All right, it's time to put on our wellies and our rain jackets and step into the garden, delighted to welcome back Cheris Fillon of Cherish Plants, talking all things gardening and whatnot. But before we, oh, I should just say, any gardening questions, give us a call or drop us a WhatsApp two one four four six O five six seven O seven two five six seven one five six seven On the WhatsApp, Charis Hello, it's it's hotter than a I don't know what in here, and I'm so
sorry for that. It's like you've walked into a greenhouse in Dubai summer.
I can.
I'm so glad you've got some water with you. We're if we if we're looking a bit flaky and a bit it's because we're absolutely sweating in our whatnots. So there we are, gosh, very very warm. Before we get to some questions from our listeners, there is a workshop that you want to tell our listeners about that you're doing in partnership with Elderflower.
Yeah. Older Flower Nursery. They're based in Deep River. Yeah, so they're really central and they have two divine studios that they do their workshops in and the prize at The best question to usk today about gardening can win is to attend the workshop I'm running with Elderflower, which is about fain boss propagation and it's just wonderful. It's all hardwood, very much more difficult than just routing say a plectranthus or a paagonium, because these are fain boss
plants and they can be a bit tricky. So I share all my best practices and my hints and tips. But Elderflower has a range of fabulous workshops. They really do.
I live in that neck of the woods. Why do I not know where?
So they've got a new studio off the main road and they're also based at Courtyard fifty three that's right by my house. Exactly, you should.
Go and say hello, gosh, okay, I love, I love a little things open up that you didn't know about and okay that's good news.
Okay.
So it's to be it to win it, you just need to send us in a gardening question today and the best question will earn themselves a spot in that in that workshop. The most interesting question when is it? By the way, when is the workshop?
It's in two weeks time. Okay, I think I run so many workshops. I'm not sure.
Don't worry, just make sure. Let we'll find it. You're also this is super exciting. You're also planning on taking a group to see the winning South African stand from the Chelsea Flower Show in Stanford in September.
Tell about that, well, I won a trip to the Chelsea Flower Show this year. It was incredible. I threw my hat into a competition and I won a fully paid trip to see the Chelsea Flowers Show. And I traveled through the UK and Wales, and I'm full of goosebumps in my hot studio just talking about it. But before I'd even gone, I had already planned to do a tour with a partner of mine, Alison, and we're
going to take a whole bunch of people. We've got a fifty spaces on a bus, so we're going to take a day's tour on the Saturday to go visit a garden in Elgin, Elgin Railway station, stay over in the Hohok Hotel, where I will now give a talk
about the rest of my travels through the UK. You know, Wales is such a fabulously hidden secret in the UK just wonderful and I saw great gardens there and then the next day we will arrive for the Chelsea Flower show Stand being rebuilt in Stanford as part of their Spring celebration. The whole village gets into it. Last year I just ended up looking at scarecrows after i'd seen the stand, because every little stall or shop had built
their own or designed their own scarecrow. And this year they've had more time to plan, so they're offering so much added value workshops and events in Stanford. If you went last year, don't think you've seen it all. They've up their game. Come with me, let's go see it again.
The tours two eight hundred and eighty ran per person sharing and you can what's up me or Allison on eight three four, one, four, five, seven two nine and yeah, just contact us on Instagram as well if you want to come along and we'll give you more details.
How long were you in the UK?
Now? I was there for three and a half weeks. I stayed as long as possible. The win of the trip was for three days and two nights, right right, But I couldn't leave Once I was there. They were in the full flash of spring and it was glorious, absolutely glorious, and Chelsea was fabulous as always. Yeah, such a treat, such a privilege to be able.
To go, How wonderful?
Ohs great?
Yeah, all right, So if you would like to join Cherise on that on that trip up to Stanford overnight in the hotel, she is going to be talking about all sorts of fascinating things and then you get to go and see that award winning South African stand from the very recent Chelsea Flower Show, then do get involved. Don't If you didn't have a pen to write down the number, don't worry. Just send us a what's up in and Max will give you give you the details.
Don't forget that. If you would like to win a spot in Shuiz's workshop that's coming up in a couple of weeks with Elderflower, which is based in the southern suburbs and deep with a plumsteed area, all you need to do is just send us in a gardening question and the best question as judged by well probably not scene. Well we'll secure that spot. You can give me a call and O two one four four six five six seven. You can drop me a WhatsApp to seven two five
six seven one one. Oh, so it's the heat in here. It's making me go do lally seven two five six seven one five six seven or three one five six seven on the s MS. All right, Louis asking, please tell me how to fix the root invasion of my neighbour's Brazilian pepper. It's destroying my drains and everything else in its path. Don't even get me started on things in drains, Louis, Louie.
