Gharghar u Znuber!

Garden Visitors

----- Monday, 4th April 2011  -----

The insecticidal soap seems to have worked!! The aphids are all dead.. I shall wait until the plant regenerates some and then post another pic! :) In the meanwhile, I have managed to capture yet another visitor on camera.  This one is welcome in my book - what do u think?!  Can you see the web? It spanned the entire length of my roof - what a busy spider! 

-----   26th March 2011   -----

Insecticidal soap has been purchased and plants have been sprayed accordingly..  I hope it works!!  According to some quick research you can easily make insecticidal soap at home using liquid soap.  Does anyone have experience with this? Also, how to tell a liquid soap from a detergent if the bottle is not labelled "liquid soap" ? Any particular ingredients to keep an eye out for?

-----   12th March 2011   ----- 

I shall document all kinds of visitors to my garden here.  Sadly, the first pictures are not of the most welcome visitors, but they are visitors none the less!  I hope to slowly attract birds and other beneficial animals that may balance out the harmful effects from the below.

HerbSuperb!

-----  Sunday, 3rd April 2011  -----

I felt completely evil, but I did it.

I hunted down that Japanese beetle and I stomped on it (same as I do to snails in my garden)  :(  I still feel so guilty, but my sage has already thanked me by looking pretty.  Ah well, c'est la vie :S

 -----  Sunday, 27th March 2011  -----

I have always observed and marvelled at the vigour of my sage plant.  This Salvia species has seen many a generation of beetle on my rooftop.  I have so far made no effort to remove the beetles, hoping somehow that this particular visitor had some positive effect somewhere else in my garden.  Both adult and larvae LOVE this plant and eat its leaves at a fast pace.  But good old sage is stronger and produces new growth at an even faster one, in a somewhat defiant manner :)  It has even started to flower now, despite its very nibbled state.

Has anyone had similar beetles visiting their sage? The adult beetle is beautiful, with a sort of metallic stripey thing going on with its carapace.  Any beetle enthusiasts willing to suggest a name?!

The Mystery of the Curled Honeysuckle (Lonicera)

I have been trying to solve this mystery for quite some time now.. my honeysuckle gets enough water and I can't spot anything on its leaves or bark which I guess rules out pests.  I'm guessing it may be some sort of nutritional deficiency but I'm not sure of how to go about sorting the problem out using organic methods... Any suggestions?! 

Ceratonia siliqua, Carob

-----   Saturday, 26th March  2011   -----

 

 -----   Friday, 4th March 2011   -----

 

The Vertical Aspect

It took me just under a couple of hours to construct the three trellises below!  I did it all myself using a brush and wood glue, a hammer and some nails.   The only help I received was Nannu cutting out the bits of wood into the right size from a strip of wood which was once part of a door.  I aim to train my climbing roses (once they grow) and my honeysuckle onto and across the structures to drape the wall with green. 

Rosa spp., Climbing Roses

Next on the list of garage constructs is a large trellis or two, to train the vertical shoots from the two climbing roses onto.   The plants in the first two pictures below were potted yesterday, in huge pots that I purchased specifically for the roses which, I was told, like deep soil.  Megan gave me this advice when I bought my first rose, shown in the third picture, and it has been doing well so far.  I have therefore applied the same principles to my two new climbing rose plants. One is supposed to have pink flowers, and the other yellow - we shall find out!  Updates with respect to my three Rosa species to be posted here in the future.