Fly Honeysuckle

By Victoria Katelyn

The perfoliate honeysuckle is a stem-twining, climbing shrub growing to a height of several metres. The light brown bark on the stem peels off in long, longitudinal strips. The twigs are slender and hollow, the buds opposite, ovate, with pointed tips. The long flowers appear at the end of May and emit a strong fragrance, especially in the evening. The red fruits ripen from August onwards and are soon dispersed by birds. Widespread mostly in southern Europe, it extends north to southern Germany and the warmer regions of Czechoslovakia, growing there at the edges of forests, in thickets and in open broadleaved woods.

This shrub is widespread throughout most of Europe, its range extending far east to Siberia. In central and western Europe it grows on the edges and in the shrub layer of woods, on scrub-covered banks and in hedgerows. It likes fresh, rich soil and tolerates fairly heavy shade.

It is most plentiful in hilly country but also grows in the mountains up to elevations of 1000 m. It is frequently planted in parks and gardens as a hedge plant because it stands up well to clipping and is covered with foliage early in spring. More commonly planted in parks, however, is the taller species L. tatarica of Siberia, with pink flowers and bright red berries.

The black honeysuckle is a sparsely branched. shrub of upright habit, growing to 1-2 m in height. The shoots are slender, often curved, the buds opposite, with pointed tips, standing out from the twig at an angle. The flowers appear in May and June. The black berries ripen in August; they are inedible and cause vomiting when eaten. Propagation is by means of seeds as well as by summer and winter cuttings.

Beneath the buds is a clearly discernible leaf scar. The attractive, fragrant flowers appear in June and July, the fruits ripen in September and October. This shrub is widespread in southern and western Europe, its range extending as far as northern Africa and Asia Minor. In western Europe it is most plentiful on fertile soils in riverine woods, also occurring on shrub-covered banks and at the edges of forests.

It bears a great profusion of flowers if provided with abundant light, but tolerates partial shade. It requires warmth and the shoots are easily damaged by frost. It is widely cultivated as a vigorous, ornamental climber in parks and gardens, where it is used to cover fences, walls and pergolas. Propagation is by means of seeds and cuttings. The variety serotina has dark red flowers.

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For those who live in city apartments, a roof garden, however small, can be an invaluable retreat in your garden plan especially when it is well grown enough to screen off the city views around it.

Orchids Pests Information

By Carl Roessler

Red spider mite is a pest will attack most orchids, but in particular the softer-leaved dendrobiums, lycastes and coelogynes, as well as cymbidiums. Individually, they are extremely small, but they can just about be seen with the naked eye, although more easily with a magnifying glass. This will show a yellowish mite, moving across the underside of the leaf surface.

The bees will enter a greenhouse from outside, removing pollen as they leave the flowers where they have searched unsuccessfully for nectar. Prevent bees from entering your greenhouse by covering the ventilator space with a fine-gauge netting. Remember to do the same to the doorway if this is left open during hot weather. Mice find orchid pollen particularly attractive as a good source of food. If you suspect you have mice, which will come in from outside as the weather gets cold in winter, lay humane traps and be sure to release them well away from the greenhouse.

These mites are most active in warm weather and breed fastest in warm, dry conditions. They get on to plants indoors as well as outdoors. In bad cases, they will cause premature foliage loss. You can do much to avoid getting red spider mite on your orchids by regularly spraying the foliage on the undersides as well on top with water. Cymbidiums summering outdoors, for example, can be hosed daily underneath and between the leaves. Another method of control is to use a systemic insecticide, but take care to read the manufacturers' instructions regarding its safe use. The insecticide will render a plant poisonous and eradicate not only the adult mites but also the new generations that will hatch about ten days later. Alternatively, use an insecticidal soap, wiping e leaf in turn. This is a contact killer I will destroy adults but may leave unharmed, so repeat after ten days.

