Most common cause of camellia bud drop in our climate is a lack of soil moisture during the period of bud formation in the previous summer.
Dear Helen:A few years ago I planted a camellia in my garden. This year, the young plant formed its first flower buds. Unfortunately, the buds developed to a promising plumpness and then dropped off the shrub. What might have caused this and how can a prevent it happening again next year?
C.A.
This is a common and frustrating problem with camellias. A sudden cold spell can sometimes damage buds enough to cause them to drop, especially if frosted buds are exposed to morning sun. The most common and likely cause of camellia bud drop in our climate, however, is a lack of soil moisture during the period of bud formation in the previous summer.
It is helpful, as temperatures rise in late spring, to water camellias (and rhododendrons) deeply and apply a nourishing, moisture-retentive layer of compost or compost mixed with fine fir bark over the root area. Avoid placing any of the mulch against the shrubs’ bases.
Keep the plants consistently watered through the summer.
Dear Helen:There is a weed that I see everywhere, along roadsides and in my own garden, that I think of as “popping” weed because it forms seeds quickly and shoots them a fair distance when the seeds become ripe. Brushing against the plants at that stage also initiates seed dispersal. The small plants appear very early in year and don’t take long to bloom and set seeds.
E.W.
I can count on this question being asked several times every spring as so many people notice these plants and wonder what they are. This year in particular, I saw masses of these weeds everywhere in my neighbourhood and around the town where I shop.
The plant is Cardamine hirsuta (hairy bittercress). Other common names are popweed and snapweed. I often see young plants emerging in February. They form little leafy rosettes of tangy, edible leaves, followed by flower stems and then seed pods. The process to seed formation and ripening can be a slow one in cold, wet weather, but eventually the pods will form, dry, and split open to disperse up to 30 seeds per pod.
In home gardens, the best control is to pick out the plants before they can form and dry seed pods. They lift out of soils easily. In areas where hairy bittercress seedlings arise in dense carpets, lay a mulch of several layers of newspaper to smother their growth.
Dear Helen:My garden is plagued by weeds, yet I see everywhere the advice to prepare planting sites with fertilizer and an abundance of nourishing, moisture-retaining organic matter such as compost. Does not a plump-textured, fertile soil encourage weed growth – and bigger weeds?
T.R.
Weeds that emerge in any given planting area have more to do with the history of growth in the site than with the soil conditions. If unwanted plants have been allowed to shed an abundance of seeds in previous years, that site will likely host more of the same weedy growth.
Personally, I find weeds appearing in an area with a humus-rich, fertile soil the easiest to deal with. They emerge and grow quickly into robust little plants that tend to loll about in the cushy conditions for a while before feeling the need to flower and set seeds. They are also easy to pull up and their juicy greenery provides useful fodder for activating compost heaps.
In poor, thin soils, weed seeds that germinate reflect the soil’s condition. The meagre, thin growth is not easy to pick out of the soil. Weeds in starvation mode, sensing that life in their current situation will be short, will be quick to accomplish their life purpose — the continuation of their species by setting and scattering seed — before producing much green top growth.
Garden advice.The Victoria Master Gardener Association offers a free Ask a Master Gardener service featuring a team of master gardeners who will respond with well researched answers to questions from the public that are submitted via e-mail to[email protected].
GARDEN EVENT
Giant lilies on display.Abkhazi Garden, 1964 Fairfield Rd. in Victoria, is spreading the word that their two Himalayan Lily (Cardiocrinum giganteum) plants are just about to bloom. The plants produce flowers only every few years. They expect the plants will bloom by Canada Day. For information, type “Himalayan lily at Abkhazi Garden” into a search engine.
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