Roll out the Barrow....

Weather: Weekend - sunny and warm....but possible snow forecast tomorrow! Daytime temperature today and yesterday around 12C.

Spring really feels in the air and it's time to get the compost out of the bins and out mulching the plants.


I have three bins . One is current and overflowing with the less than perfect mix that winter always provides. The other two I thought were rather twiggy and I was going to turn one into the other ....but when I took the top layer of the centre bin off I found some really good stuff in there. Once I'd pulled out the obvious twiggy stuff I was rather smug - the compost is not half bad.

I mixed several barrow loads to mulch my roses and incorporated blood, fish and bonemeal plus a few handfuls of pelleted chicken manure.

And that brings me to the rose in the picture which I pruned yesterday. It is New Dawn planted by the previous owner in the mid nineteen sixties - so a venerable plant.

It has suffered in the last two summers from Rose Sawfly - or rather the grubs of the sawfly - which eat the green of the leaves leaving them as dry skeletons. Last year it lost all it's leaves in mid summer and I feared the worst. It did however have a second flush of leaves but when I came to prune it there wasn't much good growth from last year so I have cut it fairly severely.

While buying Slug Nematodes at Harrod Horticultural online last weekend I noticed they had an email your problems option. Which I did! They came back early this week to say that the sawfly larvae will be at cocoon stage in the earth at the moment and I should remove them. And if I get a similar infestation this year I should spray with Derris (as I garden organically).

I could find no signs of cocoons in the earth but will have the spray at the ready!