Facing the Fuchsia

I've come to realise that the main reason why I'm feeling rather morose about my garden at the moment is the state of my Fuchsias. They've always been one of my late summer mainstays but this year they're looking far from their best. The reasons for this are twofold: our cold winter and a rather pesky bug.

Although I only grow hardy Fuchsias, the winter cold has laid them to waste somewhat. I've said goodbye to all the ones I had in pots plus F. 'Mrs Popple'. Others like F. 'Lady Boothby' and F. 'Garden News' are still at the rather pathetic shoot stage. Only F. 'Hawkshead' and the F. magellanica cultivars are really strutting their stuff so far.

Then there's the state of the pictured F. 'Genii'. As you can see it's looking rather blistered and bruised. It's the same at Threadspider's and we initially thought it was a virus. However, when I came to photograph my plant for this blog, I noticed lots of tiny holes close to where the worst of the blistering was. This made me reach for my RHS Pests & Diseases - a great book to have in your library because the guide is mainly picture based and you can start at the level of 'Leaf Problems' and work your way towards finding the cause in a matter of minutes. Sure enough on page 29 my culprit was laid bare: capsid bugs aka Lygocoris pabulinus.

Bugs are a sucking insect and their mouthparts are modified into a feeding tube. They can be a transmitter of viruses, but in the case of capsid bugs their saliva is toxic to the plant. This leads to the formation of tiny holes in the leaves where their feeding took place, plus the blistering of the plant material around them. Flowers can also be damaged or not form at all. The main months for damage are May and June, though there can be two lifecycles completed over a full growing season.

Organic control is to inspect plant shoots and to remove any of the critters by hand. This can be a little tricky because I've found they tend to fall onto the soil at any sign of plant disturbance. This link shows you a photograph of what to look for (towards the bottom of the page) alongside some of the other bugs which may be mistaken for it. They can be brown or green: this link shows you a picture of a green one.

It's not just Fuchsias that are attacked. My friend L emailed last week to ask what was putting the loads of tiny holes in her Hydrangea and Caryopteris leaves. Sure enough when I asked her whether the foliage was also blistered, she confirmed it was. The RHS says they can also attack Chrysanthemum, Clematis, Dahlia, Forsythia, Magnolia, Phygelius, roses and Salvia - eek! They like fruit and vegetables too, particularly apples, bush fruit, potatoes and beans.

However, it's not all doom and gloom. I've spent the past week or so resigned to having no blooming Fuchsia in my single terrace bed this summer and I've even contemplated removing it altogether. Tonight I'm glad I've stayed my executionary hand: I've just been for my usual evening stroll around the garden and there are definitely shoots of recovery to be seen. I'm now going to cut back all the damage to see if that encourages further healthy growth and some flowers at last :)

The Fourth Plinth: Alive Dad

My only must-see for our trip to London last Sunday - apart from my Serendipity meeting - was to go and gawp at One and Other, Antony Gormley's 100-day installation on the empty fourth plinth in Trafalgar square. This started on July 6th and 2,400 people each have (or had) the opportunity to be a living statue for an hour where they can do anything they like on there as long as it's legal and doesn't involve getting off again until their time's up.

It was Graham, aka Alive Dad posing when we were there, a homage to middle aged dads everywhere. He'd assembled a flat-pack deckchair and - I was glad to see - placed a Canna at each corner of the plinth. When we arrived he was taking pictures of the square and waving at everyone. He then sat in his deckchair and proceeded to read a newspaper - a copy of The Independent. He was wearing a t-shirt bearing a silhouette of himself sitting in a deckchair, plus the logo Just Be It. A neat twist on the Nike logo.

Alive Dad's wife was handing out leaflets about why her husband was there - unfortunately when I caught up with her they'd all gone - she was really enjoying the experience, though perhaps a little overwhelmed at the event and the response her husband was getting from the masses of people in the square that afternoon. Luckily I'd taken a photo of the leaflet and from that was able to track down a copy of it on One and Other's website. Just as well because without that information it would be extremely difficult to find.

There's much to like and ponder from Alive Dad's manifesto:

I'm an introverted man - so I'm dying to ask him what prompted him to do it

I socialise under gentle pressure from my wife - so was it her idea then?

I am my father. (except for the gardening) - so what's with the Cannas - and why Cannas and where did you get them?

