Nursery Notes - Late September 2008
A slight change to the format of our notes, I hope you approve, the idea being to make it simpler for us to produce and, more importantly, for you to read and access. As always we are here to advise on your plants, how to grow or prune and any other cultural information that you may require.
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In the Greenhouse
 This month we are having a late summer clean up throughout the greenhouses, as we have seen a few active red spider mites, and aphids, still battling with the predators. At this time of year the mites will go into diapause and hibernate in nooks, cracks and under plant labels, only to reappear in spring and breed again,so it is more effective to remove them now with a spray of rape-seed oil or plant invigorator. A useful job to get done, and very rewarding as the greenhouse will look clean and tidy as well, making it a pleasant place to sit on a gloomy autumn afternoon, preventing any botrytis and mildew is a helpful side effect of this. Cleaning up and dead leaves as you go and having a prune over some of the leggy shrubs and pelargoniums,climbers can benefit from a thinning out of congested stems, remove the older more woody ones to rejuvenate young growth. Take care with winter flowering subjects such as Mimosa (Acacia) or Hardenbergia as the flower buds are already forming and they do not need removing .Many of our conservatory plants have spent the summer on a gravel bed outside this year, to their obvious delight, the extra light and change in atmosphere has boosted the late summer flowering and the colours are much more intense, Bougainvillea have attained an electric vibrancy in the sun not seen under glass.
Fruit in the Garden
 The weather in Norfolk this summer has been much the same as the rest of the country, we normally have a dry summer with little rain (?) this year the rain has dominated our forecast, spoiling any thoughts of camping by the beach with the children .A beneficial bi product is the splendid crop of Apples and Pears, some of the ‘Williams’ are enormous, a meal in themselves. With very little disease or scab on them they will keep well, which we have attributed to the regular sprays of seasol seaweed,a foliar feed which strengthens the leaves and boosts resistance to leaf problems. Figs have also produced very well,some have shown brown -irregular spotting on the leaves, which is a sign of ‘Rust’, copper spray or ‘Bordeaux mixture’ will clean this up if you wish to spray. You could do this at the same time as the Peaches and Nectarines, which will also benefit from the copper to remove any remaining ‘Peach leaf curl’ disease on the leaves. Note - Apricots do not get ‘Peach leaf curl”, I have seen this written several times recently by some who should know better.
Grapevines
 In the greenhouse should be ripening well, eat without delay but make sure the muscats have coloured completely, many of them will remain on the vine and keep without loss of quality, some for a couple of months. A tidy way of storing grapes is to use bottles with the stem of the vine left longer and pushed into the neck into cool water. The roof vents can be closed at night to increase the temperature and boost ripening potential, be sure to open them again in the morning to keep the humidity down.
Woottens Nursery
 Wootens Nursery in Wenhaston, Suffolk, are having their annual plant sale during October. Specialists in Herbaceous subjects,Iris, Hemerocallus and Pelargoniums to name a few. We thought we should have a simultaneous event with our Conservatory plant collection, our two Nurseries are very close,only half an hour away, visiting us both will make the trip to Norfolk (and Suffolk) most rewarding, with a meal in Dunwich or Southwold to finish maybe.We are offering 40% off all the flowering conservatory plants in our list, (collection from the Nursery only). Nearby Woottens of Wenhaston, who for the whole of October are discounting 25% off a large range of stock.
Woottens Sale plants can also be mail ordered.
www.woottensplants.co.uk
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