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 :)

Comments

  1. emmat17 July 2009 at 23:18

    NOooooooooooooo

    I love my fuchsias and couldn't do without them. They are the best thing in my garden at the moment. Bar the Lobelia tupa, which i will be boring my blog readers with at some stage.

    Freakin Capsid bug. Let me at it with some bugclear, my dear, if I do it, then you aren't to blame :-)

    ReplyDelete
  2. Juliet17 July 2009 at 23:32

    Ooooh, I've been looking for a book with decent photos of pests and diseases - most of them only seem to have a few line drawings, which is useless - I'll have to put that one on my list :)

    Sorry about your Fuchsias though - I hope they recover & the bugs don't get into anything else.

    ReplyDelete
  3. The bike shed18 July 2009 at 08:25

    Late summer; late summer! It is July. Now I know Chippenham was drenched yesterday, but really - late summer - please not yet.
    Love the blog
    Mark

    ReplyDelete
  4. Karen - An Artists Garden18 July 2009 at 08:49

    Oh VP - Snap, I spent the day on the internet a couple of days ago to see who had been eating loads of things in my garden, including my beans and came to the same conclusion of Capsid bug so many things peppered with holes. :(
    Sorry about your fuchsia
    K

    ReplyDelete
  5. Helen/patientgardener18 July 2009 at 10:58

    I'm really sad to hear about your Fuschias as I know how much you love them.

    I think this might be what has been eating my Angelica gigas and also my peppers. The peppers have been ditched but the Angelica seems to be fighting back. I think I need to get that book - off to vsit Amazon!

    ReplyDelete
  6. easygardener18 July 2009 at 12:07

    I can just picture the bugs seeing you coming and hurling themselves onto the soil in camouflage mode. I'm sure Nature enjoys winding gardeners up!

    ReplyDelete
  7. this is my patch18 July 2009 at 13:27

    I'm not a huge fan of the fuchsia. We did inherit a hardy variety which faithfully appears every year, although by the end of the flowering season, the foliage has usually succumbed to mildew. I had a few small, less hardy ones in pots, also inherited, but these didn't make it through our cold, wet winter. x

    ReplyDelete
  8. Joanne18 July 2009 at 19:19

    How upsetting for you. Lets hope they rejuvenate and you get a later flowering.

    ReplyDelete
  9. Unknown19 July 2009 at 01:01

    Sometimes it's wise to be patient, though it's very hard. How long did it take you to recover from the winter. Sometimes it seems ours never truly ended but at least we aren't freezing every night here anymore...

    ReplyDelete
  10. VP19 July 2009 at 11:27

    Emmat - Fuchsias are one of my faves too. I think it might be too late for the Bugclear - I need to be a bit better with my autumn tidy up around the plants instaed.

    Juliet - I've got an earlier (and cheaper!) edition of the book. It's a good 'un.

    Mark - welcome and thanks for Following :) I looked at that sentence at the time and thought hmm it's 2 weeks until it's officially late summer, I wonder if anyone will notice?, so of course you did! Thanks for the compliment - it's good to have someone reading this who's also local. I've lurked over at yours from time to time and I think we have similar views about where we live ;)

    Karen - it looks like it's a good year for capsid bigs this year. It's the first time I've had a problem with them though.

    PG - yes I do love them and at least some of them will be flowering, eventually. I reckon I've lost about a month's worth of blooms :(

    EG - I can just imagine the lookout shouting down! just as I arrive! Thanks for making me chuckle :)

    TIMP - I've never heard of Fuchsia getting mildew. Must be a sign they're not happy where they are, so you can get rid of them and grow something you prefer.

    Joanne - thank you - they're looking better by the day :)

    Cinj - I didn't really know the full extent of my winter casualties until late May which is when the Dahlias started poking through and I could no longer kid myself that one of my tree ferns might, just might start growing again. I think that's why the RHS have been wise not to make their hardiness survey available until now. I would have been giving a very different result (and much bleaker) a couple of months ago.

    ReplyDelete

New comments are not allowed.

