Beware of liverworts overtaking a garden
Q I have a large perennial garden that is very old. In the past few years, the lichens have spread over a large area. What can I use to get rid of it? It looks like it will overtake the garden if I don’t do something drastic.
A From the photo it would appear that your problem is a liverwort. Controlling liverworts can be challenging. The most effective control is spraying them with landscape-grade acetic acid; this is simply vinegar, but an industrial-strength version.
In order to keep liverworts from coming back you may have to alter some of your gardening practices. Fertilizing will actually help the liverworts thrive, so cutting back on the fertilizer will help.
Watering is another culprit. Moist and damp conditions are ideal for liverworts, so reducing the amount of watering you do will also help. Now, having said all this, I understand that yours is an older garden and likely full of shade and spots for the liverworts to take over.
It is certainly not an easy challenge that you face. I, too, have had liverworts in one of my gardens. I achieved some control by regularly pulling out all the liverwort I could.
This was usually done during spring and fall cleanup, and sometimes during the middle of the gardening season as well. The other thing to do is prune back older shrubs and perennials that are low-hanging, to create more airflow. This will help discourage liverwort growth. Q I planted a pack of nasturtium seeds and now have an impressive display of greenery, but not the slightest hint of flowers. What might have gone wrong, do you think? A My best guess would be that the plants are getting too much fertilizer, and specifically too much nitrogen. An excess of nitrogen will inhibit flower production while encouraging leaf growth. Q My husband and I are part owners of a vacation rental property in Palm Springs. It is in a three-storey building and our unit is on the ground level, so we are able to do a little more gardening than the others in the building that only have balconies. We have a 200-square-foot area of garden, plus our concrete patio, which is 100 square feet. Our problem is that while we would love to be there to garden year-round, we cannot because the property is shared. The other owners are less interested in growing things than we are, so anything that is planted gets neglected when we are not there. How can we grow the plants if we can’t be there to water?
A Your problem is not all that unusual in today’s busy world. Many homeowners simply do not have the time to tend to plants, even when they live on the property full time — and yet they still want to garden.
Gardening has become a booming industry, as people find themselves wanting to reconnect with nature. The industry is aware that they need to appeal to gardeners who, while they enjoy gardening, may not have the time they would like to devote to the pastime.
The gardening industry has been working hard to come up with innovative ways to perform everyday gardening tasks. Watering is one such task, and applies to your situation. A variety of timers are available that can be connected to drip irrigation systems.
These systems deliver a small but steady stream of water to plants that are either in the ground or in containers. The types of emitters available for these systems are suited for a variety of purposes.
For example, you can install a mister emitter in the drip system that will mist your plant for you, while other emitters are watering the soil at the base of the plant. This example serves to show that your problem can be easily solved with something as simple as a drip watering system on a timer.