Life is a Garden has some essential information to share this month. The shot hole borer beetle, known also as Euwallacea fornicates, is a huge threat to South African biodiversity and our gardens are certainly no exception. From the 80 species of trees under attack, 20 of these are reproductive hosts for this most gagga gogga, and with so many trees in SA and in private gardens, the threat is closer to home than we may think. Here’s some must-know info to help save our trees!

How the shot hole borer operates

This invasive bugger from Asia is black in colour and smaller than a sesame seed (about 2mm long). Shot hole beetles dig tunnels in the trunks and branches of host trees where they then lay their eggs. The female beetle carries a fungus (Fusarium euwallaceae), which she spreads through these tunnels, which then becomes food for both larvae and adults.

What happens to our trees

The fungus spread inside tunnels completely disrupts the flow of water and nutrients of trees. Simply put, infected trees begin to die from the inside as the larvae hatch, digging through what’s left of the tree, and spreading more deadly fungus that causes trees to basically die from malnutrition. These beetles move a kilometre per week, rapidly infesting and reproducing.

Identifying an infected tree

Look out for signs of possible infestations by inspecting the trunks and branches of your trees and those in the surrounding area. Symptoms may vary across tree species, but here are the tell-tale indicators to take note of:

• Multiple round 1mm wide entry-holes, similar to paper punch holes.
• Dark, wet staining, oozing, and thick gumming around suspicious holes.
• Streaks of white powder, sugar volcanoes, or fine sawdust coming from trunk/branch holes.
• Wilting trees and dead branches.

Companion planting means growing certain plants close together for their mutually beneficial effects, such as pest protection or growth enhancement. Bedding besties allow you to have your cake AND eat it – your desired harvest flourishing gogo-free and eco-friendly with little other effort required from you. Mother Nature is clever like that – she knows what’s up. Here’s what to plant and reasons why your veggie needs a bestie. Life is a Garden, let’s optimise yours!

Reinventing the veggie patch

We often think of a veggie garden as produce sown in neat rows, exposed soil, and clear of any other plants not on the menu. Well, it might just be the time to revise this idea. There is so much to benefit from including other herbs and flowers to the veggie garden, which take care of pest control, weeds, water evaporation, poor soil conditions, composting, barren spaces and of course, pollination. Consider the idea of a starting a “mixed masala patch”, if you will, and let’s venture beyond the concept of a “vegetables-only” party.

Friends with benefits

Although we’re going for a “mixed masala patch”, it should be mentioned that not all plants like each other, and some can be pretty picky about who they bunk with. Your GCA Garden Centre guy will be able to advise you on the best buddy for your baby, but for now, here are some general friends of the veg with no-strings-attached benefits:

• Natural pest controllers: Plants such as lavender (for fleas), basil (for flies), citronella grass and rosemary (for mozzies), as well as chrysanthemum (for spider mites), repel a variety of insects owing to their essential oil compounds and deterring scent. You can sporadically plant these in and around the veggie garden as long as they are in close range of the greens.

Do plants have stomachs and teeth? How are they able to catch prey like other carnivores if they can’t run? And when they catch insects, where do they go? These are mind-baffling questions indeed and certainly worthy of a little hands-on investigation! Scientists, biologists, and creepy-crawler lovers, are you ready to find out what happens when love bites this February? Eeeeew!

Did you know?

Carnivorous plants, also known as insectivorous plants, are those which get their nutrition by catching and digesting insects. How cool is that? Carnivory in plants is owing to centuries of evolution, driven by pure instinct to survive in areas with nitrogen-poor soil. There are over 600 known species of insectivorous plants around the world, time to get yours!

The deadliest devils

Here are a few carnivorous contenders that will make the perfect dissection specimen.

1. Sundew: These bad boys exude a sticky substance that attracts and then traps insects and other small prey. Their meal is quickly swallowed by a web of tiny tentacles and digested by enzymes within the plant stems and leaves.
2. Venus Fly Trap: One of the most popular meat-eaters with trigger-sensitive, dangerous jaws! They use sweet nectar to attract their prey and then with interlocking teeth, trap their victims. Digestive enzymes get to work as the plant absorbs a lovely nutritious soup.
3. American Trumpet Pitcher: This cleaver funnel-like plant hunts using a pit-fall trap. Insects are attracted by a nectar-like secretion on the top of the leaves. Unlucky for them, the nectar is poisonous, sending their intoxicated bodies tumbling down the funnel.
4. Tropical Pitcher Plant: Similar to the beastie above but more sack-like in appearance. They too attract insects using sweet intoxicating nectar. Prey slip on the rims of the plant, falling into a pool of death and soon drowning inside a sticky acidic liquid.