Your essential reads

That blue flower: A spring spotter's guide

Image
Spring is a prime time for blue flowers and my daily walks currently have several from the same plant family* lining the local footpaths. As I walked past the Donkey Field the other day, I overheard some children ask their parents** what the pictured blue flower was. It reminded me it's often mistaken for those other familial blues and this time was no different, as they said it was forget-me-not, instead of the green alkanet it actually is. As well as similar flowers, most of these plants are hairy in their nature, flower around the same time, and favour damp, shady places. Many of them are great for pollinators too, especially bees and this week's warm weather has certainly drawn them to these flowers. This makes it even more likely for these plants to be mistaken for each other and it's a great opportunity for me to put together a spotter's guide in case you find the same flowers on your outings. Staying with green alkanet, the key features which set it ...
Read more

Jack Go To Bed At Noon

Image
Last year this rather exotic looking flower appeared on mine and several other allotments for the first time. Having been stumped (again) by Mr Allotment Warden as to its identity, I rushed home to find out what it was. It's salsify, aka the marvellous Jack Go To Bed At Noon - named as such because its flowers always close by midday. Here you can see both open and closed flowers - making it seem even more exotic and alien than in the first picture. I think this must be the cultivated version because the flower in my Francis Rose Wild Flower Key looks exactly the same in form, but is bright yellow in colour and called meadow salsify . Its other common name is Goatsbeard, which must be a nod to the fantastic dandelion-like clock which forms the seed head. With 'parachutes' like those shown above, who knows how far our plotted plants came from. I rather like the photographic dissection of the seedhead found in this link . Salsify is edible: its lateral shoots and fl...
Read more

Red Nose Day - Gardening Jokes Anyone?

Image
The nation goes ever so slightly bonkers on Red Nose Day - hurrah! Previously, it's been very easy to join in - usually via a dress down day at work plus lots of people up to mad things at the station and in the office. Everyone smiling for once - it's a real feel good day and all in a good cause. This year's different - every day's a dress down day for me now - my friend L suggested yesterday that perhaps I could have a dress up day instead and whilst that's a good idea, I confess that ballgowns and tiaras don't really feature in my wardrobe: scruffy student's always been my favourite look. So my Red Nose Day contribution for this year is to compile a list of gardening related jokes. For each one (clean ones only please) you leave in the comments below, I'll make a donation of 50p to the cause. Here's a few for starters just to get you warmed up: Q Why do potatoes make good detectives? A Because they keep their eyes peeled. Q What did the grape...
Read more

Salad Days: Mastering Lettuce

Image
I've decided one of my salad challenges for this year is to grow as many lettuce varieties as I can, ready for the publication of my planned Factsheet* later on. The idea is to grow as many of the Tried and Trusted lettuce varieties last year's Salad Challengers helped compile, then provide a visual guide and as many lettuce facts as I can muster. So far I've found around half of those listed**. Then naturally whilst I was out searching - because such is the way with seeds - a number of other varieties found their way home too ;) A couple of weeks ago I sowed 22 varieties***. Just the simple act of sowing them has me intrigued. Why are some lettuce seeds black and others white****? They split into about half white to half black in my sample and as far as I can tell it's nothing to do with whether they're a type of cos, iceberg, or whatever. I sowed them indoors and popped them into a propagator on the windowsill. The soil's too cold outside for sowing ...
Read more

VPs VIPs: Derry Watkins of Special Plants

Image
Last week I had the pleasure of visiting Derry Watkins at her home, garden and nursery - the acclaimed Special Plants - just a few miles along the road from me. I first met Derry at one of her open garden days last year and was keen to find out more about her wonderful garden and running an independent nursery. She specialises in tender perennials and regularly goes on plant hunting trips to find new treasures, particularly in South Africa. As well as running Special Plants and opening her garden under the NGS scheme , Derry holds day courses at her nursery, hosts Special Tuesdays from April until September, lectures and has written a couple of books. How did you find your way from Connecticut to the UK? I'd started a biodynamic vegetable garden in Connecticut and we used to have people come along at weekends to help out. A particular young man turned up: he returned many times and at the end of the summer I married him. So it was all down to love? Isn't that the...
Read more

