et

Thorny problems: rescuing evergreens

(Filed: 09/06/2001)

Ragged phormium

Last summer, I planted a Phormium tenax as the centrepiece of my first garden. It looked fabulous then, but had a terrible winter and is now very sad-looking. Can it be revived - or should I buy a new one? J. Sunderland

If you are a "wheel them in, kill them, then wheel in another one" gardener, then by all means give up on your phormium. But a large part of the satisfaction of gardening is, you may find, in tending and nurturing, not just shopping. Most evergreen plants get the uglies at some time of the year. Evergreen shrubs, for example, have an unexpected and untidy "autumn" in mid-summer.

The dramatic, sword-like leaves of phormiums - New Zealand flax - can take a bit of a battering in a bad British winter. Older leaves become scarred and shredded, making the whole plant look most unpleasant.

Your plant has almost certainly started making new leaves. Take a pair of sharp kitchen scissors (secateurs chew up phormium leaves) and remove everything that is tattered and battered, making slanting cuts, for purely aesthetic reasons, as low down as you can.

The ratty leaves of some other spiky plants can be tweaked out with finger and thumb, but not these - and you risk pulling away whole sections of the plant if you try.

Once you have tidied up your phormium and given it a liquid feed, such as Phostrogen, wait for a week or two before deciding on its future. If it is growing well and looking good, keep it and resolve that you will, in future, have a spring-cleaning job to do in late March. If not, go shopping for something "easier" perhaps.

Bring on the basil

I have a lot of trouble growing basil in my herb garden. Have you any tips? Frances Wills, Dorset Basil is one of those herbs that germinates easily - in which case you have a glut - or not at all, so you end up buying pots from the supermarket.

It has to be started off under glass, only thriving outside in our climate from mid-June, when it has a tendency to go to seed fast unless the shoot tips are pinched out regularly, and is all too frequently prey to whitefly.

A word about supermarket basil: close examination of the pots will reveal that they contain a host of little seedlings. If you pull these out gently, one by one, when you need basil for cooking, instead of pulling off leaves or cutting the tops off shoots, you end up with one or two small plants that can be potted on with some John Innis no 2 compost and grown properly - outside in a sunny patch.

Don't try to separate these last stalwarts or disturb them unduly during the repotting process, however, or they may give up on you.

Paths

J. Martyn from Fareham asked for help in trying to track down a plastic path similar to the one his neighbour has. Agriframes, of East Grinstead (01342 310000) sells such a path. You can roll it up at the end of the day - really useful for wheelbarrow loads on soft lawns, and on heavy duty planting days.

Slugs

On the subject of slugs, Sue Jones points out that most plants with aromatic foliage are unattractive to slugs. She grows herbs in the sunniest part of her garden, and the slugs go on chomping away at the non-aromatic plants in the shade. Sue also reports that there is no need to buy beer for your slug traps. A mixture of sugar and water with a little yeast added works just as well.

I have received many emails and letters about devastated plants and various lists of slug-proof ones, some of which cancel each other out. As soon as I have time I will start to compile a proper list based on your experiences. Beryl Greenaway from Winchester - sender of one of the longest lists - is having great success with the new Slug Stoppa barrier. She names nepeta (catmint) as one of her "slug-proofs".

Mine grows well and is never attacked by slugs. But a little friend (I mustn't use the "c" word again) nibbles it, goes all mimsy and then sleeps in the middle of it. You can't win.

Write to Thorny Problems, Helenyemm1@aol.com or The Daily Telegraph Gardening, 1 Canada Square, London E14 5DT. Helen Yemm regrets that she can answer letters only through this column.

-- Anonymous, June 12, 2001