Autumn Jobs and Garden Nasties

My Maidenhair ferns enjoying the shelter of the front portico

Several weeks ago I decided the time had come for a complete garden shed clean out and, armed with the hose and a stiff broom, set about removing everything and then cleaned out years of  accumulated dirt from both inside and out. I think that garden sheds are not unlike our bathroom cupboards, frequently filled with "stuff" that we either don't need or is past its "Use By" date.

With the newly created order, and although it isn't a particularly large shed, I found plenty of space to store the spare plastic garden pots, bales of sugar cane mulch and potting mixes. It feels good now to get tools and supplies from such a nice clean shed, a job so long overdue.

Although we had been enjoying gloriously mild and sunny days thus far, a cold snap last weekend sent our family running for jumpers, changing over from lightweight cotton to snug woollen blankets on beds and digging out the winter quilts much earlier than most years. Looking back at some of my earlier blog posts where I describe the relentless scorching summer sun, it is hard to reconcile this with our current weather.

Saturday was accompanied by light intermittent rain and Sunday we had windchill to deal with so there was very little incentive to venture outdoors.  Just a quick trip out to move my potted frangipanis close to the house where hopefully they can benefit from any heat absorbed by the brickwork and a walk around to check everything else was OK. My Peace Baby Tibouchina had a small branch broken off by the weather, a new "accidental" cutting, although it probably isn't the best time to be trying to strike cuttings.

Today was warmer, up around 20C, and almost the opposite of  our hot summer days, instead of avoiding gardening in the middle of the day, I waited until after midday to start my garden work.

So many roses have been affected by black spot and all I can do is remove the damaged leaves. I have been reading up on some ecologically sound remedies that will help to prevent future infestations and am going to purchase a sprayer specifically for this purpose as I would prefer to minimise my use of chemicals, and regardless of what I use, there is really no cure for already infected foliage. A baking soda mix offers some discouragement of future blackspot growth as it alters the pH of the leaves and makes it a hostile environment  for these fungal spores to grow and develop.

A week or so ago I noticed that Mister Lincoln had some very strange yellow mottling on many leaves, not the same as black spot. As these leaves were quite high up and I was otherwise busy at the time, I didn't investigate then. Today I noticed there were many more the same and figured it looked a little more serious than I had previously thought. On closer inspection I saw the underside had many patches of yellow/orange things that looked like they could be insect eggs. Figuring that the treatment for whatever it was would probably be to remove those leaves, I took some photos and then set about pulling off the leaves bearing "eggs".

The Mottled Leaves of Mister Lincoln

A google search revealed that these were not insect eggs at all but instead a fungal infection, RUST! Apparently rust is quite serious and can in fact kill a small rose if left unchecked. From what I can glean, the rust on my rose was at the first stage and so I have removed all leaves except those new red ones that have just emerged and should they also show signs of rust they will have to go too. Fortunately the leaves had not started to fall to the ground as the rust spores can winter in the mulch underneath and then re-emerge the following spring to start their infection cycle all over again. It's really important not to put the infected leaves into the compost, they are better disposed of in the garbage. The branches are not showing any signs of rust thus far and fingers crossed, the other roses look OK.

Rust Infestation

Rust on the underside of the leaves

I am quite surprised to have rust occur at this time of the year. When it first appeared the weather had been really mild, although we did have a lot of rain a month or so ago. Apparently the main cause is low temperatures following very wet weather and it is more prevalent in springtime. I will need to be very vigilant of all my roses and aim for early pruning, before bud break, followed by spraying with lime sulphur as once the new leaves begin to appear it becomes much more difficult to control; both sides of the leaves then need to be sprayed.

A beautiful pink coleus in my Cubby Garden, not sure how long it will last as the weather cools down further

My winter Coleus "Garden"

Today I potted up some coleus cuttings I took a few weeks ago, before the parent plants were hit by the cold. I usually just put these cuttings into water  until they develop roots a few weeks later. Unfortunately the coleus plants don't do too well outdoors over winter and I am planning to keep the new plants inside, along side the rumpus room glass doors where they will receive loads of winter sun each day and be protected from the cold each night when we draw the blind. Coleus are so cheerful, coming in a wide variety of colours from pinks and reds right through to lemons and greens. They do so well in full or partial shade and also cope with sunlight, provided you can keep away the snails and grubs that consider the young leaves to be such tasty morsels.

A Coleus Muncher at Work

I also took some cuttings from the Archangel plants today. Some each from the white, pink and purple plants. These have shown themselves to be so hardy and bright, sort of a perennial snapdragon. The first plant I purchased has grown and spread and seems to have been flowering constantly since springtime. Plus these (and coleus) are feline friendly so I don't need to worry about my precious cats should they decide to graze. Both coleus and archangels grow very easily from cuttings (or should I say breakings?). Archangels are also very draught tolerant and seem to adapt quite well to drier soils.

Speaking of our beloved felines, Noah and Izzy the Ragdoll siblings, (and I'm not sure it's quite the  right thing for me to be speaking about them in a blog covering garden nasties), have been confined to barracks for many months now, since I realised how toxic and potentially fatal all the lilies and irises and many other bulbs are to cats, particularly as ours have quite a penchant for eating grasses. Both of our babies are constantly appealing to be allowed out and occasionally attempt to rush the door and effect an escape, but this is not possible until I am able to move the worst culprits (Oriental, Tiger and Day Lilies, Belladonnas and Lilies of the Valley) to the front garden, well out of their reach. They have their own cat-towers upon which to sit and regard their kingdom (or is it cat-dom?) whilst they soak up any available sun; and an ample indoor supply of cat grass to graze upon at will. Perhaps I will write more about the kitties later when there is little else happening in the garden.

Mr Noah on his favourite cat perch - flopped as Ragdolls so often do

Izzy snoozing on the "Penthouse"

Visiting my now pristine garden shed this afternoon, I heard the sound of insect wings beating against the sides of the garden sieve, an insect that at a quick glance in the dim light I took to be a cockroach.

When I returned later to close the garden shed up for the night, I looked again in the sieve and found it was not a cockroach but instead some kind of yellow/orange and black insect, possibly 5cm or more in size,  I was not familiar with it so I ran back inside to grab my camera. Quite pretty in a buggy kind of way! According to google, it was an Orange Spider Wasp, a predator of Huntsman and Wolf Spiders. Who knew?

Orange Spider Wasp