Okay, so who has been doing the wrong "rain dance"? Its "rain dance" and not "HAIL dance"!! Our sympathy to those who had their beautiful gardens shredded by the heavy hail storm last week.
This has been a season of extremes, with many "worst evers" :
- Worst frost
- Worst drought
- Worst fires
- Worst hail
One gets the feeling that our resilience as gardeners is being tested to the limit. Maybe some of you are getting a bit demoralised but, take heart, these extremes normally only occur every ten to twenty years. So for the next ten years, at least, we can relax and not worry!
So what can you do when your garden has been mashed by hail? Before you do anything, it is time to go back to the "Obies". After this extreme season, you may be onto your second bottle by now.
Alright, lets get serious about this hail. Hail is good and bad. Good in that it is said to be high in nitrogen and other good stuff for the garden. Not so good for young seedlings which probably won't survive the onslaught from the heavens. Also not so good if you were thinking of exporting your bumper peach crop, which are now all marked. When hail is large it causes damage to plant stems and opens up "wounds" to the bark. These "wounds" can allow "baddies" easy access to attack the plant's now vulnerable immune system. Young plantations of pine trees can be devastated by viruses after heavy hail. So if you would like to be cautious, then spraying your plants with a fungicide would help. If healthy, most plants will survive this aerial onslaught and heal the damage themselves. Next is to get out those sharp pruners and cut away as much of the damaged stems as you can. Make sure you keep in mind the plant shape you are aiming for. Feeding the plants with a good foliar feed will help boost their immune system and boost growth. You will be surprised how quickly your garden will recover. Nature's way of healing is incredible.
Although it may seem that the epicentre of the hailstorm was in your garden, there are many other dedicated gardeners who were hit just as badly, if not worse.
We have found that if you watered and fed your roses during the dry spell, they would have rewarded you with many unblemished blooms. Fuchsias, however, prefer the current cooler and moist conditions, not performing well during the hot, dry weather. Keep up with your feeding programmes and, with the moist weather, you may need to spray a fungicide on your roses. You can use the same fungicide on your fuchsias. Ludwigs recommends Chronos which has been tried and tested.
If your fuchsias are from our nursery, then they probably won't be susceptible to rust. This is because we have, over the last 20 years, selected those varieties that are hardy. Despite this, if the plants are under stress, their defences will be low.
Now is a good time to plant healthy berries. We have a range of selected varieties of strawberries, raspberries, youngberries and blackberries, some of which are thornless. Picking your own fresh berries for breakfast can be very rewarding. Last season we were still picking strawberries and raspberries in June!
It is almost time for our Summer Sale! This year we are combining our Fuchsia Festival and our Daylily Dazzle into one big sale. Our Summer Sale starts on Friday, 7th November, and runs until Sunday, 16th November 2014, from 9am to 4pm daily.
For more information contact Tanglewood Nursery.