Rhododendrons and Garden Visits

The sun shone brightly and I could feel the Summer warmth relaxing my limbs and my thoughts. For the second Garden Open Day, I had managed to wish up one of those magical days that are so delightful in Tasmania. I could not help thinking I was so lucky with such glorious weather, as I watched the gardeners from the Historic Garden Society carrying in their their picnic cases, their rugs and their fold away chairs, making a beeline and settling in around "Big Pond Cinderella". They chatted about the view and the glimpse of the garden as they tucked into their chicken, eating their sandwiches and salad and, for the young at heart, a glass of white wine.

This Spring has bought buckets of rain to our gardens and so I had the best of two worlds. For the last five or six seasons our Autumn and Spring weather has been severely lacking in refreshing rain drops. Now our subsoils are damp, we will be able to withstand the next "warmer than average" months that have been predicted for Summer time. The plants are showing their appreciation by over loading themselves with blooms and out growing their places with enthusiastic vigour. Never have the Rhododendrons and Azaleas looked so beautiful, they have grown so tall I am now finding it impossible to dead head the branches. Kees [as he sighed a sigh of relief] said it was going too far to take a ladder with me to attend to this boring chore. I just hope that the plants will not seed themselves to death. We are even enjoying the flowers on species Rhododendrons that have never delighted our senses before.

The visitors were most impressed with our handkerchief tree, Davidia involucrata, which sparsely bloomed last year for the first time after nine years, and is now covered in the extraordinary long stalked flower heads nestling between two large drooping creamy white leaf bracts. As one garden lover said to me "I always wondered why it was called the handkerchief tree, they look just like handkerchiefs hung on the clothes' line!"

But there is always a payment to be made for such bounty, Nature loves to keep us on our toes! I am noticing the dreaded mildew creeping back, especially on the leaves of the too closely planted Rhododendrons. This dreaded disease has been inflicting the world of the Rhododendron lover in every corner of the globe for the last decade or more. Black spots appear on the upper surface of the leaf and on the back you find signs of white mildew. We thought we had it controlled last year by using a spray of bi-carb soda, mixed in water, and picking off the offensive leaves. We do not like to use any manufactured sprays in the gardens and anyhow, I gather that they do not work. Now I know that our more elementary treatment is not working either. I surmise that the "cure" last year was due to the dry season. The curse does not seem to kill the plants in our garden but the President of the Rhododendron Society, standing in front of Rhododendron "Countess of Haddington", told me he had lost her with the mould virus. He grows hundreds of magnificent Magnolias and Rhododendrons. It would take him all day and night, for a year, to pick off all the affected leaves!

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