillary. This and the small tortoisehell experienced their lowest numbers for 48 years. The small tortoishell was so common in suburban gardens when I was growing up but its declined by a devastating 82% since 1976.
I find it odd that the red admiral has a bumper year, as did the comma, but the small tortoiseshell had its worst year. All rely on nettles as a larval plant. The comma has made a spectacular come back. Fifty years ago it was restricted to the Welsh borders but now its found across England and Wales and has been seen in the Scottish borders too. It’s an adaptable species and has moved from woodlands to gardens and climate change has benefitted it - so why is the small tortoiseshell, a classic garden species, declining? Is it competition?
Happy gardening
Sally
Talks and Workshops
Talk 15 April Sally is speaking at Fagus at Nailsea, Somerset
Workshop 19 April Get climate change savvy GYO course with Kim from her garden in West Wales
Talk 9 May Weston Garden Club Bath
Talk 11 May Sally is speaking at the FarmED Literary Festival - the venue is brilliant and the speakers awesome
Talk 30 May-1 June Bath and West Show, Shepton Mallet
Talk 4 July RHS Hampton Court Festival, How to stage
My sweet cicely has made a dash for the sky too - what a pleasure of a plant it is