There is a sculpture called Dead Dad of a little dead dad - this one's interesting as it turns out the Dead Dad sculptor is an exponent of the 'hyper realistic' movement. What could be more (hyper)realistic than a living sculpture?

I want to be honest about who I am. I am not a performing seal.

I am reading a newspaper because democracy only works for as long as people are informed about society and interested in different opinions.

Quite. And it's obvious from the manifesto he's thought quite a bit about why he's there and what to do with his hour. Even though on the surface it looks very simple and just what a lot of people might do on a sunny Sunday afternoon. Except they won't be doing it in a very public place. Or as part of an art installation.

I've thought quite a lot about my visit since then. Of course the whole thing is also an internet event, so you can view it live. I've checked in a few times to see what's going on. On Sunday night there was a man sitting with a laptop and shouting through a megaphone - ironically the internet sound wasn't working at the time; on Monday a girl who describes herself on the website as extrovert, was simply sitting on the plinth and writing in her journal. A local guy from Bath used his hour this week to conduct an orchestra assembled for the occasion below him. As I write this it's a lady with a brolly dancing and singing in the rain. It really is a most bizarre event, but also strangely compelling and wonderful.

Then I found the previous participant's hours are also available on the website and I finally managed to track down Alive Dad's. Naturally most of the footage is focused on him, but every so often it cuts to the audience in the square. At around the 24th minute there's a brief glimpse of me arriving and also later on at around the 37th minute. Does that make me part of this art installation too?

Some of the comments on the website are interesting. A number say - it's all rather boring - well, most statues don't do anything at all, so aren't they even more boring? Another commenter says - the majority of the participants are white and middle class, so it's not a representation of our society. I think that would be almost impossible to achieve and then, looking at the usual kind of statues we saw on Sunday, they're not particularly representative either - mainly kings, queens, nobles, great achievers and elder statesmen.

Anything like this is always going to be a topic for a debate on whether or not it's art, but I still wanted to go and see for myself. Before I went I thought it would either show the British at their most eccentric, or be quite boring. I don't think it was either at the time of my visit, though I'm sure it'll be both at other times. And because it's made me think so much, I for one am happy to call it Art with a capital A.

Update: The 10-11pm BST slot on 16th July was one of the more eccentric ones. Have a look here to see Velorose for yourself. His write-up shows an amazing connectivity with Trafalgar Square too.

There's loads more to see on the website - I'll give you one last link which has various photos and YouTube videos participants have put together. I'm particularly taken with the pinhole camera image at the top of the page. A nice connection to another, older form of art.

NB you can still apply to take part. If you did and were accepted, what would you do with your hour?

Update 17/7/2009: Hurrah - as of today the site's much easier to search for a particular Plinther - is this a new word for the English language? - following mine and a few others comments on how dire this was previously :)

GBBD/ ABC Wednesday 4: Z is For...

... Zing!

Happy Mouffetard may have plants which go Fwing!, but I think my Dahlia 'Moonfire' have more of a Zing! to them. I love that combination of very dark foliage topped by single flowers of burnt orange when they first open, which then mellow into a deep, sunny yellow. As you can see, the bees seem to like them too.

I was convinced our really cold weather had destroyed my Dahlias as I never dig them up, but instead cover them with a snuggly quilt for the winter. I was delighted at the beginning of May to find that my 'Moonfire' and D. 'David Howard' had survived. Sadly D. 'Romeo' and D. 'Happy Party' hadn't, even though they're not that far from their surviving cousins. I think the wall immediately behind the survivors may have contributed to their success. BTW, I received an e-mail from the RHS on Monday saying their hardiness survey is now live on their website. Now's your chance to turn your winter losses and unexpected survival stories into data to help the RHS' scientific team.

Whilst I'm delighted with my Dahlias, I've decided to be a little different this Blooms Day. Last week, I mentioned my allotment's star is in the ascendant when compared to my garden at the moment. As my posts from there have been rather lacking so far this year, I've decided to present you with some of my allotment flowers this month.

Main picture: view from the top of the plot; Top Row: squash flowers with babies, pea, fennel, leeks with bee; Second Row: potatoes, nasturtiums around the onions, parsnip and celeriac, a velvety red nasturtium; Third Row: the self-sowns - Stachys and Campanula; Bottom Row: the weeds, my best crops this year! Willowherb and feathery grass heads

For extra Zingy Zeds, do go to the ABC Wednesday blog. Garden Bloggers' Blooms Day is hosted by Carol at May Dreams Gardens.