Dry the hole with a kitchen towel then pack it with horticultural sulfur. This will dry up the wound and prevent infection from setting in. The hole may heal but it will not go away, and will remain an unsightly blemish.

Weevils and caterpillars are leaf-chewing pests will eat large chunks from leaves and flowers in a short time. The weevils are nocturnal, spending their days buried in the compost (growing medium), which makes them particularly difficult to catch. Their grubs also inhabit the compost and harm root tips. Search for these at night while you are looking for slugs. Occasionally, they will be seen by day, as are various kinds of caterpillar.

Moss flies breed in the compost (growing medium), which their minute, whitish larvae cause to break down. The grubs will attack seedling roots, but on adult plants are more of a nuisance than a pest. You will see the flies take flight when plants are disturbed.

After a while, the scales will move on to another orchid. If you suspect scale insects on cattleyas or other orchids that protect their pseudo bulbs with sheaths, strip these away and you may be surprised at what you find. What appeared to be a few scales around the edge of the sheathing can be the tip of an iceberg, with many more lurking beneath. Remove the pests by washing them off with an insecticidal soap. You may need to use an old toothbrush to dislodge the scale, but do not scrub so hard that you damage the leaf further. An old remedy that was always recommended was to wipe the leaves with denatured alcohol, which kills on contact, but you need to dislodge the shell.

You can leave it there for half an hour without harming the plant. To control the adult flies, particularly with windowsill orchids, place a few insectivorous plants, such as butterworts (Pinquicula spp) and sundews (Drosera spp), close to the orchids. These are bog plants and so need to stand in shallow dishes of water at all times. No fertilizer should be used, because this will kill them. Their sticky leaves will catch any moss flies and small midges, making this is an efficient and natural method of control.

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Orchid is an beautiful addition to any garden in your home.

Shrub Leaves

By Franklin Jones

The leaf blade is patterned with veins. The leaves of most woody plants have one principal vein with several branching veins extending to the leaf margin. Some perennial plants, usually those with palmately lobed leaves, have palmate venation with several veins of like thickness radiating from the end of the rachis (e.g. gooseberry).

A good identifying feature of some shrubs is their arcuate venation (cornelian cherry, dogwood, common buckthorn), where the secondary veins run parallel to the leaf margin towards the tip of the leaf. Leaf apices likewise differ in shape; they may be acuminate or acute (with long, slender, or short points), rounded, truncate (blunt) or emarginate (cleft). Leaf bases may be rounded (European green alder, wayfaring tree), cuneate, i.e. wedge- shaped, (barberry, mezercon) or cordate (hazel).

Leaves may be either simple, with a single blade, which may be lobed, e.g. the hazel, gooseberry and hawthorn, or compound, with three or more blades attached to one stalk, e.g. the bladdernut and common elder.

Simple leaves have blades of various shapes and are described accordingly as acicular, lanceolate, ovate, obovate, orbicular, cordate, rhomboid, etc. Compound leaves may be trifoliate, palmately compound, odd-pinnate or even-pinnate. Trifoliate has three leaflets radiating from the end of the rachis, e.g. the laburnum and common broom. Palmately compound has more than three leaflets radiating from the end of the rachis, e.g.

Thus, for instance, the leaves of Comes mas, Euonymus europaeus, Rhus typhina and Berberis thunbergi turn purplish-red, those of Forsythia suspensa dark violet, Viburnum opulus scarlet, Amelanchier oxalis orange, Rhamnus frangula and Corylus avellana yellow, etc. These autumn hues make just as lovely a picture in parks and in the wild as do the pastel tints of flowering shrubs in spring. Later a corky layer forms between the stalk and the twig, severing the vascular bundles nourishing the leaf.

These are microscopic openings in the epidermis of the leaf, located, as a rule, on the underside. They can be expanded or contracted to control the evaporation of water, depending on whether there is an overabundance or lack of this vital substance. Water is transported to the leaves via a vein-like system of vascular bundles that pass through the leaf stalk and branch in the leaf.

