Ants' aphid farm in the apple tree

A few years ago, hubby planted 2 apple trees on the strip of no-man's land on the other side of our monster laurel hedge.

Our apples are your apples

To head off any local difficulties, we diplomatically (& grandiosely) declared it a Community Orchard, & mailed short explanatory notes to all the neighbours to say that the apples were for all.

Over the following weeks we had some nice comments in passing, but we knew the 'hood was down when some kids knocked on the door asking if they could bury their deceased pet gerbil under the trees.

Working together

The apples are different varieties, Bountiful & a Russet, but they are from the same pollination group.

Blossom on the Russet

We planted them, then crossed our fingers, & are chuffed to bits that they have indeed successfully cross-pollinated each other in the last couple of years:

Not actual size, but with any luck these Bountifuls will get bigger

Aphid ant farm

We were out this week inspecting the fruits & checking for damage, we spotted that the Bountiful had a lot of aphid action:

Houston, we have a problem...

Then I saw the ants... slowly the cogs of my brain chugged round... & I remembered: don't ants farm aphids for their honeydew?

This may sound insane, but in the ongoing discussion about what separates mankind from the beasts, the answer is: far less than we like to think. A couple of answers I was given as a child have been overturned since my school days:

• Opposable thumbs
  From pandas to opossums, opposable digits are enjoyed across the animal kingdom.
• Using tools
  Some apes use twigs to fish for ants. Otters, elephants & crows are all in on this tool use action.

Actually, these first 2 were overturned sometime before I was school age, but that was the 70s so many of the books were older than the building. Fortunately, we now have QI, BBC4 & the Internet to sort out the mess.

• Farming
  Some ants farm fungi & some farm aphids.

Earlier this year I saw some stuff on TV about ants farming fungi, and I read about ants & aphids the other week, in Surely You're Joking, Mr Feynman.

The Fantastic Mr Feynman

I'm a bit obsessed with Richard Feynman at the mo: the fab docudrama on the Challenger Shuttle enquiry; the documentary the BBC screened with it; the enthusiasm for Feynman that Robin Ince showed when we saw his show The Importance Of Being Interested.

Right from when he was a nipper, Feynman was interested in all kinds of stuff. Even as an adult, he would keep his microscope's eye piece in his pocket, so he could spy upon interesting small stuff when going about his day.

His Dad told him about ants & aphids, & then one day he saw it for himself:

"So here was this aphid and sure enough, an ant came along, and patted it with its feet - all around the aphid, pat, pat, pat, pat, pat! This was terribly exciting! Then the juice came out of the back of the aphid. And because it was magnified, it looked just like a big, beautiful, glistening ball, like a balloon, because of the surface tension...

"The ant took this ball into its two front feet, lifted it off the aphid, and held it. The world is so different at that scale that you can pick up water and hold it!... Then the ant broke the surface tension of the drop with its mouth, and the surface tension collapsed the drop right into his gut. It was very interesting to see this whole thing happen!"

p93 Surely You're Joking, Mr Feynman

Well we didn't see what Feynman saw, but every aphid-rich leaf had at least 1 ant...

Ant siesta

I went & checked again lunchtime today, to take photos, but no ants. Maybe they were hiding from the midday sun.

But when I went & checked again in the evening, there they were:

Ant farmer, bottom right of the leaf... honest

Plan of attack...?

We speculated that, if the ants are farming, then presumably that means protecting the aphids from predators. A quick Google brought up a BBC clip showing a group of ants fighting off a ladybird.

So it's no use going to the aphids. I guess we have to target the ants first. I feel really bad about this but, for the health of the tree, something might have to be done.

I've had a dig around online for advice, but am struggling to find a consistent answer - I don't want to nuke the place.

Any suggestions, folks?

Update: All this might be academic if the local kids don't stop ripping the fruit off. I guess this lot were too young to get the memo... :(

No Lilac flowers this year, then...

As the whole of Spring packs itself into just a couple of weeks, I'll stick my neck out & say the Lilac is not going to bother flowering this year:

Lots of green, but no lilac

Its compatriot 3 gardens over is in full pomp right now, but there's no flower buds on ours at all.

I suspect this is the result of another dodgy pruning incident :/

I know that Lilac is pretty robust - I've hacked it back pretty hard in the past with no real bother, but I don't ever recall having a no show like this.

But last year I did my usual thing of pruning it when I could be arsed, rather than when it should be done, & I guess sometimes there's a price to pay.

A bit of online digging indeed suggests that Lilac is best pruned immediately after flowering, so I'll keep an eye on the neighbours' blooms & give ours its annual haircut when theirs goes over. Won't be long now, which is handy as all that green is making a bid to dominate Stinky Dog Corner.

Ah well, fingers crossed for next year.

New Lilac on the block

And talking of the future, the white Lilac root cuttings from my mate have made it through the Winter:

Go little cuttings!

Yay! More residents for The White Corner. However, now I've learn about Lilac's bullying ways, the plan is to plant it on the other side of the wall, on the Council land. Not only will this complete the hedge, but it'll return that area to similar form of a few years ago:

When we moved in, The White Corner had 2 Conifers & a Lilac running along the bottom wall. But as they grew bigger & bigger, they started pushing the wall over. So a few years ago, we had a tree surgeon take them down & grind out the stumps. Our mate rebuilt the wall, & I've been slowly replanting the area since.

