Department: Alpine
Tues - we worked on repotting the
Hepatica collection. The soil mix we used contained Vitax 4, Dolomitic lime dust (both of these at 360g per 60l of soil), and was a third of J. Innes no.2, leaf mould and perlite, topped with 1cm of coarse bark. The leaves do look rough at this time of year. We also trimmed the roots if they were too long. Usually dolomitic lime dust is used for dusting bulbs susceptible to
Pithium - we tried these on the
Hepatica buds also to see if it will help with the Botrytis.
They had in the past repotted in summer to try and avoid root nematode problem - this is not an ideal time to re-pot but it is the time they have as they are so busy in summer. There are 9 different species - some more vigorous than others. We were either going up or down a pot size depending on the roots size. There is the problem of mice eating the buds and growing points. Core stem can have dormant buds. The collection is really special consisting of 3 main donors - past famous breeders, because they are precious and the plants keep being stolen in Alpine - they have to keep it locked up until a solution is found.
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| Photo 1: Bare root Hepatica |
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| Photo 2: Clean pot (scrubbed out with hot water) with a fabric gauze to stop fine soil from falling out, and Hepatica with roots trimmed. |
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| Photo 3: A repotted Hepatica, |
Grotto pond clearing. Reducing the mass of
Darmeria peltata and taking out a native wild carex grass. Wearing waders we did this just with spades and fishnets usually used to lift leaves out of the pond (which is also done daily at the moment). It has been 2-3 years since this was last dredged, there was more silt than water. We put the silt into buckets which got slung into a trailer - a slow machine usually used for moving rocks was utilised to help out. I heard about duck mussels found at the bottom of canals but to my amazement they were at the bottom of this pond too, I put them back and hoped that they will survive.
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| Photo 4: Me and Sarah in our waders. |
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| Photo 5: The mussel I found at the bottom of the grotto pond. |
