Re: mildew
- Subject: Re: mildew
- From: E*@aol.com
- Date: Wed, 25 Jul 2001 15:35:03 EDT
In a message dated 7/25/01 9:33:15 AM Eastern Daylight Time,
along@mpdr0.chicago.il.ameritech.net writes:
<< > Does mildew really do anything dreadful or does it just look shameful? >>
I am interested in the shameful looks of a plant. Mildew can quickly kill a
young plant with immature leaves, a seedling, or a plant that attracts mildew
repeatedly (should be banished if so).
But shameful? Most mature plants with mature leaves can take a load of
mildew. Some lilacs spend their entire lives covered with the stuff. I
guess I don't want to talk about two main sorts plus several subdvisions.
I have pulmonaria that seeds around and makes a plant when I am not looking.
Then it mildews itself into an miserable mess and I chop it off to the
ground. It always returns unless I remember to dig it out. Many plants
follow this routine. I do not think them shameful, just belonging somewhere
else, not in my garden.
On compost and mildew. Most gardeners keep compost piles and good thing at
that as it is the most useful thing to do with garden waste. I personally,
just me here - no cooperative extension bulletin stuff, believe you cannot
keep a compost pile pristine - free of the many afflictions of garden plants.
So, I throw everything that comes out of the gardens into the compost. The
compost here is in several locations as aging makes one less tidy and more
interested in conserving energy. We have a large compost operation that is a
no work sort of process. You use a circular pattern and take compost from
one end and add to the other. The compost used is usually three or more
years in process this way. Add sods when you have them and water if you are
nearby with a hose. This speeds it up although speeding up is not of
interest to me. It takes me around two or three years to get to the used end
of the pile so nature does all the work.
Our compost and what ever other piles are here are behind the barn. If you
are more suburban you might use some hedge plants or a right angle of
stockade fencing.
The point of this sort of rambling comment is that good things can happen
without lots of work and scientific investigation into the compost. I have
no plant afflictions I can trace to compost.
This same compost is mixed into potting soil for containers and tons of
houseplants that live in a plant room every winter. Occasionally some
mushroom pops up but nothing serious.
It is my opinion that too many books and articles are written on compost.
Nature makes compost in the fields and woods and does so with help from a
book or bulletin. I have had forty years of listening to compost theory.
End of complaint,
Claire Peplowski
NYS z4
---------------------------------------------------------------------
To sign-off this list, send email to majordomo@mallorn.com with the
message text UNSUBSCRIBE PERENNIALS