That is a digging, digging, digging, digging job. And once you've dug down, you alm my need to line it with black plastic, thick, high density, you know, impenetrable black plastic, because the roots will also force its way through any bitom cloth or any thinner plastic and almost create a barrier on your borderline, on your neighbour's line of that tree, because the roots will just keep coming. Ideally, they are invasive species. Maybe you could go have a chat to
your neighbor about removing the tree. But quite often they make these really gnarly beautiful compact shade trees that people get quite fond of if they've had them in the garden for a while. So I'm not sure he or she will be willing to part with them. Else you dig down and you make a physical barrier to about a meter down, and then you refall the soil and your hope for the base.
Well, how would I identify Brazilian pepper? I'm so sorry.
Both the leaves and the little red seeds smell like pepper. It's quite amazing.
I think I've got one of these in my garden, and.
They send babies up everywhere. In all your pots and garden beds, you'll have little baby.
I have got that, And I'm also dealing with the roots.
Yeah, in drains, in plants, they'll grow up into other plants.
Pushing the vibra cree of my wall, which is an awful wall. I inherited the wall when I bought the house, but it's it's and it's creating havoc on the viber cree.
And if you just chop them down, they come back from that stuff. They will recreate an entirely new tree, a new canopy from a cut down shrub. In fact, I've had branches that I've removed growing. They have no root or anything, but they'll sprout little leaves and branches.
Little shop of horrors. That sounds absolutely awful. Sorry, louis tough times for you and me. Somebody else saying that our neighbor has an oak tree that spits sticky liquid all over and the black fungus is all over my plants. She won't do anything to the tree. I've been throwing insecticide granules around the base. Is that helping or what else do you think I could do to a the black fungus and the sticky stuff dripping, says Heather.
Oh, it's a whole procedure. The first thing to look for is ants around the base of the tree. Try to control the ants because the ants are climbing up to milk the aphids, and the aphids on the tree are sucking this sap. They release a honeydew that both ants and that black sticky mold absolutely adore eating, and the mold likes to grow on it. And then that mold slowly drips down with the sticky honeydew. It's really awful.
I have it under most of my oak trees. And that particular black mold is actually relatively new as far as fungi are concerning caped own, which means it would have been around for the last eight to twelve years, and we're all struggling with it. Thank goodness. The oaks shed their leaves and so you can scoop them all up and kind of dispose of them, get rid of them with all that gonky fungus on it and the rest of the plants insecticide won't really help. What you
need to do is get some soapy water. Not to soapy, I just mean a little bit of sunlight liquid, a little bit of vinegar. I can give the recipe which is two hundred and fifty miles of vinegar and three drops of sunlight liquid in a liter of water, and you use that mixture to wipe your leaves clean wherever you can, and for the rest hopefully the rain will wash it off. And they are professionals that can come along and treat the trees that are struggling, because they
really can't beat these aphids and the fingers off. So it's really Awful's trap parking your car underneathing? Oh no roots in the drain. Maybe it's compared comparable.
I think Denise and Gordon's Bay. Hello Dunning says my clavier flowered in October twenty twenty four. When will the seeds ripen? They're still very green and firm.
That is, how long is a piece of string question that clavier sort of decides. Sometimes it can take over a year on the plant to and sometimes they can be ready in sort of eight months. But it's not a strange thing for a clavier to decide that it's going to wait to finish ripening its seed, and you have to wait until they are beautifully red or beautifully yellow if you're lucky enough to have a yellow clavier
or a bright bright orange before they're ready. So if they're green, the plant is just having a think, maybe it's busy doing other things. And then when it's really to it or finished ripening in its seed, and there's just no rushing nature.
Sometimes we last week on the show, we we zoned in on Clavier's Claviers Clavier.
Clvier, Clivier clavier as long as you can spell it write.
Probably probably not. And I was saying, how I had when I bought my house, I had an ENTI I had beds of Clavier's in my house, and I promptly pulled them all up. But no, no, no, no, for for reason and replanted because the beds weren't weren't great, and I wanted to kind of put grass down. I've got kids, and they have a lawn. I move them, move them all to the front of the house. They're still very much there, but I need to start paying more attention
to them and what their moods are. I want to know what they do because I sort of because and this is, you know, no offense to the calvie, but they they don't for a long time. They don't do an awful lot.
They don't. They have no mood. They're very neutral, very very neutral.
And so I pass them every day when I come in and out of my house, and then one day I come out and there they are in bloom fantastically. But I think maybe this year I need to make note of right, and this is when they're doing their thing, and this is how I'm.
Going to make it a study. Yes, absolutely, And it's time at that time before they push their seed and they're busy forming their flower birds to give them a little bit of food, a little bit of composts. But otherwise you can ignore them while they're ignoring you, Okay, that's all right, But when they're in action, when they're ready to go, you better be ready. Your bags, bags better be packed. Sure, you've got to be you know, jumping in.