Seasonal Recipe: Pea & Mint Soup

Lately I've been glutbusting by making some mangetout* and mint soup and I'm delighted The Guardian Gardening blog has published my delicious invented recipe today. Of course it'll work just as well if you have a glut of the usual kind of peas. My recipe also uses some of my new potatoes which got damaged whilst harvesting - and therefore need eating up pretty quickly - plus a nice large freshly harvested onion.

Don't worry if you haven't grown any peas, or you don't have a glut of them or indeed you don't have the potatoes or onion. I've also found a very simple recipe using store cupboard and freezer ingredients which means you can make this lovely soup pretty much whenever you want. I found it a while ago in A Celebration of Soup by Lindsey Bareham and it serves 6.

Ingredients

• 900g/2lb frozen peas
• 900ml/1.5 pints chicken stock or 1 chicken stock-cube and 570ml/1 pint water
• 1 tsp concentrated mint sauce
• salt and pepper
• 275ml/0.5 pint single cream or milk or reconstituted milk
• A pinch of sugar

Method

1. Cook the peas in the stock or water plus cube, with the mint sauce and a pinch of salt and pepper for 10 minutes
2. Allow the soup to cool slightly, then whizz through with a hand blender until the liquid's smooth
3. Add the cream or milk and bring back to the boil
4. Remove immediately, taste and adjust seasoning as necessary, adding a pinch of sugar if you like
5. Serve with croutons, either hot or cold

* = the You Ask, We Answer team have alerted me to the fact that mangetout are called snow peas elsewhere. Hopefully the picture from my plot and a YAWA dictionary entry will help to clear up any confusion.

Voice of the Tweehive

Firstly, a very warm welcome if you're a Tweehive participant - I'm not on Twitter, but I am one of your gardens for today - so do tell your friends I'm here. You should find a couple of flowers waiting for you on this blog - hosted by this post and another one which tells you all about my trip to Norfolk Lavender where we were surrounded by bees :)

For those of you who haven't a clue what I'm wittering on about, don't worry - I will reveal what the buzz is all about - eventually. This weekend was one of those times when lots of stuff on one topic came my way - bees in this instance. Firstly, my Diary of a Novice Beekeeper friend e-mailed me to ask if I could ID the above plant. Happily I could - it's Centaurea macrocephala and as you can see, it's attractive to bees. Thanks S, for letting me use your photo to head up this post :)

Then an ex-colleague who now works at the Soil Association (SA) alerted me to a most important e-petition they've started. You're probably aware that bee numbers are dwindling alarmingly and as a result the future productivity of our crops is under threat. Neonicotinoids have been cited as one of the contributory factors, and thus a number of European countries have banned the use of this pesticide. The SA are lobbying our government to do the same and have simplified the process of signing a government e-petition. If you live in the UK do click here, it'll just take a few seconds to add your name to the list.

Finally, Emma Cooper over at Fluffius Muffetus posted about her Blogging for Bees blog carnival she's starting this Friday. For those of you who haven't come across a blog carnival before, it's essentially a 'magazine' of blog posts on a particular topic. These can be one-offs, or as Emma would like for hers, something published on a regular basis. Each carnival is usually a synthesis of news on the chosen theme, plus links to relevant blog posts from a number of contributors. I've already submitted this post and I wish Emma every success. If you think you have something suitable to contribute, irrespective of where you are in the world, then do have a look at Emma's kick-off post for more information.

So where does the Tweehive come in? Emma also mentioned it on Saturday. It's a simulation game being played via Twitter. You can sign up to participate by joining this ning community and there's a choice of different bee roles you can adopt. On three days - today, August 7th and September 5th - the organisers will be setting tasks for the participants to complete. One of these tasks will be to go out foraging for nectar and pollen and that's where I come in. I've signed up as a gardener, so on game days any posts I've designated as being important bee or sustainability related posts - like this one - will lead to flower(s) magically appearing on my blog somewhere for any foraging bees to come and discover. If you'd like more information on what this is all about, then do have a look here. Or you can follow the game itself, by going here.