Garden Centre

Saturday, August 16, 2008

Clematis (and wilt)

A friend of mine was panicking about clematis wilt yesterday so I went round to have a look. Now if you get it, or rather your plant does, clematis wilt is very bad news indeed. The foliage turns black overnight and the whole plant just falls over and dies, but it’s a much rarer condition than most people think and there are numerous other causes for wilt – in fact I’d say that a clematis is likely to wilt just to wind you up!

The first thing to do is NOT to panic – check if the foliage is brown rather than pure black and whether it has veining – unless it’s coal black and the veins have disappeared, it’s not clematis wilt.

Then decide what’s going on – the likely causes of browning, droopy or crispy leaves and a plant sagging on its supports are:

• Brittle stems have twisted and broken in windy conditions – if this is your cause, buy some good supports, and clematis netting instead of relying on ties which can allow the plant to snap
• Slugs and snails (and I’ve heard that earwigs and caterpillars are prone to this, behaviour too, although not in my garden) have munched through stems at the base of the plant, causing all the leaves above them to die spectacularly – deal with the pest first (organically if possible) then prune the plant back to preserve it for next year
• Careless hoeing or weeding around the base of the stem can either cut stems or just damage them enough to cause wilting.

In her case it was simple - dry roots on a plant that likes cool damp conditions for its lower levels!

Labels: august garden tasks, clematis, clematis wilt, pruning clematis

The All Seasons Gardener at 12:55 AM 0 Comments

---

Wednesday, March 26, 2008

Polish invaders in the plant world

Market experts estimate that about 90% of the plants sold over the Easter weekend, whether from specialist nurseries, in DIY stores or off garage forecourts, actually came to the UK from elsewhere in Europe.

As an example, Britain’s clematis varieties (which we should bear in mind were originally introduced to the UK from the Himalayas by the wife of an Indian Consul General) are being ousted by Polish varieties. It’s happening for two reasons: cost and innovation.

A Polish Jesuit monk began to breed clematis in the 1960s after finding seedlings in the garden of his Warsaw monastery. He created more than sixty varieties which are famed for their colours, disease resistance and hardiness and he worked on them for over a decade before he made them public, giving them names that revealed his dislike of the Communist regime in his country, such as General Sikorski, Lech Walesa and Jan Pawel II. His untiring work, and the ability he had to invest time and money in the plants, has made them a huge success now they’ve finally reached the West.

There is a bit of a downside to this story of European cooperation though. Many of the trees and shrubs that sold in many British nurseries as ‘native species’ actually germinated from eastern European stock, either from seed and acorns gathered in East European forests and that can be bad news for wildlife because trees that come from countries with chillier winters than Britain’s are likely to come into leaf and flower earlier than native ones, and that can mean that our native birds, insects and wildlife don’t get the food they need at the time they need it to feed their young, because when the new generation are ready to consume it, the tree or shrub has already ‘gone over’ and offers no sustenance to them.

Clematis courtesy of Tanakwho

Labels: clematis, spring flowers

The All Seasons Gardener at 4:37 AM 0 Comments

---