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The variety of garden materials present a futher range of garden design in your garden plan, involving color and texture as well as linear design.

Holly Shrub

By Jada Aaron

Holly is an evergreen shrub or tree 2-10 m in height with a conical crown. The bark is smooth and grey-brown. In older trees the leaves in the upper part of the crown arc only slightly spiny. The flowers, borne in the axils of the leaves, appear in May-,June. The red fruits ripen in October and remain on the tree until late in the winter. In Great Britain and the United States it is used as a Christmas decoration.

A native of western and southern Europe, it thrives exceptionally well in the moist and mild coastal climate. It requires partial shade and often grows in woodland. In the Alps it is found at elevations up to 1200 m. In central Europe it is often planted in parks, though it suffers great damage by frost in severe winters.

The spindle tree is an upright shrub or small tree, 2-6 m in height. The shoots are green, tinted red on the side exposed to the sun, markedly four- angled. The buds are ovate, green, often sub- opposite. The leaf scars are whitish.

The smoke bush is a shrub or tree glowing to a height of 2-8 m and forming a broad, rounded crown. The shoots are violet-brown, the buds small with pointed tips, borne in terminal clusters. The twigs when broken and leaves when crushed have a strong aromatic scent. The flowers, often dioecious, are borne in feathery panicles in June. The fruits ripen at the beginning of September. Both the flowering panicles and fruits make the smoke bush a very attractive ornamental. It produces prolific stump sprouts as well as root suckers.

The smoke bush is a native of southern Europe south of the Carpathians and of southern Siberia, its range extending to China. It grows on dry, mostly south-facing banks in thin oak and pine woods. A light-loving shrub, it stands up well to dry spells and tolerates soils containing lime and magnesium. In central and western Europe it is widely planted in parks as a specimen plant for its ornamental reddish fluffy fruiting clusters and crimson autumn foliage. It may be damaged by frost in severe winters.

The wood is the heaviest and hardest of European woods and is used in wood carving and for inlay as a substitute for ivory; it is also used in industry to make shuttles for textile looms.

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In garden planning, bricks can give visual direction in your garden paving depending on how they are laid.

Choice Varieties for Compost Growing

By John Hawks

There are several choice varieties of blackberries for compost growing. The following are some of the blackberry choice varieties for compost growing. Ashton Cross is a blackberry raised by the Long Ashton Research Station. A vigorous grower but the canes are not particularly thorny. Can be planted as close as 8 feet apart. Fruit large, deep black and attractive, with the real blackberry flavour. Season late July-Aug.

A blackberry is planted every 15 feet and the canes are trained along the wires provided and sometimes they are twisted around the top wire to form a kind of long rope. If the variety Himalayan Giant is grown, the canes will be well barbed and will help to keep out unwelcome visitors. With blackberries, though one likes to cut out the majority of the old wood, some may be left in for a second year, the side growths being pruned back to within 6 inches of their base. Thus for the general management of this rough method, serious pruning need only take place in the winter every second year.

John Innes is raised at the John Innes Horticultural Institution. Heavy bearer. Growth not too strong. May be planted as close as 8 feet apart. Fruits large, handsome, sweet, juicy, with few seeds. Season late Aug.-Sept. Marion is a new blackberry, being introduced from the U.S.A., with berries longer than wide. Colour bright black, flavour superior. Has cropped to 7 tons per acre.

Various types of aphides, or greenfly, will attack blackberries and if they give trouble, by sucking the growing tips of the canes, spray immediately they are seen with liquid derris.

Sometimes the green capsid bugs suck the leaves, thus deforming them and splitting them and even stunting the growth. The safest way of killing this pest is to spray with liquid nicotine, dissolving a oz. in a 21 gallon can of water and adding a dessert spoonful of Stergene.

