Fuchsia Gall Mite

To say that this is not the post I would want to follow on from the last one is an understatement of monstrous proportions. I would rather not be writing it at all and have misgivings about putting into the public domain something that part of me would rather keep quiet about.

Two days ago, to my consternation, I found a shoot on one of the fuchsias in my garden that was clearly infested with gall mite. The whole plant was razed to the ground in minutes and removed to the dustbin taking great care not to touch anything on the way.

Today I went round the garden and scrutinised every fuchsia we have for further signs. I found one infected shoot on a plant perhaps 40 feet away from the first. That plant also was chopped carefully into a plastic bag and binned, the secateurs doused in boiling water.

Dead centre and far from obvious.

Sometimes gardening feels like one step forward, two steps back.

OK, I’m down but not out. I’m not giving in and resigning myself to losing all our fuchsias. I intend to fight back. It may be that total eradication proves elusive. It may be that even if it were achieved, new infestations from the same place as this one came from would break out. If I get further outbreaks, I will never know whether their source is plants in my own garden or elsewhere.

I’ve read the entries about gall mite on the websites of the RHS, the British Fuchsia Society, Defra and the American Fuchsia Society. In America, especially California, they have been living with this pest for a lot longer than we have and I think their approach has much to commend it. http://www.americanfuchsiasociety.org/articledirectory/learning-to-live-with-gallmites/#more-286

I will be carrying out careful visual inspections at least fortnightly, preferably more often. Any possible early infestations will go straight into the dustbin. I need to decide on a treatment that can then be applied to the plant that will further suppress the pest and hopefully knock down any that have already moved on from the gall.

The plants I have found infection on now, in late October, have already been cut down to the ground. I need to decide on a treatment for the stumps and surrounding ground. Some kind of winter wash, repeated a couple of times, is what I’m thinking. I won’t destroy those plants, but I will keep an especially close eye on them next year.

It may be that I keep getting outbreaks on the same varieties, in which case I will deem them particularly susceptible and get rid of them. It may equally be the case that some varieties are highly resistant to damage, even to the point of it not being visible, but still support a small population of mites. I think I may cut down all my hardies in autumn (I usually wait till spring) and spray with a winter wash. That way there should be a break of several months when the mites will have nothing much to survive on.

I have a neighbour with a garden half full of fuchsias, some coming through the boundary right where I found the first infestation. I have to grasp the nettle and try to get him to follow the same program. I'm not sure he will be very cooperative.

I'd be massively grateful for any comments on what I'm planning, especially from anybody who has been in the same position.

Unmistakable and very very unwelcome.

Fuchsias, a kind of appeal.

When my better half, Sue, moved down from Scotland nearly 30 years ago, she brought with her a fuchsia called ‘Dancing Flame’. Sadly, we no longer have it, but it is still available and the RHS website listing says there are 9 suppliers.

'Adalbert Bogner'

Sue was a big fan of fuchsias; I have to admit I was myself somewhat indifferent. We both worked on a nursery for the next 25 years and fuchsias became one of the plant groups for which it was well known. Between us, we built up a very diverse and interesting range, securing plants from a wide range of sources to do so.

'Annie Guerts'

We are both retired now and the nursery no longer grows fuchsias. Over the years that we were there Sue took plants of her favourites home with her or bought plants from other nurseries and then took cuttings from them to add to the nursery catalogue.

'Catherina'

Earlier this year I took stock of what we still had and set about taking cuttings from each of them to try to get young plants going, many of them being old and in poor condition. My list ran to 58 varieties. I just checked them all against the RHS listing and found that 22 are no longer available from UK nurseries, with a further 11 listed by only one.

'Comperen Lutea'

I don’t quite know what to think about that. Some of them are surpassingly beautiful varieties that it seems very sad to lose. On the other hand, Fuchsias are one of those vast groups where it is inevitable that old varieties will disappear in order to make room for new ones. Fuchsias are hardly ever troubled by viruses, which spell the demise of so many plant varieties and while individual plants may only thrive for a few years, if they are propagated regularly the clones can be very long lived.

'Cornish Pixie'

I feel something of a responsibility to keep going the ones we have and I wish I was in a position to disseminate them more widely but running any sort of nursery out of our small and over-full garden is impracticable. In common with many other groups of plants, fuchsias have in recent times fallen victim to a newly introduced pest, gall mite in this instance. It is possible that some of the varieties we have are resistant or immune and the more varieties that are grown, the more likely it is that a good range will survive the pest.

