Garden Centre

Wednesday, March 12, 2008

Garden tasks after the storm

How did the great storm affect you? On the south coast, but on top of a hill, we had gale force winds and heavy driving rain, followed by two bouts of intense hailstones, all finished off with a brief lull that ended in icy sleet. The effects on local gardens have been pretty dire:

The ‘foreign’ fruit trees (peaches, nectarines and apricots) come into flower much earlier than the native ones, because they still think they are in warmer climes. As a result, every tree I’ve seen in the past two days has been completed denuded of blossom, whether the flowers were open or still in the bud stage, and whether or not they were protected by horticultural fleece. There’s not a huge amount to be done for them now, except wait and hope that a few remaining buds will open and then to go round and hand pollinate what little blossom there is with a paintbrush.

The blackberries, loganberries and tayberries spent the storm whipping their new growth around, or snapping it back to the stem where it had been tied in. For these soft fruit plants, it’s important to go along and check whether any breaks in the stems and shoots are clean and to prune back where necessary; long jagged tears in the shoots are in invitation for disease and rot to enter.

Lots of greenhouse panes got cracked, often by other things in the garden flying into them, so there’s a lovely job! I’ve temporarily pasted cardboard over holes and cracks and now I’ll have to get replacement panes and install them.

Still, it could have been worse – at least our garden isn’t flooded.

Labels: fruit trees, march garden tasks, spring storms

The All Seasons Gardener at 2:57 AM

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