The moment the blackcurrants have been planted, the whole of the ground where they are growing should be covered with baled straw a foot deep. This should be clean and be free from docks or thistles. Each year a little more straw is added if necessary, so as to keep the depth at about a foot. Of course, during the time of picking, the straw may be trodden down well and at this stage, when flattened, it may be no deeper than 4 or 5 inches.

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Raspberry is a luscious garden fruit tree produced on tall canes which are grown apart in rows and supported on a system of poles and wires.

Cock's Comb Plant

By Greg Bailey

Synonym is Alocasia macrorrhiza (L.) Schott

Common names are Cock's Comb (Eng.); Quail Grass (Benin); Sokoyokoto, Green or White Soko (Nig.); Crete de Coq (Fr); Mirabel (Sp.).

Local forms have been selected for specific areas.

Center of origin and distribution is India.

Cultivated forms of the various species are grown in India, Malaysia, Indonesia, Burma, the Philippines, Taiwan, China, South Pacific, tropical Africa, the Caribbean, Central and South America and in the tropics generally.

Usually short-lived annuals, up to 1 m in height. Stems: erect, often thick and fleshy, sometimes grooved. Leaves: variable in shape, green or purple, normally alternate, petiolate and entire, tips often obtuse. Inflorescence: racemose spikes, either axillary or terminal. Flowers: small, numerous, regular and unisexual; petals 4-5; stamens 1-5, opposite petals; ovary superior; carpels 2-3. Seeds: small, testa shiny, black or brown; approximately 1200-3000 seeds/g. Numerous species and hybrids between both species and varieties exist, some of which have been designated as species or subspecies. Some species are: (1)Amaranthus caudatus L. (Quinoa, Inca Wheat, Quihuicha). Inflorescence long and pendant. Grown' as a grain crop in Peru, Bolivia and north-east Argentina; also in India and high rainfall areas in West Africa. Tolerant to a wide range of soil and climatic conditions; (2)Amaranthus cruentus L. (syn. Amaranthus hybridus subsp. cruentus, A. leuco- carpus S. Wats.). Inflorescence lax. Grown in Guatemala and other Central American countries as a grain crop. Widely distributed in tropical Africa. This species may be conspecific with Amaranthus paniculatus L. which is a grain crop of South-east Asia;(3) Amaranthus dubius Mart. ex Thell.Mainly grown in Asia, less widely in tropical America and Africa; (4) Amaranthus hypochondriacus L. (syn. A. leucocarpus S. Wats.) An important grain amaranth, cultivated in Mexico and Guatamala. The seeds are roasted and pounded into a flour; (5) Amaranthus lividus L. var. oleraceus (L.) Thellung. Widely grown in China, probably originating from India; (6) Amaranthus tricolor L. (syn. A. oleraceus L., A. blitum S. Wats., A. gangeticus L.) Chinese Spinach; Tampala. A native of tropical Asia, also grown in West Africa, particularly Nigeria, and the West Indies. In the Philippines, this species is known as Kulitis. Plants are spineless, reaching a height of 30-60 cm at maturity. The leaves are 4-10 cm in length; flowers green-white, about 1 mm in length. The taxonomy of the Amaranthaceae has been somewhat confused, partly due to the fact that hybrids between species have been frequently reported. Identification based on chromosome numbers has proved difficult, due to their small size. A discussion on Amaranthus taxonomy is given by Grubben (1976), based on the conclusions reached by many taxonomists.

Soils with a high organic content, with adequate mineral reserves are required for optimum yields although some species are tolerant to fairly wide ranges of soil condition. The optimum pH range is 5.5-7.5, but some cultivars will tolerate more alkaline conditions. Most species and cultivars have a high rate of nitrogen absorption and surface dressings of nitrogenous fertilizers are normally required during the period of active growth. In many areas, additional applications of potassium may also be necessary. Most species are tolerant of relatively high temperatures and generally thrive within a temperature range of 22-30C. Amaranthus is grown during both wet and dry seasons, though irrigation is normally required for dry season crops since the rate of transpiration by the leaves is fairly high. Frequent applications of water are required, related to the stage of growth of the crop and the moisture-retaining capacity of the soil. Lowland areas, up to 800 m, are most suitable for cultivation. Although most species and cultivars are adapted to short daylength conditions, they do not appear to be unduly sensitive to photoperiodic fluctuations.

