Large plants had been dug out of the Dell Area so me and Carly went to tidy it up. We used a three pronged cultivator to run through the soil, extracted large root pieces, Calystegia sepia (bindweed) and Circaea lutetiana (Enchanter's Nightshade) roots (the latter are small and bright white), and raked it over so that it was even.
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| Photo 1: Smoothed out Dell Area |
We continued to clear and mulch the weedy area under the Eucalyptus trees on top of Battleston Hill. We dug out lots of Crocrosmia sp. and healed them in along with some Watsonia sp. bulbs that had come out of the ground of areas we were clearing in the heeling in area - a small patch at the back of Prop.
I have also been helping Carly look through catalogues and choose some ferns to buy in for the Dell Area where they are going to have a bit of a fern stumpery. This is the selection so far:
D = Deciduous
SE = Semi-evergreen
E = Evergreen
Measurements are for height of ferns.
- Osmunda regalis (tall, for the back) D 60 – 120cm
- Dryopteris affinis Cristata The King (‘split tongue’) SE 45 – 90cm
- Dryopteris erythrosora ‘Brilliance’ (New fronds – fiery orange and retains an orangey tint) E 45 – 60cm
- Adiantum pedatum Imbricatum (layers of almost star shaped foliage) D 30 – 45cm
- Adiantum pedatum Miss Sharple (very similar to above, but maybe lighter in appearance in terms of density) D 30 – 45cm
- Adiantum ventusum (Delicate individual leaflet one, young foliage rosy pink) D/ SE 20 – 40cm
- Cyrtomium falcatum (Japanese Holly Fern, glossy, wide leaved. There is a cultivar ‘Rochfordianum’) E 30 – 50cm
- Cyrtomium fortunei (very similar to above, slightly smaller and hardier) E 30 – 50 cm
- Athyrium x Ghost (Pale white silvery one, good for contrast, but needs careful placement as it can be a fern that just looks ill) D 90cm
- Phlebodium ‘Virgina Blue’ (Blue, looks like sea coral). D 30 – 60cm
Selaginellas (borderline hardy, profiles says up to -10°C and then it says will survive at least up to 5°C
- Selaginella Kraussiana ‘Aurea’ (Classic gold one)
- Selaginella moellendorfii (Feathery yellowy green one)
We also went round to test some ropey looking Rhododendrons for Phytophphora just in case.
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| Photo 2: Poorly looking Rhododendrons |
The test kit is supplied by DEFRA. It consists of a bottle of solution with some metal balls in it. You put torn up small pieces of the affected material along with some healthy none affected material. Put a lid on it, shake it very well and until the mixture is a bit green. Then with a pipette you draw up some of the liquid, put a small amount of drops on an indicator, watch the litmus like paper absorb the liquid. And then wait up to a 1 minute to see if a line appears on the all clear or affected symbol/ letter (like a pregnancy test kit). None of Rhododendrons we tested came out positive. Pathology will check these over again just in case. So what is causing them to not look well is still unknown. The way the leaves are affected in Photo 2 is a clue that it might not be Phytophphora, as the fungi tends to blacken the leaves from the tip upwards, rather than from the middle out.
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| Photo 3: Phytophphora test kit. |