i spend all of my spare time in my garden and it normally gives great pleasure, until the last 2 weeks! suddenly i have to dress like it is spring or like a bee keeper!i cannot get to the bottom of the garden to my summer house without being attacked by horseflies! they should all be exterminated, i used the avon product last year for a holiday in scotland and it seemed to work,well reminded, thankyou
We may find insects like horseflies and mosquitos a nuisance, but they play an important part in the food chain Swifts, martins and swallows eat mosquitos by the million and they're also food for bats, other birds, dragonflies and amphibians. Fish feed on their larvae. Horsefly larve provide meals for invertebrates, shrews and mice and birds eat the adults. Remove any of these pestilential inects (in human terms)from the food chain and there are upsets all down the line.
the last post was just a test post... i have been bitten by what i think is a horsefly.. after reading your blog pippa i now realise what these two big blisters on my arm are from. Having acquired an allotment this year it can only be horsefly bites, as i have never been bitten so badly in all my life. These flys are quite nasty things really..
I do not have a cure for horsefly bites which are some of the most painful I have suffered, but if you are plagued by mosquitos, make sure your water butts are covered as that stops the larvae breeding. If you don't have a cover, put a drop of light oil in the water - It stops them breathing through the surface. Also at this time of year watch out for ticks in long grass and leaves. In the area I live in they carry Lyme disease which is much worse than a horsefly bite!
Shine 52 - much better to leave your tree peony for the next occupier of your house and look for a seedling at the base which you can then pot up. It will grow quickly. Otherwise why not ask them to send you some seed (they are very large) and grow a new one? The ants are driving me wild this year.
Hi, I'm makeing a raised bed and it will be sitting on concrete as I want to grow climbers onto my garage wall.Will this work? or is it a daft idea! Please advice. KK.
Shine 52, I did move my tree peony when I moved house, and it has gradually whithered away, branch by branch, and no flowers at all for last two years. So am with happymarion - don't do it. Though I've never managed to get peonies to grow from seed - do they need vernalisation?
Pippa, I've just been using your pests and diseases book to identify that all our runner beans have been struck with virus and need pulling up and disposing of. Could you clarify - is the virus in the soil (its a new allotment and we double dug the bed and cleared the dandelions from it, adding well rotted horse manure before planting). Do I need to remove all the soil, or will I be able to grow runner beans there in future years after crop rotation? What other veg will be affected if I rotate something into it? Courgettes are in the other half of the bed and seem ok at the moment - they are cropping well. Thanks for any info you can give.
Mary - sow your tree paeony seeds fresh (still hard) into good loam and overwinter in a cold frame. They will grow roots in 6weeks and shoot next spring when you can plant them out. Varieties do not come true but you will still get a great shrub.
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i have been bitten by what i think is a horsefly.. after reading your blog pippa i now realise what these two big blisters on my arm are from. Having acquired an allotment this year it can only be horsefly bites, as i have never been bitten so badly in all my life. These flys are quite nasty things really..
Also at this time of year watch out for ticks in long grass and leaves. In the area I live in they carry Lyme disease which is much worse than a horsefly bite!
be sitting on concrete as I want to grow climbers onto my garage wall.Will this work? or is it a daft idea! Please
advice.
KK.