'Day by Day'

I have strong young plants of a good proportion of what we have and will make every effort to keep them going and to spread them around if I can. When I posted some montages of fuchsia pictures on Twitter recently there was a very positive response so there is clearly a fan base out there. I don’t think many people realise just how slender is the thread by which many of our garden plants hang on in cultivation.

'Dorothy Oosting'

According to the RHS, none of the varieties pictured are available from a UK nursery.

'Fiorelli Flowers'

'Grace Bell'

'Harti's Olivia'

'Jorma van Eijk'

'Martin's Sylvia'

'Red Sunlight'

'Roesse Tricolor'

'Shauna Lyndsay'

'Vivien Harris'

'Waldis Simon'

Sorry

Oh dear, I think I might have said the wrong thing. You know what it’s like with gardening, there are rules to follow if you want to command the respect of the self appointed guardians of good taste.

Many years ago my sister gave me some bulbs of a good form of Nerine she had growing in her garden north of Aberdeen. Every year they have increased in number and I now have a broad edging along both sides of about 12 feet of paved path. When they flower, as they are doing now, in mid October when everything else is winding down, they take no prisoners. A goodly clump of a scarlet Dahlia alongside them is all but overwhelmed and the combination of the two is a visual air raid siren. It’s an effect I’ve tried for elsewhere in the garden but nothing else has come close.

I was reading something the other day that damned begonias with faint praise. It would seem that they too are regarded as irredeemably naff by the GOGT. I love them. Dahlias seem to have crept back to a position of grudging acceptance, off the back of black leaved single flowered varieties I would guess. I grow plenty of dahlias, I even have one or two of the relatively shy flowering, dull foliaged single flowered black leaved varieties. Several of my Dahlias are doubles by the way.

And I have yellow flowers, and conifers. And I don’t really like most hardy geraniums, too scruffy, too dull and not much of a flower display for the space they take up.

For me, there is only one rule. Gardens should not be dull. I don’t give a rat's arse about the rest.

An eye to the future

A few days ago I was helping some friends with their garden. Theirs is the very common situation of people getting older and finding it increasingly difficult to cope with their quite large garden. I was struck by one thing in particular which was how evergreen shrubs and conifers had come to dominate their garden.

Everyone knows that when planning a garden, or part of a garden, it's important to try and anticipate how it's going to be in five, ten, perhaps twenty years time. I wouldn't mind betting that most peoples' thinking doesn't really go beyond the five year horizon.

In the case of a lot of plants that doesn't matter much, in that in five years most perennials and deciduous shrubs will have reached their mature size and routine maintenance will keep them there or thereabouts. By then they will have filled their allotted space leaving little or no bare ground and will be competing with each other for light and water on level terms.

However, trees, evergreen shrubs and conifers don't play by the same rules. They don't throw up new growth from the base that lasts a season or a few seasons before being pruned away. Their growth is from their extremities and it tends to be fairly constant each year for any particular species or variety. So the plants keep on getting bigger.




Some joker thought 'Little Spire' was a good name for this Lawson Cypress. At least it's quite narrow.

Most of them are also long lived, so even after twenty years they are still full of youthful vigour. After a quarter of a century, even a "dwarf" conifer, growing only three inches a year, is now over six feet tall. Eucalyptus or "leylandii", putting on three feet a year or more, can be 75 feet monsters in the same time.

Deciduous trees can have their lower branches removed to let light in so shade loving plants can be grown beneath them. Many woodland perennials take advantage of the light available before deciduous trees have produced their full leaf canopy for the year.
With evergreens, even this opportunity is not available and the competition will lose out in the battle for light 99% of the time.



The maple and Magnolia have had their lower branches removed, creating space for shade loving plants. The camellia does not lend itself to similar treatment.

In my friends' garden it is Rhododendrons, Camellias and conifers that have come to dominate. Large areas are in deep shade all year round. The flowers of the rhododendrons and camellias are on top of the bush, above the foliage; the lower parts of the bush mostly bare branches.

The camellias can be cut back hard and will regrow at a lower level, but regrowth is rapid and flowers will not be freely produced for a few years, by which time they may be almost the size they were before cutting. Some rhododendrons can be similarly treated, many cannot. For conifers, with the exception of Yew, it is not an option.



This Camellia has been hard pruned. It is re-growing strongly, but won't flower freely again for some years.

So, to return to the point about crystal ball gazing when planting. If you do it for nothing else, think long and hard about how big the evergreen shrubs and conifers will be in the future. And don't make the mistake of thinking that twenty five years is so far into the future it's not worth worrying about; ask anyone over the age of sixty and they'll tell you how quickly it will flash past.



I love my Pinus parviflora 'San-Bo, but it's not going to be easy to restrict its size without spoiling its character.