At the start of a toxic relationship. When I ignore you, you ignore them? Right? Help for Oh, here we go, Cheryl. Is it important to seal the ends of your roses after you've pruned them?
That is a really fabulous question, And no it isn't. You know, we went through that phase where it was better, better than margarine, And this is the same thing. We went through an entire phase where if you made a cut on a large shrub tree or anything that was pretty what we would call juicy, has a lot of sap, it might be a good idea to paint some sealant on.
And then more studies were done, more time was spent having used that method, and then we went right the way back to saying no, rather just leave it open for the plant to heal itself. It's much better. But the trek is to make a slanted cut so the water runs off. Don't make these flat topped horizontal cuts. The water will sit on and can penetrate and cause rot.
So a slight angle, preferably away from the buds you're directing in the opposite direction to the bud you've just cut above, and it'll run off, and it's far better to let the rose just seal itself, but always cut at an angle.
Here you go, shall I hope that helps help for a rosary plant. Mine is looking very woody and not as nice for use in the kitchen as it used to be.
Dear, Oh, well, they get old like us. Plants do have a lifespan, and at that time it's best to compost them and you can start again. And rosemary, you can actually start really nicely from cuttings if you were particularly fond of that plant and it's soul and what it did for you. If you take some cuttings, you actually have a genetic identically identically no, no, no identify, thank you. See it's gotten cooler in the yeah, genetically identical plant, and you can kind of keep that one.
Otherwise it's time to put it in the compost and start afresh with a new baby. They just have a life. That's fine. It happens.
There we go. Dion says, I've got a Eureka lemon from a garden center, transplanted from a pot when it was young. It had a few lemons in the pot, been in the ground for about eight to ten years, but not a single flower or lemon. The tree is now over a meter and a half in height and reached over our wall getting sun. I have fed it over the years. My wife wants to remove it and replant, but I'm holding on and want to save it. I've got stories about taking up lemon trees, and one story
ends well and the other does not. Well, you have to share now, well, I inherited two lemon trees, which we uprooted them both and replanted in our old house. One of them did not appreciate that at all, and despite all of our praying and love and things never you know, didn't go well. The other one is still very much there at our old house, but I knew it wouldn't survive. Another to the new house, which is not new. We've been in it for two years and
say there it was, but it did not. It was tough times, and it just gave us the one lemon, and there we are. It was sad times.
Well, Dion, I think that you have a couple of options. One, listen to your wife. Two really put your stack in a pot. Three leave it there for a little bit. But if you're leaving it there, you need to cut lop that top off. You need to follow all the the wise old wives tales of hammering a rusty nail into its bar.
No, not really.
Yeah, and you're gonna have to feed it with epsom salts every single month. You have to make sure it's being watered consistently. It's not too much or too little. That doesn't it doesn't mind, but it minds consistency. It doesn't like to drown and then drought immediately afterwards. And then try and find a very high nitrogen And so the middle number be low, but the first number, which is nigrogen, little number I'm not so fussed about. And the last number needs to be high, so like an
eight one five or a twelve six twenty. Try find a fertilizer like that. You'll find little tubs of them in the nurseries, and then push that on the lemon tree. And if all of that doesn't work, I'm going right back to listen to your wife.
Lemon trees are are they quite difficult? Are they quite deverish?
Because I've yeah, yeah, the old varieties are like you can't kill them yea, and they bear no matter what. But the newer varieties, as thin as skinned and as delicious and as juicy as they are, can really be drama queens. If we want to get back into moods of plants. They will just sometimes not do what they're supposed to do. Despite every effort of the gardener to make them behave and bear some fruit and be happy, they just won't.
Why is it that so this this lemon tree that we dug up and then buried in our I have to say, not terribly nice soil in Hamstein did just the one lemon, just the one lemon? That was it?
Why?
What was it a protest?
That's what I want to say yes to. Yes it was a protest. But quite often it is lacking of nutrients in the soil. It's not getting the same kind of richness from it. They do prefer a rich soil. They can tolerate. I mean they come from the Mediterranean. They can tolerate drought, but they're often do it in quite heavy, rocky, clay based soils, the high mineral content that cold water, so they're not fond of sandy poor soils.
It's often when they do better in a pot, and they've just gotten a little weaker the higher they've been bridged, similar to some roses.
Actually, have you got thirty seconds for this?
Eshji and your guest.
I have a money tree, the plant that is so sad, skinny, and remaining leaves are turning yellow. What can I do?
Get out of the water, change its soil, whatever's happening. If it does that, it's in the soil. So repot it. Put it in some fresh, light rich soil, and do not overwater it. Give it a complete change, and watch out that it's not getting too much light or too little light.
Chrees, You're an absolute star, Thank you very much. Indeed, I've enjoyed this enormously