The Inquisitive Gardener

Saturday, 19 September 2020

Tar Spot And Trees,

Tar spot is a common, visually distinctive, and fungal leaf spot disease. Tar spot can affect many species of maple including big leaf, mountain, red, Rocky mountain, sugar, and sycamore maple.

If a maple tree develops a relatively small yellow spot or spots on the leaves, then it is most likely that the tree has tar spot. The spots can remain small or they can get bigger as the season progresses.

Worse, they can spread across the entire surface of the leaves. As this fungus matures, the centre of the infected area will become raised and turn black.

It is this black spot or blob that gives the infection its name, tar spot. The most common fungi that cause tar spot are Rhytisma acerinmu and Rhytisma punctatum.

There is no natural cure for tar spot. In the short term, it does not harm the tree but does damage the leaves. The most effective control is to rake up all the leaves from infected trees and bag them.

If this process is to work then all the leaves must be collected. If the municipality has a professional composter then the leaves can be composted. However, the standard backyard compost system will not get the job done, they do not get hot enough.

My interest in tar spot takes more of a long-term view than a short-term one. In the short term, there may be no obvious, other than beauty, damage to the tree. However, over a period of years, it may be possible that the decreased leaf surface, due to tar spot, may impact on the tree’s ability to play its role in one of nature’s most important functions, photosynthesis.

People and animals rely on photosynthesis to make oxygen available so they can breathe. The roots absorb water and other minerals.

When these raw materials, water, and oxygen, for example, flow into plant cell that contains chlorophyll, the chlorophyll draws on energy from the sun to change carbon dioxide into oxygen and glucose. Glucose is a sugar that helps plants grow. As this process takes place, the tree produces excess oxygen. The extra oxygen is released into the atmosphere.

The actual impact tar spot has on photosynthesis is not known.

If there are infected maple trees on your property please rake them and bag them.

Thursday, 17 September 2020

Five Tulip Photos

Five Favourites

Tuesday, 15 September 2020

Sunflower Celebration

Floating rafts of sunflowers were used to clean up water contaminated as a result of the 1986 accident at the Chernobyl nuclear plant in the former Soviet Union. The roots of the sunflower plants remove 95% of the radioactivity in the water by pulling contaminants out of the water.

All the gardens that I have created for either myself or others have all had at least one sunflower; this includes balcony gardens. Mind you the ones that I grew on the balcony where a miniature hybrid not the up to twenty foot tall monster that grabs your attention in later summer

Sunflower (Helianthus annuus ) is an annual herb that can withstand mild frost as a seedling, but requires at least 100 frost free days for normal development. Intolerant of shade, sunflowers can be successfully cultivated in many countries.

Sunflower was considered to be a folk remedy and used for a number of ailments such as blindness, bronchitis, colds, coughs, dysentery, fever, influenza, fractures, malaria, rheumatism, snakebite, splenitis, and general wounds.

The prime use now is in the kitchen where sunflower oil is used for cooking, margarine, salad dressing, and soaps. Sunflower seeds are used as a snack food and as feed for poultry, cage and wild birds.

The flower itself is a source of yellow dye, the hull for filler in livestock feed and bedding, and the remainder of the plant is used as fodder, silage and green manure.

Sunflowers make an excellent cut flower and add majesty to bouquets and table arrangements.

Nutritionally sunflower is a good source of vitamin E, dietary fibre and zinc.

The sunflower is easy to grow. They will do well in most soils and need to grow their roots deep and wide, to enable them to withstand strong winds.

If possible avoid sandy soils because they are easily uprooted in loose soil. Rich soil is always helpful, but not an absolute requirement for the big and strong plant.

Sunflowers planted along a fence between two prosperities can act as a privacy curtain reinforcing and beautifying the fence.

The sunflower is an annual plant but produces seeds prolifically so you can always save some seeds from this year’s flower for next season that is if you can get to them before the birds do.