Garden Disappointments

While the garden is often a place of joy and peaceful satisfaction, it has its disappointments as well. You take the good with the bad. After the heavy rains I knew we would start having some problems. The most recent is discovering canker spots on my new willow. It is only a couple years in its place and I am sort of surprised to see it having a problem ( willows love lots of water). But there it is: little brown fruiting bodies all over the trunk.

And again, I seem to have poor results with the Osteospermums. Maybe I don’t have rich enough soilmix for them, or maybe it doesn’t hold enough moisture in the containers. Their companions are fine, but the Osteospermums are withering. And they were to be the prime focus of the containers they were in. They really are beautiful and elegant flowers.

This site seems to answer some questions. I think it was a lack of water and fertilizer that is causing the problem. I seem to have had the idea they needed sparer conditions….

Live and learn! Well, it is time to put arm to trowel…. as the famous quote from Kipling says: such gardens are not made by sitting in an easy chair drinking lemonade -or something like that.