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Sally Nex

Monthly Archives: July 2014

Rogue’s gallery: Garlic rust

22 Tuesday Jul 2014

Posted by sallynex in kitchen garden

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Tags

diseases, fungal diseases, garlic, hollyhocks, leeks, onions, rust

roguesgallery_garlicrustMy garlic has turned ginger. And not in a good way.

It happened just about overnight, a few weeks ago. One day I had perfectly healthy, sturdy garlic shoots: the next day the foliage was a bilious shade of orange. On closer inspection, it was covered in little raised bumps and pustules the exact same shade as rusty metal. There are few diseases more easily identifiable.

I’m reliably informed by Wikipedia that there are 7000 species of rust. I can entirely believe it. It’s one of the most common fungal diseases you can get in the veg garden, or indeed anywhere in the garden: I’ve had rust on my hollyhocks too, and it also affects pelargoniums, mint, lawns, fuchsias and pear trees (this last with the rather eccentric habit of spending part of its lifecycle on juniper bushes – so you need both plants for it to flourish).

On the plus side, each type of rust is very, very specialised. So I can’t blame the hollyhocks for infecting my garlic: hollyhock rust (Puccinia malvacearum) only likes hollyhocks. This is garlic rust, Puccinia allii, and it mainly likes leeks and garlic (it can also infect onions, but for some unexplained reason chooses not to in the UK: perhaps it just finds garlic tastier. All I know is that my onion crops are growing blithely alongside the blighted garlic, their normal healthy shade of dark green). [read more…]

Hampton Court: Do try this at home

15 Tuesday Jul 2014

Posted by sallynex in exotic edibles, kitchen garden

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Tags

cardamom, cranberries, Hampton Court, malabar spinach

Veg gardening the traditional way

Veg gardening the traditional way

Well I thought I was doing pretty well on the exotics front this year, what with the tomatilloes hogging one end of the greenhouse and my huge tree chilli – now, in its second year, almost at roof height – fighting it out with the tomatoes at the other.

The loquat tree is thriving, the fig less so after I strimmed its head off a few weeks ago.

The yacon rotted in last winter’s wet so I’ll have to buy some more next spring (should have brought it in under cover, I know) but I’ve made up for it by acquiring a Japanese wineberry.

But the pros at Hampton Court, as always, make me feel like a stuck-in-the-mud traditionalist.

There were veg in that Growing Tastes marquee I never even knew existed, let alone thought of growing.

Here are the ones which are going in my little black book: [read more..]

Hampton Court in pictures: New varieties

12 Saturday Jul 2014

Posted by sallynex in new plants

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Tags

agapanthus, cotinus, crocosmia, dahlias, eryngium, Hampton Court Flower Show, new varieties

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Agapanthus ‘Blueberry Cream’ from the Hoyland Plant Centre

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Crocosmia ‘Chrome Spray’ from Trecanna Nursery

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Eryngium ‘Neptune’s Gold’ from Hardy Plants: saw this one at Chelsea and still can’t make up my mind about it. That yellow foliage just looks… ill, somehow.

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Cotinus ‘Ruby Glow’ from Hilliers, celebrating their 150th anniversary.

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Dahlia ‘Bloom 50’, another new variety commemorating a special anniversary, this time the 50th birthday of the RHS’s Britain in Bloom

Hampton Court in pictures: Roses

10 Thursday Jul 2014

Posted by sallynex in Uncategorized

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Tags

Hampton Court Flower Show, roses

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Champagne Moments (Pococks Roses)

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Tequila Sunrise (Apuldram Roses)

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For Your Eyes Only (2015 Rose of the Year)

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Dusky Maiden (Historic Roses Group)

Hampton Court in pictures: Best in Show

09 Wednesday Jul 2014

Posted by sallynex in Uncategorized

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Tags

Australia, Hampton Court, Jim Fogarty, Melbourne Botanic Gardens

Essence of Australia for the Royal Botanic Gardens, Melbourne, designed by Chelsea veteran Jim Fogarty to capture the sparse plantlife and harsh beauty of the landscape down under

Essence of Australia for the Royal Botanic Gardens, Melbourne, designed by Chelsea veteran Jim Fogarty to capture the sparse plantlife and harsh beauty of the landscape down under and a worthy winner of a gold medal and Best in Show

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Loved the sparse, uncompromising planting: just so different from anything else here. The plant list for this garden reads like a foreign language: this, I think, is Chrysocephalum apiculatum, common everlasting, an Australian version of our Helichrysum

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The sinuous water feature in the centre was inspired by the Aboriginal Rainbow serpent and blupped occasionally in a billabong sort of way.

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Red rock simultaneously captures the spirit of the Aussie outback and sets off the plants dramatically well. I was particularly taken with this butter-yellow kangaroo paw (Anizoganthos)

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