You know summer’s in swing when the dragonflies come out to play! These glorious goggas are in fact not dangerous at all and are actually superb pest controllers with a most captivating twist. Watching these elegant insects dance around the pool is such a lovely sight indeed! Let’s discover more about this curious creature.

So why are they called dragonflies?

According to Romanian folklore, St. George went to battle and wounded a dragon while fighting on his horse. His horse was then cursed and turned into a giant flying insect, which is why ‘dragonfly’ translates to ‘devil’s horse’ in Romanian. Cursed horse or not, all we know is that the dragonfly is far from doomed and only adds value to gardens everywhere. They live on every continent but Antarctica and are welcomed for their helpfulness and grace.

A dragonfly feast

These superb hunters help to keep the fly and mozzie population in check by grabbing them with their feet and then munching away during flight. Dragonflies are excellent fliers – they can fly up and down or hover like a helicopter. Most other flying goggas don’t stand a chance against this agile hunter. A single dragonfly can eat between 30 to 100 mosquitoes in a day! There’s certainly no need for bug spray with these guys around.

Homing a magic dragon

Dragonflies need a fresh water source for the female to lay her eggs. She does this by dipping her abdomen into water immediately after mating. If you don’t have a swimming pool, they would appreciate a little water feature or birdbath too. Dragonflies are harmless to human’s and they do not bite or sting. Besides being excellent insect hunters, they are also a very important food source for other predators such as birds and fish. Just like the frog, the appearance of dragonflies in the garden is an excellent indicator of the overall health and balance of your ecosystem.

White Aloe Scale is a pesky and resilient species of armoured scale insect. This means that they produce a hard outer coating covering the body, which protects them from external influences such as diseases and pathogens.

Identification

If your Aloes have small grey ridges or bumps forming on the leaves it probably indicates an infestation of scale insects. They seldom kill the plants they infest, but nonetheless, are definitely not a problem that will go away on its own.

What this means for your plants

They attach to the plant and suck the juice, damaging the vitality of the succulent and causing discolouration and stippling. If left untreated, aloes will begin to lose vigour, ending up covered in what a appears to be a white, fluffy waxy deposit.

Suggested Action

Take a picture or sealed sample to your local GCA Garden Centre and allow them to recommend a spray that will not burn the tender, succulent Aloe leaves. For scale insects on other plants, spray with a recommended organic spray dilution.

TIP: Avoid spraying the soft, new leaves of ferns and tree ferns as some sprays can damage them.

For more information on insects and other visitors click here or join the conversation on Facebook #lifeisagarden.

This month, we’re all about celebrating spiders! When we think about these little arachnids in our homes, some of us tend to resort to certain squishing tendencies. Spiders in the garden, however, are a different matter and they have an important job to do (besides creeping you out). In the garden, it’s best to allow them to go about their business undisturbed, as their main job is to keep your garden pests in check., Most garden spiders are a means of pest control but there are some which are harmful to plants such as red spider mites. For the most part, these guys are great!

World Pest Day will be held on June 6, to help spread awareness on the importance of eco pest control.

Identification:

Spiders are arachnids ranging from scorpions, mites, and ticks. Spiders come in all shapes and sizes. Generic spiders have eight small eyes, closely grouped with eight legs. Most spiders that we see during daylight hours are unlikely to cause harm to humans.  They prefer gardens and grassy areas, anchoring their webs among twigs and stems.

Signs/Symptoms:

In the garden, spiders create flat webs between plants, across garden paths, along with windows or even door frames. The size and shape of spider webs vary across species. Some webs are orb-shaped, while others are funnel-shaped.

What does this mean for me/my plants?

Overall, garden spiders are very beneficial because they help keep insect populations in check. Spiders in gardens serve a predatory role, eating only insects that eat plants. Therefore, spiders are harmless to your garden and in fact, sustain the health and lifespan of your garden. However, their large orb webs can be troublesome to people near walkways, gates, or windows.

Suggested Action:

Suggested actions include World Pest Day, Catching Spiders and safely relocate spiders. Carefully consider if it's necessary to kill the spiders in your garden as they aid in eliminating the various harmful insects that reside in your garden.

Signs/Symptoms

During summer, yellowing shoots will appear. Often by late summer, many of these shoots will be brown and dead. The lower parts of the clipped hedges are frequently more severely affected than the top, with the dieback not entirely pronounced. A black powdery layer of sooty mold may grow on the shoots and foliage. Although damaged hedges can recover, it will be a slow process.

What does this mean for me/my plants?

Cypress Aphids often attack trees, and hedges that are not cared for or pruned during the growing season. Cypress aphids also produce copious amounts of honeydew, a sweet, sticky material that covers the branches and foliage. This material provides a medium for the growth of sooty mold, a black-colored fungus that covers the foliage, and which can interfere with photosynthesis. Additionally, these Cypress Aphids may carry viruses or bacteria, infecting pants and are considered one of the most destructive pests in any garden.