Corms or offsetts are usually planted in prepared planting holes or pits and plants are spaced at 1-1.5 m X 1-1.5 m apart. Weeds should be controlled but little routine cultivation appears necessary.

Most species and cultivars of Amaranthus grow rapidly and may be harvested 30-50 days from sowing when they are 15-20 cm high. Either the whole plant may be uprooted, or established plants may be cut back to within 15 cm of the base to encourage lateral growths which will provide successive harvests. Yield: Entire plant harvested : 20-25 t/ha; shoots only (successional harvesting): 30-60 t/ha. Seed production: Cross-pollination by wind-borne pollen is normal although some selfing often occurs. Plants for seed production are planted at 40 cm X 70 cm spacing may be headed back after about 4 weeks to stimulate lateral branching. Seeds mature 3-5 months from planting. Seed yield is approximately 200 kg/ha (A. tricolor).

Any roots are trimmed and the plants may be washed before being tied into bundles. Where available, crushed ice may be scattered over the top layers of the basket or container to prevent wilting. Care should be taken to avoid overpacking of the container.

The nutritional content of the leaves of various species of Amaranthus varies but, in general, the leaves of plants of most species contain a high level of vitamin A, calcium and potassium. The seeds of Amaranthus species are used as a food in some tropical areas and a protein content of up to 15% has been reported. High contents of lysine (6.2% of the total protein) and methionine (2.3%) have been recorded.

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Find out more tips on vegetable gardening to grow a beautiful and healthy vegetable garden.

Cotoneaster

By Cody Aaric

The pea tree is a 2-6 in high shrub of upright habit with several stems covered with smooth, grey-green bark. The twigs are also green. On either side of the buds are two spiny stipules. The yellowish flowers open at the end of May. The pods ripen at the end of July, when they split and twist along the axis, ejecting the seeds several feet away. The seeds arc kidney-shaped, round in cross section, yellow-brown, 4 mm long. They can be sown immediately in July or the following spring; they retain their power of germination for many years.

The whitish flowers, which have a strong smell, appear in May. The fruit ripens in September-October. It has a characteristic crater-like hollow at the top and contains two stones. This shrub is fairly widespread in western and central Europe, where it grows in riverinc woods, at the margins of forests, in pastures and on shrubby banks. In the mountains it is found at elevations above 1000 m. It prefers heavy, loamy soils with calcium carbonate and grows well even in partial shade.

The related C. monogyna is a thorny shrub used for hedges and is a good shelter for songbirds. The pink, red and white double-flowered varieties are often planted in parks and avenues.

The service-berry is a slender shrub with upright branches reaching 1-3 m in height. The stern is covered with blackish bark, the shoots are slender and reddish brown, the buds arc violet-red and narrowly conical, terminating in a point. Emerging shoots are white tomentose.

The buds are small, round and paired. Broom has a tap root penetrating to a great depth and numerous lateral roots with root nodules containing nitrogen-fixing bacteria. The natural area of distribution embraces western and central Europe. It does not thrive in neutral and alkaline soils, exhibiting better growth on acid substrates. It is found mostly in sandy and rocky situations by the wayside, on nonfertile soils, at the edges of forests and in heaths.

This shrub is a native of southern and western Europe. It grows mostly on dry limestone banks, requires ample light and has a better growth and greater profusion of flowers on rich soils. It is a popular ornamental in parks, being a suitable subject for planting either as a solitary specimen or in groups. Found in the Alps and mountains of southern Europe is the closely related species L. alpinum with hairless leaves and longer, more handsome chains of flowers.

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In garden planning, slate is a restrained and dignified garden paving material.