Plant of the week

NERINE BOWDENII, commonly known as the Guernsey lily, provides a very welcome splash of bright pink flowers from September to the end of October. They come from

South Africa, so prefer to grow in full sun. They need good drainage and are quite happy in poor

to normal garden soils that can retain moisture. Good soil only encourages foliage at the expense of

flowers. Once planted leave them undisturbed. and it is still raining! The pear tree varieties Conference and Comice came into flower in early April, brought forward by the brilliant March, but the bees had disappeared so pollination never happened. However, some people have had good pear tree pollination with good crops. Results are very variable.

The plum tree flowers never had a chance. Instead of my normal 100 plus plums, I only found two that survived. It did not take long to bring in that harvest and this year there was no risk of me falling out of the tree trying to reach that gorgeous Victoria plum hanging at the end of a long branch.

Apple trees were a beautiful sight on a few sunny days towards the end of April and did manage to get pollinated. The pollen has to grow down the flower pistil to the ovaries to fertilise the embryo and needs mild conditions. It did not get this, so a successful fruit set was very patchy.

Dessert apples were quite good except for Fiesta a biennial bearer in its off year, so no surprise there. Though, to be fair, getting about 20 large apples in its off year was quite pleasing.

Bramley was the big disappointment with approximately a 20% fruit set and the fruit is small and misshapen. Apple seed produces growth hormones to swell the fruit. If some of the seed is infertile because it never got fertilised then that part of the fruit does not develop and results in a lumpy misshapen fruit. GOOD CROPS of Oslin, Discovery, Red Falstaff and Red Devil gave a lot of early promise, but constant rainfall together with cool weather allowed brown rot to attack the fruit and take out a lot of fruit, especially the Oslin. Then fruit cracking affected a lot of the discovery. Cracking can start with very small fruit affected by a late frost or too much water. This causes the fruit to swell faster than the skin can grow, so a small crack appears. Discovery is quite resistant to scab, but in this very wet year scab gained a hold and the scabs can cause cracks to form, often allowing brown rot fungus to enter. In a normal year, Discovery is one of the best early apples for our area. The poor fruit harvest in 2012 has affected growers all over the UK as well as Europe and the USA.

Red Devil apples (above) and Feista apples (below).