Peonies and Cuckoo Spit...

 Paeonia lactiflora

I pass a garden full of peonies on my way to the shops.  Most of the year my eyes would be fixed on the pavement, the road or phone depending on traffic conditions, but in these few short weeks the beautiful display of large pink and cream flowers shout at me from over their garden wall.

These particular plants are called Paeonia lactiflora ‘Bowl of Beauty’ and fall into the category of herbaceous peony. These are the most well-known type of peony. They are disease resistant perennial plants that enhance the structure and beauty of any garden and produce some of the best cut flowers available. They bloom during the transition from spring into summer, with each individual cultivar blooming only around 7-10 days. The foliage of shining green leaves remains throughout the summer, dies back to the ground in winter and re-emerges early each spring.

Herbaceous peonies require very little care and live for generations. 

There are other less known type of peonies.

We have the Tree Peonies, which are woody perennial shrubs.

Woodland Herbaceous Peonies that are worth noting individually due to their preference for shade. Intersectional Peonies, also known as Itoh which are a hybrid created by crossing a tree peony with an herbaceous peony and are quite rare. There are also peonies that grow well in containers called Patio peonies.

You can buy the plants now from garden centres and it’s a good time to see the real flowers and if they appeal to you, alternatively you can buy bare-rooted plants in autumn. They do need quite a bit of space to flourish, enjoy full sun and mulch in spring.  They can be propagated by division too in autumn which also helps to rejuvenate the parent plant.

Cuckoo spit (spittlebugs)

Gardeners are being urged to report sightings of spittle on their plants in a bid to stop the insects inside spreading a deadly disease through the UK and Ireland.  

The disease is called Xylella fastidiosa bacteria, which prevents water travelling from roots to leaves. It can cause symptoms including leaf scorch, wilt, dieback and plant death. The disease is spread by insects that feed on the xylem of plants. This includes froghoppers which live in the spittle.

While the disease has not yet been spotted here, it has already taken hold in France, Spain and Italy, where it has killed millions of olive trees.

Cuckoo spit which surrounds the insect begins to appear in late spring at a time when the familiar call of cuckoos can be heard, but otherwise has no connection with the bird.

If Xylella is discovered, all host plants within 100 metres would need to be destroyed. The RHS (Royal Horticultural Society) also say there would also be an immediate restriction of movement for some plants within a five kilometre radius, so it’s being taken pretty seriously.

More than 500 plants are at risk, including lavender, oleander, rose, rosemary, chrysanthemum, dahlia, fuchsia, willow and flowering cherry.

Any sightings can be reported online at xylem feeding insects.co.uk who will redirect you to the survey. The survey will help to gather data to inform a response should Xylella reach the UK.

Spittlebugs are not a pest, so please don't remove them, but they are an innocent carrier of Xylella.

Biology

This froth has no connection with cuckoos

It is secreted by the immature stages of sap-sucking insects known as froghoppers, presumably as a means of protecting themselves against predators

The adult insects are present during mid-late summer and live openly on  plants. They do not produce cuckoo spit or cause any noticeable damage

Overwintering eggs are deposited in plant stems in late summer.

Can be found in UK gardens, meadows, grasslands and woodlands from April to late June

The most common species here is the meadow spittlebug (Philaenus spumarius). Adults are 0.5cm long and vary in pattern and colour from pale brown to black and can jump many times their body length

The red-and-black spittlebug hatches out on the roots of plants, rather than in blobs of spittle on plant stems

There are ten species of spittlebug in the UK and Ireland and the young - called nymphs - all produce whitish, frothy blobs of spittle on leaves and branches.

Control

• Apart from producing the 'spit' these insects have little detrimental effect on plants.
• If considered unsightly, they can be wiped off by hand or dislodged with a jet of water from a garden hose.
• There is no need to use an insecticide against froghoppers.

Natures Internet......The Mycelium Network

One thing binds gardens together more than anything else. Fungi.

You find fungi in Antarctica and in nuclear reactors, they were here before us and will be here long after we’re gone. They live inside your lungs, your skin is covered with them and can be found in hair as they are the primary cause of dandruff. Fungi are the most under appreciated organisms, yet they could cure you from smallpox and turn cardboard boxes into forests. There are vastly more fungi species than plants and each and every one of them plays a crucial role in life’s support systems.

It’s no wonder “No dig gardening” is beneficial to the soil when you see how the soil web holds together.  

Mycology is the study of fungi and it’s found that this important organism on the planet is around 1 billion years old.  They are one of the oldest things on earth.

 

They have their own category as they are neither animal nor plant in biology terms and there are millions of species.

Mushrooms are the fruiting bodies of the fungi, far more goes on underground. They are microscopic themselves but can cover massive areas covering hundreds of acres.

