Harvest some seasonal favourites to bring cheer to friends and family
Aweek to go until Christmas and I’ve just been to the garden centre, cramming a trolley full of colourful delights that I’m going to use to adorn my house along with selecting some cheerful beauties for gifts. Christmas is all about colour, particularly red. A certain cola company has successfully associated it with their brand over the years – and by association we love to be swathed in reds.
Nature helps in this regard by providing plenty of berries.
A trip to the market will see holly bejewelled with berries being sold by the wheelbarrow load, and garden centres are positioning skimmias, winter cherries and gaultheria centre stage.
This weekend, I’m planning to bring gifts of Christmas plants around for the family. Since last week’s article, we are all experts on the poinsettia but there’s plenty more seasonal goodies such as cyclamens in bright scarlets and lipstick pinks widely available. A perennial favourite are the forced hyacinths whose new flowering heads are peeping through the leaves. Once in a warm environment they should open up to release their exquisite fragrance in time for Christmas morning. To enhance the look of the hyacinth I’m popping the plastic pots into nice terracotta ones bought for less than a pound in the garden centre. And rather than leaving bare earth on show I’ve clipped some pine foliage and dotted it around the pot like a mini garland. Any evergreen foliage from your
Hi David This looks like a case of codling moth. Caterpillars burrow and eat into the apple, pushing out excrement through the tunnel entrance. It’s difficult to control but you can clear up leaves and debris from your tree to help remove overwintering larvae. Hang pheromone traps in the tree in May to catch some adult males.
It will also indicate that females are in the area
and about to lay eggs on your apples. The only way to stop these hatching into caterpillars is with a chemical spray, usually in the third week of June and three weeks later. Biological controls can be sprayed in September onto the tree trunk, branches and soil. This releases worms to destroy caterpillars.
I’d also say hang bird boxes and feeders to encourage birds that will eat the caterpillars. Good luck! Diarmuid