Interesting Problems
I once took
my three children on holiday in Dumfriesshire. We were staying in a cottage
about five miles into the hills from Dalbeattie. The idea was to have a week
away from radio and television (computers didn’t loom large then) and spend
time playing games, reading and actually talking to each other. My wife had
booked the place but couldn’t come because she had to work. She said.
It was
ideal. The fact that water was hand-pumped from a bog at the bottom of a field
led to some interesting wildlife studies over a cup of tea, and the creativity
involved in advertising ‘Hot Shower’ as one of the amenities made the invention
of television pale by comparison: the shower consisted of a Killaspray, which
is a five litre plastic container with a pump handle and a length of hose attached
to a spray nozzle. It is intended for killing pests. On this one, the nozzle
had been replaced by a watering can rose. The idea was that you heated water on
the Calor gas stove (there was no electricity), poured it into the container
and held the watering can rose over your head, sweating as you pumped like
hell. Water then trickled out at the rate of a two-year-old urinating, with the
perplexing result that you were more in need of a shower after than you were
before.
Lichen covered tree |
And in these
sort of conditions we existed for a week. Perhaps more features of this
holiday, which became annual, will be shared in future blogs but the point I
want to make is that life forms can exist together under the most intimate and
hardy of circumstances. Take lichens, for example. These can be seen in
different forms growing on trees and rocks. Looking like a single plant, they
actually consist of an alga, which has chlorophyll and can make its own
energy-giving sugars, and a fungus, which is unable to do this. The fungus is,
however, more able to take in and store water and mineral nutrients. These
cohabitors then share the fruits of their labours so successfully that some
species can live for hundreds of years.
Yellow lichen |
A question
I’m often given is ‘is this stuff killing my tree?’, and the answer is no. In
fact the presence of lichen indicates the clean atmosphere it needs to operate
in, implying a healthy environment. Lichens don’t live happily with pollution
and scientists use them as one pointer to the health of the atmosphere.
Liverworts
are sometimes mistaken for lichens, but
are structurally closer to mosses. Like mosses, they thrive in damp
conditions and can be a problem where the gardener is an over-enthusiastic
waterer.
Liverwort |
Another
common question is ‘how do I get rid of moss in the borders?’ People resort to
applying chemicals which kill it, only to find it rearing its head again fairly
quickly, simply because they persist in leaving bare soil between their plants.
Bare earth is like your loft: leave a space and it’ll get filled with something
– not old Christmas decorations in this case, but moss or weeds. The simple
answer therefore is to copy nature by planting to cover the soil. The same in
the lawn – get the grass growing healthily and it will out-compete moss.
Moss growing on fence post. |
The second
most useful piece of information I can give is to work as closely to nature as
possible in the garden. The first is to hire a cottage with a proper shower.
Any questions about any of the above
or other aspects of gardening? Put them under ‘comments’.
Question - to insulate or not to insulate?
ReplyDeleteI have a gunnera (probably manicata)and my late wife, from whom all of my gardenning knowledge sprouted, always insisted that we insulate the gunnera from frost with bracken. Is this necessary? I note from my recent trip to Ireland and this Department of Agriculture website http://invasivespeciesireland.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/Gunnera_tinctoria_ISAP.pdf that g tintoria is a very invasive plant in Ireland. This species thrives without insulation. What do you think?