The term fungus can evoke negative connotations as we associate the word with itchy toes and other skin or body irritations and diseases. However they are very much a force for good, we just don’t notice it. Life as we know it wouldn’t be possible if it wasn’t for fungi.

Let’s go back a few billion years. 

Single celled organisms had been in the oceans for a long time. The land was just a rocky mass with no life. Early bacteria developed the ability to use the sun for photosynthesis, a process of converting the light into nutrients. 

The by-product of this is oxygen, which was released into the atmosphere allowing for more complex life forms to form which we call the “Cambrian Explosion”. 

Sixty million years after that, more complex life forms came onto land in the shape of fungi with their unique ability to break down and digest rocks, turning it into soil.  The fungi secreted a digestive enzyme and along with mechanical pressure they were able to access nutrients from the rock that were unavailable to any organism at the time. Fungi also fed on the build-up of bacteria on the shore over the millions of years when nothing else was on land. 

What followed were small protoplants such as liverwort. Fungi had minerals and the plants had photosynthesis and they both needed what the other had to survive. Fungi and plants started to cooperate in a process called symbiosis, which is a mutually beneficial relationship. 

Plants spread and the world started to turn green. Some plants became independent of the fungi and a new balance was created. More oxygen was produced and as things died they needed to be recycled so they could continue to be used. This is where fungi come in. They eat death. By breaking down dead things they allow nutrients to be reused which is fundamental for life on earth.

This symbiosis is alive and well in the form of Mycorrhiza which continues to change and evolve and benefits up to 90% of plant growth in the world. 

Some plants such as the orchid still rely on fungi for its survival. The plant has virtually no independent energy reserve in its germination stage. Orchids can be parasitic though and instead of cohabiting with the fungi, the plant sucks the energy from it. The fungus itself will be in a symbiotic relationship with another plant and will use that energy to feed the orchid, an indirect photosynthesis source. A fungus can also be a parasite too as we are aware in the garden and it’s not very palatable when you realise you have just put a mouldy strawberry in your mouth

Fungi can help exchange nutrients amongst trees, if a tree is being shaded by other larger trees it can be fed more nutrients via the fungi so it grows tall enough to survive. These common mycorrrhizal networks are everywhere in our gardens and even connecting huge forests. It could be known as “Natures Internet” or even the “Wood Wide Web”

Signals in plants connecting in this way can warn of oncoming danger in the form of pests and disease. They can help to pass on chemicals to deter or hinder the growth of competing plants by depriving them of nutrients. The fungi can also pass on chemicals to stop pests eating leaves.

It’s in the best interest of the fungi that the plant survives which allows for the continuation of their symbiotic relationship.

Fungi isn’t always visible but it a cornerstone of our ecosystem, forging relationships with other organisms – both alive and dead.

It’s not just plants that interact with fungi either. It’s a food source for us, the yeast we need for our bread, medicines, pest control, leather substitute and packaging.

Fungi are cool, I’ve only skimmed the surface of this complex world but it’s all around you in the garden.

Painting Your Lawn Green and Rhododendon Pruning

Did you know you can spray your lawn green if it gets scorched in the sun ? 

It’s not something we think about doing in Inishowen as our lawns don’t really suffer too much in dry weather and do stay greenish even in the driest of spells. True, this could be due to an excess of moss, but they’re still green.

The same can’t be said of some American states where it’s actually the law to keep your grass green. This is made difficult due to the water shortages and restrictions, especially in highly populated areas such as California.

Hence the rise of the garden spray painting companies. 

They’ll come along, get their knapsack sprayer out and with a lance similar to a pressure washer cover all the grass with a green powdery liquid which when dry can keep the lawn green for up to three months.

The paint used is mostly made from natural plant based green dye and mixed with a clay called Kaolinite which is a silicate material and sticks to the grass leaves when dry. You can make your own solution from Epsom salts, fertilizer and food colouring but I wouldn’t recommend it as it could poison the ground and doesn’t work as well.  

Kaolinite is found in loads of our daily items such as porcelain, toothpaste, cosmetics and paint. It’s also used as an organic crop spray to deter insects and stop our apples getting sun scorched so we are well used to it in our daily lives.

The grass paint won’t discriminate from covering any surface though, so you have to mask off anything you don’t want turning a chlorophyll green colour, your house, pathways, cars, dog and yourself will need protecting. 

The grass will still need a bit of care though even though it looks healthy and this could be forgotten. Golf courses and amenity areas have been touching up brown patches like this for years, now whole lawns are being done. 

There are suggestions that the idea of lawns is a dated concept and they just don’t keep green like they used to now areas are becoming hotter and dryer. They are not a viable option for residential areas that have long periods of drought.

I actually don’t mind grass looking parched in summer as it’s an indication of a pleasant, warm, dry spell after which the grass will green up again when it rains.  Others in hotter climates see it as a signal that we need to start addressing the wider, more important crisis of climate change instead of applying a thin veil over the issue with paint. 

