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[oldsheep]

my penstamons have got a powdery mildew. I RHS-d it and it seems some of the best known fungicides are being withdrawn from sale at the end of the year, so I'm not using them. However it's beyond gentle remedies - really taken hold in the last few weeks and I've been wondering what it is (like an idiot).
I've just ordered one on amazon and will check the local garden centre (but AFAIK they only stock the nasty one).

I love penstamon and I love bees. We have a lot of bumble bees in our communal garden. Also a lot of penstamons, as they are slug proof (world record slug population....). The worst affected plant is 4 years old and has produced a lot of flowers already but they are all 'dusty'  with mildew. Any ideas please? Got to be communal garden friendly and work! thanks.

[CLKD]

There is a guy doing Research on mildew …….. of course I can't remember the Link  ……. I have it on my bear's breeches this year 

Here we are:

http://blogs.reading.ac.uk/crg/powdery-mildew-survey

How to…pick and send a powdery mildew sample:

Locate powdery mildew on plant host.
Prune off several whole leaves (fig. 2)
Put the fresh leaves in a slightly inflated sealed bag (fig. 3).
Send to:
Oliver Ellingham
School of Biological Sciences
Harborne Building
University of Reading
Whiteknights
Reading
Berkshire
RG6 6AS
United Kingdom
…along with the postcode/grid reference of where the sample was found, your email address and the host plants name. If you can add a GPS location and/or photograph of the plant in growth this would be most helpful.



Royal Horticultural Society and University of Reading are working together to identify and map as many powdery mildews as possible over the next two growing seasons.

[oldsheep]

thanks CLKD! He must get some interesting post!

[CLKD]

It's the sort of post I would love to be undoing 

[oldsheep]

I think I'm going to try Roseclear on the penstamon. It says it works on ornamentals' powdery mildew. When I've got my specs on and go down to water in the garden tomorrow, I'll check the ingredients.

[CLKD]

We've had a bird in the kitchen but don't know when ….. except I've found poo over the sink area so it obviously went to the window.  Now, wondering if it's upstairs somewhere or has flown out again 

[dazned]

We have a wasps nest in the extraction pipe for the cooker hood which is attached to an outside airbrick !! 

Heard funny clicking and soft humming for a couple of days up on top of the cupboard told DH yesterday so he investigates and says there are wasps flying in and out of airbrick ! Phoned council they can't come until Thursday! Hope they stay in pipe and don't decide to come out !

[Hurdity]

Oh dear dazned - they get everywhere! Hope they don't get into the kitchen!

Update on our house-martins. Have been watching one pair all week (well intermittently as have been out a lot!) from my kitchen window building a new nest on neighbour's outbuilding - now finished - and a couple of days ago another pair started building a nest right next to our own artificial pair of nests my husband put up on our barn building - and now two pairs have moved into these artificial nests!! One pair has actually built around the entrance with its own mud, and have stopped building the new one. Very exciting to have our own birds back! Not had them on ours for a few years now. Do hope this means they will stay and breed ...

sparkle - I don't have nyger seeds but a pair of goldfinches have been eating the reaulr seed mix that all the others are eating. They are picking quite slowly at it though so obviously have a preference for some of the seeds and not others. Often get chased away by the busy sparrows though....

Interesting article about red kites Taz.

CLKD - sounds like the gardening thread needs resurrecting!

Hurdity x

[CLKD]

Did so earlier    >wave Hurdity <

I don't kill wasps/bees etc., only flies and rats 
We did have a bees nest in a similar situation a few years ago  and the man arrived, donned a white suit and dealt some chemical into the 'vent' …….. we also had a nest in a shrub between the houses which had to go, DH dealt with that one.

[Taz2]

dazned - you should be fine while the wasps are feeding the young. They will be intent of getting outside to get as many insects, grubs and caterpillars as they can. We had one in our extraction pipe thingy a few years ago and, because I hate destroying the nests and have quite a fondness for wasps, we left it alone and never had one come into the house. By the end of August all was quiet as the wasps had flown and old nests are never revisited so we have had no bother since in that particular location. I know they can be a nuisance but they are still trying to recover from a sharp decline in 2013 http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2747264/Buzz-know-answer-wasps-gone-Concern-garden-pest-eating-insects-vanished.html

Great news about the House Martins Hurdity.

Taz x

[bramble]

I can't keep up with the speed th birds are emptying the seed feeder. They are going through one in less than a day. Mainly sparrows though. Do they not realise I am on the pension?

Bramble

[CLKD]

  ………. same with live meal worms Bramble - 2 female and 1 male blackbird follow me around the house, peering into windows and chirruping gently  and once fed, sparrows arrive followed by a robin followed by a magpie ……. they will miss me next week 

[bramble]

I found I was getting magpies and crows in the garden when I put out fat balls. I live next to a church and wood and there is always lots of crows around. I stopped putting them out as I don't like them. Only feed the little birds now with seed.

Bramble

[oldsheep]

being woken up at dawn regularly now by pigeons cooing at each other on the Victorian flower balcony (ie not a real balcony but a bricked feature) right outside my bedroom. I've just ordered some idiotic looking fake crow, which no doubt they'll ignore (I read that they ignore the owl 'deterrents'). Chose the crow as it's their main predator in this area of London.
I'm really sleep deprived. Keep getting up to chase them away but back they come. They are loud!

[Hurdity]

Bramble  - I've put my fat balls into a fat-ball feeder and then clipped two semi-circular wire hanging baskets (the cheap ones I had hanging about not using) together so that the big birds can't get in ie crows, jackdaws and magpies. Even so they are disappearing at the rate of 4 per day (to the sparrows mainly) and that's leaving them empty some of the time as I can't keep up!

I've got some individual ones in green netting which I hook over where the other feeders are but the crows keep on pulling them off so they lie on the ground in the vegetation uneaten - so I'm slowing down on these too. They were for the woodpecker but this now eats the peanuts so that's good!

The big birds all need feeding too but I reckon they can look after themselves and it's a whole different thing trying to keep them fed too - I mean would be horrendously expensive and the little birds don't get a look in! The crows eat all the bread I put out before the sparrows & chaffinches get there!

Hurdity x