#mygardenrightnow: heading into summer with the Chelsea Fringe

Image
Ahhhhhh, that's better! I love walking through dewy grass in bare feet, not that there's much in the way of grass on my back lawn this weekend. My wild and woolly lawn has morphed into meadow of sorts this month, which even NAH admits looks attractive*. It's also proved a great source for my Flowers for mum project so far, yielding self-sown perennial cornflowers, lamb's ears, and lemon balm in addition to the blooms you can see. These originated from elsewhere in the garden, the ox-eye daisies must have blown in from the A350 nearby. * = he got very stroppy about the weeds aka self-sown foxgloves in the lawn one year, so he's come along a bit since then. Skimble's demanding to say hello to you too. He does enjoy the patio when it warms up. If the embedded video doesn't work try this link instead. The Nectaroscordum are a revelation. I planted the bulbs around 2 years ago, but it's only this year they've bloomed properly. The bee...
Read more

The Resilient Garden

Image
  Part of Tom Massey's Resilient Garden at RHS Hampton Court I've been pondering VP Gardens a lot lately. Last year's drought conditions set me off initially, then our harsher than usual winter combined with this summer's flip and flop weather means the thinking continues. It's a huge topic which I freely admit I'm struggling to get my head around. Tom Massey's Resilient Garden  at Hampton Court recently  tackled this topic brilliantly and was a timely interlude which gave me much food for thought. There he encapsulated the detailed research he'd found which informed both his show garden and book of the same name. I think it's one of the most important show gardens I've ever seen. It's clear the way I garden needs to change so that I have my own resilient garden. I haven't worked out the exact details yet, but Tom's book plus a couple of others (see below), alongside the rainwater management handout from the show garden's  sponso...
Read more

Chelsea Fringe 2014: Shows of Hands - Episode I

Image
The gloves NAH used to build the raised bed . The effects are L to R, top to bottom:  Original photo, Warhol, HDR, Green tint, B&W, Posterize, Boost, Cross process and Sepia Welcome to Shows of Hands - my Chelsea Fringe project for 2014! As you can see I've been having a bit of a play around in Pic Monkey for my first contribution. You're welcome to join in between now and 8th June 2014. The idea behind this year's project is to highlight the tool most precious to a gardener: their hands. How do I take part? It's simple. All you need to do is take a photo of hand(s) in a gardening context and then share it via your blog or other social media (such as Twitter or Facebook), then make sure I know you've done so. I've set up Mr Linky below for your blog contributions. The Chelsea Fringe photo on the right sidebar links to this post, so you can easily find it again when you're ready to add your contribution. If you share your photo on Twitter, ...
Read more

Make Use of Mildew

Image
On my garden patrol this morning I spotted some powdery mildew on a couple of my new Verbena bonariensis plants. I suppose it was almost inevitable as I prefer to grow my plants hard - this means no water for them unless they look absolutely desperate. This approach means plants root themselves more deeply and have a better chance of survival during spells of dry weather like we've had lately. However, it also means I run the risk of problems like today's, especially with any garden newbies planted late in the season. We've had a good drop of rain overnight, so this should help my plants survive. I'll mulch them later today to help lock in the moisture as it's water stress which encourages the mildew to take hold. I've also removed the infected leaves and sprayed the rest with a milky drink.* I'm also pleased to find there's a use for my infected leaves. Oliver Ellingham at Reading University has started a PhD - sponsored by the RHS - researchi...
Read more

Testing Times: Tomatoes

Image
  I've run a couple of tomato trials this year. The first is a revisit of the biochar trial with Oxford University I attempted some years ago (with a different organisation this time), and the second is a trial of a water gadget called Plantsurge which I was given to try at Malvern Spring Show earlier this year. Most of you have probably heard of biochar already and the claim that this inert, carbon-rich material can help soil fertility and plant health. The RHS information in the above link says results can be mixed, with reduced effects found in alkaline soils. This may help to explain the lack of difference I found in my previous trial as VP Gardens is on a lime-rich soil. Plantsurge is a different beast altogether. It's a strong magnet which is attached to a hosepipe as shown in the photo above. It's claimed that it softens water, with the result more like watering with rainwater. The higher nitrogen found in rainwater is thought to be beneficial to plants. Gardener...
Read more