Happy autumn and a merry March, maintenance month! It’s time to prepare those beds for some annual autumn planting and sow them seeds for the new season. Get busy in the garden and give your seedlings a nutritious head start.

You should work in about 3 to 5cm of compost into the soil, as well as, a handful of bonemeal or superphosphate per square metre. This will ensure that plants have all the nutrition they require to get off to a great start. Give your soil nutrients so that the plants in your garden have the ability to become strong and healthy. Use a general fertilizer like a 2:3:2 or one that contains more potassium such as 8:1:5.

What to Sow

Autumn means it’s time to start sowing winter and spring flowering annual seeds. Some of our favourites to sow now are:

Sweet Peas: Their seductive fragrance in the garden or as cut-flowers in the home is like no other. The seed is generally available in mixed colours, which are a gorgeous mix of mostly pastel colours, for both dwarf and climbing varieties. The climbing Sweet Peas will need a sunny spot with supports to climb up – like a trellis, fence or an arch. Sweet peas will be happiest with their roots are in cool, moist soil, so it is a good idea to plant low-growing annuals in front of them to keep the roots shaded, mulching will also work well. The secret to fabulous Sweet peas starts with the soil preparation. Dig over a trench of soil, next to the supports, to the depth of a garden fork and add plenty of compost and preferably manure too. Add a handful of bonemeal or superphosphate per square metre, also sprinkle a handful of Dolomitic or Agricultural lime per running metre and dig it in.

With the 9^th of October being ‘Garden Day’ and October being ‘Rose month’ – what an opportune month to celebrate gardening!

Rose month

Your roses should be producing their first flush of perfect blooms and the sun is still not too scorching – allowing the blooms to last longer. Spring is also the ideal time to select and plant new rose bushes in your garden. These are some of our favourites:

• Ingrid Bergman POULman unfading red
• Memoire KORfuri   unspoilt white, fragrant
• Zulu Royal DORient mauve, fragrant
• King David TANmarsal bronze
• South Africa KORberbeni golden

Pop in to your nearest GCA Garden Centre for more inspiration and supplies.

What to Sow

As soon as the soil warms up in mid spring, you can start to sow all your summer veggies, including beans, sweetcorn and tomatoes. Two of your main “must haves” for your summer salads are cucumber and celery.

• Cucumber seeds should be sown in composed enriched soil in a sunny site. When flowers start forming, feed with potassium-rich organic fertiliser. Support plants well so they can climb upwards, even when the cucumbers get large. This also protects the cucumbers from slugs. Harvest /cut the cucumbers off the plant when they are still quite young, avoiding the skin becoming hard. Regular harvesting encourages a more continuous production of
• Celery needs rich, moisture-retentive soil which is achieved by digging in plenty of compost. Sow in shade or semi-shade. Feed weekly liquid feed in mid to late summer. Plants should be spaced 20cm apart and kept moist. You can cut stems frequently as required.

What to Plant

Amaryllis (Hippeastrum) - one of the easiest and most rewarding bulbs to grow, amaryllis produce showy, trumpet-shaped blooms that add a flamboyant touch to your garden or home. Often referred to as the Christmas flower because they typically bloom around five weeks after being planted (during the warmer months).

Contribute your own little piece of Eden to the Earth and invite the buzz, whir and tweet of some colourful little guests that will appreciate it as much as you do. The beautiful colours and scents that attract these special creatures are also a treat for your own senses.

Edibles in your Garden

Cape Gooseberries (Physalis edulis) is a quick-growing annual or perennial fruit plant that originates in South America. It has been grown extensively in many parts of South Africa for the little golden berries that are produced in abundance, on bushes that can reach a height of about 1m.

Gooseberries are a worthwhile fruit to grow in your garden as they are excellent for making jams, jellies, desserts, chutneys and wine.

Grow them from seed, in almost any, well-drained soil – they even cope with poor or impoverished soils. Position them in full sun in an open, exposed area where the plants can literally grow wild. You can grow them all year round in frost-free climates.

Bedding Besties

For summer colour in abundance, Nemesia (Nemesia strumosa) and Twinspurs (Diascia integerrima) make the best of indigenous friends.

Nemesia (Nemesia fruticans) - The flowers resemble little snapdragon flowers and are dusty-pink or mauve or even whiter in colour - decorated with bright yellow. Used mostly as a flowering bedding plant and as an ornamental pot plant. Various colour forms are available from specialist nurseries.

Plant in well-drained soil, enriched with compost in a sunny position.

Twinspurs (Diascia barberae)- a dainty little perennial plant originating from the Drakensberg mountain range. It produces numerous upright stems growing to 30cm tall. The tubular flowers are rich salmon pink in colour. They grow best in full sun and look spectacular in rock gardens, especially tucked into joints and cracks between large rocks.