Off The Edge Gardening

A good year for the spangle gall wasp.  I love a bit of spangle, not so sure about the gall and the wasp though.

I love to learn a new word, or in this case two new words.  Slime Flux.  How fantastic is that?  Slime Flux.  And I got to see it as well.  Slime Flux.  And I heard grisly tales of how it can spurt out of a tree like the fountain from hell and smells as rank as rank can be.  Slime Flux.  It was a good day.

I suppose I had better reveal all.  The tree surgeons came to town today and spent their time doing things not to be recommended unless your name is Spider Man, or at a push one of the other more accomplished super heroes.  A sycamore seedling which had become a sycamore adult had to be removed from the cliff edge after many years of pruning and growing and pruning and growing.  It was this very same tree that did the spewing of the hadean gunk or as it was eloquently described by one of the super heroes, the tree poo.  Slime flux, or bacterial wetwood (I will spare you the Latin name), is a bacterial disease that enters the victim through a wound of some description, it could be a pruning scar or mechanical damage.  The pressure that builds up inside the tree causes it to weep odorous sap; this pressure also means that if you cut into the tree the noxious substance dramatically shoots out all over the unsuspecting arborist.  So these lads, who spent a large proportion of the day dangling off a cliff, not only had to put up with hail, thunder and lighting and an annoying curious observer, the trees themselves were fighting back!  They said they were returning tomorrow; I wouldn’t blame them if they didn’t bother.

Driving down the M5 in the sheeting rain along with what appeared to be the annual juggernaut migration west and their accompanying curtain of impenetrable spray, it crossed my mind that this two hour drive was a lot of trouble just to visit a National Collection of Nerine sarniensis cultivars.  Trust me, it was worth it.

Working in a coastal garden, albeit at the top of a mountain, means there is an almost constant supply of seaweed available on the beach below.  With this free resource you can create valuable and nutritious feeds and composts full of trace elements vital to healthy soil and therefore healthy plants.  A few years ago, when the builders were in residence we persuaded them to take their dumper truck to the beach where we loaded it with the precious weed.  They then chugged it up that darned hill and dumped it at the entrance for us to barrow around the garden.  Having earlier dug out an overgrown bed of mixed iris to make way for the new Pastel Border I decided that this would an ideal place to store the salty treasure.  Here it would be exposed to the good old North Devon rain which would flush away any excess salinity.   Several weeks later, the new border planted up and looking good, I was showing off my achievement to a visitor.   Pointing out the elegant Rosa “Evelyn”, the delicate Potentilla fruticosa “Elizabeth” and …. to my horror I noticed pair of rather manky looking knickers slap bang in the middle of the bed.  Quickly I pointed out something of supreme interest in the far distance and herded her off in that direction.  Later I returned with the pitch fork and disposed of the lost lingerie.  And no, before you ask, they definitely weren’t mine!

Earlier in the week I was, for my sins, a panelist at a “Gardener’s Question Time” event in a local garden centre.  I was joined by two others whose joint CV’s were extensive and involved phrases such as RHS examiner, lifetime in horticulture, university lecturer, supplier of vegetables to supermarkets, explorer and astronaut*.   Luckily neither of them professed cartwheeling expertise so it was just as well that I could fill this gapping hole in the knowledge base.  It was a bizarre event, one might say an out of body experience, but for all that not unpleasant.  On the whole the audience were a jolly crew with an assortment of questions, some of which I even knew the answer to.  Unfortunately none were queries concerning acrobatics of any sort, although I did have the subject covered.  You will be pleased to know that I brought a little class to the proceedings by telling my knickers in the seaweed story.  Not even the astronaut could trump that!

*fib

My knowledge of mushrooms is limited to fry ups and risottos.  Apparently it has been a good year for the edibles but I am far too cowardly to pick my own.  This combination of ignorance and cowardice has kept me alive so far.  My poor fungal education does not prevent me from appreciating their beauty and today there were a fine assortment on the bottom lawn.  These ranged from deepest red through additive orange and custard yellow to this palest pink waxcap.  It is also known as The Ballerina and I am undecided as to whether it is a thing of beauty or would suit a supporting role in a horror film/sci fi movie.

I am hoping my identification is accurate, if any ballerinas out there are offended at my incorrect designation please forgive me and refer back to above “my knowledge of fungi is limited …”

There is nothing in the slightest bit blue about this cosmos.  In fact quite the opposite.  Surely this perfect pink blushed bloom, with its central boss of saffron, would banish the deepest of blues to a place far far away.

In the washed out misty morning this Salvia uliginosa looked like the focal point of a Victorian hand tinted landscape.