Rhododendron Care

I’m often asked about pruning rhododendrons. There seems to a resistance to cut them back leading to them getting out of control, but if you treat them just like a regular shrub they can be kept in check.

We’ve had a wonderful display of flowers this year from both garden and wild rhododendrons and unlike the wild ones which can take over whole woodlands we can do something about the ones in our gardens.

Generally it’s a wise idea to plant shrubs in areas where they won’t get too big for their space. You can get smaller growing rhodo’s and also azaleas which are in the same family but more than likely you have a whopping shrub just waiting to take over the garden and make its way into the house.

Pruning is more of an art form that a science and there’s no hard and fast rule, it all depends on how you want the shrub to look and behave. If you just need to deadhead the shrub then all it takes it to either snap off the old flowerheads after the petals drop or cut back the stem until the end of the flower stalk.

If you need a more drastic reduction in size you can work on a three year plan of taking out all the old dead/weak wood, then cutting back in stages where it’s not so much of a shock to the plant.

One year I worked at St Columb’s park house in Derry removing the invasive rhododendrons that had gone really leggy. We unceremoniously cut hundreds of them down to ground level in one winter. They have all survived and grown back again, looking healthy and compact.

They are a hardy shrub and in the wild they are used to being burnt to the ground and rejuvenating themselves all the stronger for it.

After flowering has finished is a great time to reduce the plants in size and if you do it in stages there will always be flowers in the following year.

Cacti and Tigernuts

 Cacti and succulents go outside

My tigernuts have germinated…Yay!  I’d almost given up on the sedge grass sprouting but the sunny weather and heat has prompted them into life.  

I’m still not sure what to do with them as they can be invasive so I’ll probably put them in large pots for now and wait for the sweet, juicy corms to mature so I can have them as a snack. If I keep them in containers they hopefully won’t end up like the perennial nasturtiums and join the long list of plants that try to take over the garden. 

The warm weather has also prompted the salad crops into life. Lettuce is ready for picking and we’ve been eating the green shallot leaves for a while now and they really liven up a salad and enhance a stew. 

As the chance of frost has gone I have put the potted succulents and cacti outside. They have been on a sunny windowsill in the house all winter and spring and are starting to find life a little bit too easy as some of them are getting a bit spindly. Without the regular hardships the natural world has to offer such as wind and rain they don’t toughen up. I like the plants to show their battle scars as it adds to their personality so after a month or two outside they should toughen up and be more like the types of plants you see growing in Mediterranean climates. 

Being open to the elements will also help them fight off pests and disease as their skins will be tougher. I’ve a free draining soil in the pots so they shouldn’t get waterlogged. I’ll just have to remember to bring them in before the first frosts.

Jobs to Do in June

As I mentioned, the chance of frost will have now hopefully passed, and young bedding plants that has been grown on under protection during spring can be planted outdoors ready for those beautiful displays, or into summer hanging baskets and containers.

When using containers or hanging baskets remember not to fill them right up to the top with compost but leave a small gap so that when watering it will soak in and not run over the edges. I have tried the upturned plastic bottle method of watering but still find a good soaking for ages with a hose will do the job. If they do dry out put them into a large bucket of water and let them soak up the water. You’ll know it’s full when it sinks!

It will also prove very beneficial to give your potted plants a weekly/monthly liquid feed to improve growth and flowering. I was going to make my own comfrey/nettle mix but settled for an organic feed discounted to 1 euro in the local garden centre. It’s far less smelly.

When planting out debud/deflower the plants as this will encourage them to grow a better root system and produce the required flowers. I am taking cuttings of creeping thyme this week and to ensure the cuttings root I have had to nip out all of the flowers from the end of the stems to redirect the energy into the root development. This also helps the young plants thicken out as just one stem looks a bit weak.

A number of young plants would also benefit by having their shoot tips pinched out which encourages branching. Most bedding plants can have their tips taken out and ones such as begonias and busy lizzies and petunias root easily, even in a glass of water in the windowsill.

By pinching out the shoot tips bushier plants develop along with more stems leading to more flowers.  I made the decision to nip all the tops from my catnip the other week and the results – although drastic at the time- have really paid off as the plugs are multi-stemmed, thick and bushy. The local cats should have a great time rolling around in them when they get a bit bigger.

In the Veggie Garden

Hopefully the weeds are under control in the veggie garden. If not, ignore the suggestions below and get weeding. If you have clear areas ready for planting then read on….

Plant out greenhouse raised brussels sprouts, cabbage, celery, courgettes, cucumbers, marrows, runner and french beans.

Beetroot, carrots and lettuce sowing can be continued.

Remember smaller crops will be produced when over-crowded sowings are made, any unwanted seedlings can be carefully removed and in the case of salad crops, eaten.