October
This past month Paul and I have been tackling some of the unforeseen problems that inevitably come with any new site.
One job I’ve been itching to do all summer is replace the Viburnum shrubs in the pond park that get defoliated each year by the Viburnam beetle. They are very unsightly when this happens as they look completely dead so something had to be done. A few nibbled leaves here and there is what you would expect to see in a wildlife garden but the larvae of these beetles are so destructive they eat every bit of the leaf apart from the Skellington of veins which then turn brown and shrivel up so a decision was made to take most of them out. Not all, as we do want to encourage some insects for the birds, but the ones in main view have been replaced with some good old reliable Hebes. These are evergreen with bright cheery foliage that is very unappetising to insects and much more pleasing on the eye.
Another problem plant we have had to deal with is the spiky Phormiums on the street beds of Loftus avenue which were supposed to have grown no more than a metre high. There must have been a mix up with labels in the nursery as these had grown massive and were still gaining height. They were not only ugly but were blocking the vision for cars pulling out of drives so again something had to be done. The Phormiums are now in the skip and in their place are a small variety of evergreen Choysia that will stay compact and manageable.
The other job we have been tackling, and are still only half way through, is replacing the dead Yew hedging. It had been a bit of a mystery as to why a tough hedge such as Yew should fail to establish when receiving the same TLC as others, but on digging it out, we discovered the reason why. The poor plants had barely any soil beneath them and actually, along with Vineweevil grubs eating the already struggling root system meant they were pretty much doomed from the start. The job of rectifying this has been slow and tedious. Digging out concrete with a metal bar and manhandling it into a skip is not my idea of fun, but as gardeners we are often left with putting right.
As a backup I have also given all the yew hedging a drench of nematodes to sort out the Vineweevil grubs lurking below ground, they often go undetected until it’s too late so better to be safe than sorry.
We still have much to do but we are we are working hard to improve the Loftus look continuously and next summer we are hoping to up the Wow Factor an extra notch.