It was all quite a change for that bed as it's gone from deep shade to full sun, so some long term residents haven't survived all the drama. And we do miss the huge Lilac that was on the end - not only did it screen us from the street, but it always put on such a great Spring show.

Hopefully the new white Lilacs will grow up big & strong, just like the old one, and will have a bit more room to do it in too.

Aquilegias guard our snailbait Strawberries

You can't see them, but there are Strawberries under this sea of blue:

The Strawbs are under there somewhere...

In normal gardens by normal gardeners, Strawberries are planted out in the open, so they can convert maximum sunshine into sugar & yumminess.

Following conventional soft-fruits-together logic, ours are with the Rasps, planted just in front of them. But some Aquilegia were living there first which means the Strawbs are frequently dwarfed.

So the other year, I had a fit of trying to do right by the low lying soft fruits; do things efficiently & by the book, rather than let things slide & forcing the plants fend for themselves as usual.

Let the sunshine in

Once the Aquilegia had finished flowering, I cut them right back to the ground so the Strawbs could have their moment in the sun.

& the result? Were we forced to eat Strawberry ice cream every meal just to get through the mammoth surplus?

Of course not. Total disaster. A snail-wrought devastation of that year's harvest.

So what the smeg went wrong? I'd done the right thing - how could it possibly have gone so badly?

On reflection I think a clue lies in one of my over-used phrases of the moment: "Your mileage may vary". It seems this is the pinch of salt I should take with standard gardening guidance.

How my mileage varies

Part of the reason for this blog is to document the weirdness I've experienced with gardening. I am after all the woman who has failed many attempts to successfully grow Nasturtiums - the plant so allegedly fool proof they're in the kiddies seeds section, next to My First Watering Can & the Ladybird Sand Pit. My gardening success is on par with chance.

But these days I'm beginning to look beyond the glossy photos, gorgeous cinematography & my "shiny! shiny!" plant-lust. I am starting to hear a little more clearly the caveats with which the journos pepper their stories:

...likes acid soil...

yeah, it might help to know where our soil is on the pH scale. I've read that self-testing kits are useless, but do folk really pay to get their soil tested?

The alternative to testing is the "what already grows well?" rule of thumb. We have a happy Rhododendron, we have heathers too, & a history of conifers, so I'm guessing we're on the acid side.

...tolerates partial shade...

so would actually prefer full sun...?

...is fully hardy...

I'm here to tell you that fully hardy for Northumberland is not the same as fully hardy for Kent.

...Bay is not fully hardy in the UK...

Well the one we have, & the one my Aunt has in the Midlands, & the one in the grounds of Moorbank Botanic Garden clearly missed that memo.

The appliance of science

So how does this rambling ranty diversion relate to the beleaguered Strawbs? Good question! Let's apply some science:

How were previous harvests?

Fine.
A bit of snail damage,
but plenty of fruit for us all.

What was different that year?

Pruned the Aquilegias.

Any other changes?

Nope.

Hypothesis?

The leafy bases of the Aquilegias
in some way hid the Strawbs
from the snails.

Is this sounding a bit crazy?

Yep, but what else is there?

Have snails got great vision?

Or is it a scent thing?

Do we need a "Why?" yet/at all?

Spose not. Yet.

Shall we test the hypothesis?

Let's!

Do you talk to yourself like this all the time.

Yes.

What of it?

Weirdo...

Plan becomes action

So last year, I largely left the Aquilegias alone.


Peek-a-boo, I see you...

They flowered, they set seed. I trimmed back the seed stems before their heads burst cos, as pretty as they are, we have plenty. But I left the leaves alone, allowing them to die back at their own pace.

The result?

Good harvest! The pollinators had no problem finding the Strawberry flowers but the snails barely found the fruit, & the fruit didn't seem to need direct sunlight to ripen.

Yay science!

Will the same method work 2 years in a row? Well the 1st fruits are starting to set right now, so we'll know really soon...

Aquilegia all round

The artists commonly known as Columbines; we have loads of 'em.
They seem to love our garden & we love them for it.

For me, they bring it all to the yard:

• UK native.
• Popular with pollinators.
• Early out of the ground in Spring, so keep the weeds down.
• Happy in any location.
• Self seeding, so you don't have to bother with propagation faffage.
• Perennial, so each plant will flower year after year.
• Lots of colour choice. We have pale pink:
  

  

  Always makes me think of a long ballerina skirt...

  
  through blues:
  

  

  Multi-tasking: Taking blog photos whilst lounging in the sunshine

  
  to deep purple:
  

  

  The bright yellow centre parts contrast fabulously
  against the deep purple flowers

  
  
• Solid colour or with contrasting trims.
• Facing up or heads bowed:
  
  

  

  Facing down & facing up;
  solid colour & banded.

  
  
• Many many flowers to a stem.
• Attractive seed heads.
• Distinctive foliage.
• The dome of leaves continue to offer ground cover long after the flowers have passed.
• Tap rooted so fairly easy to lift, & by that I mean:
  
  • It doesn't tie itself up with the neighbours;
  • You know when you have it all.
• Easy to identify at all ages.
• Easy to weed when young.

You just can't lose.

Update

I forgot something: Snail & slug proof too!

The Alliums popped!

Aren't they just gorrrrrrrgeous?

Baby, you're a star

I just love the über geometric nature of Allium flowers - big pom poms on sticks. Every time I look out into the garden or the yard, I see one of these purple starburst globes. Just beautiful.

Reality check

Allium bulbs are always quite pricey so with 3 flowers up I assumed I'd only bought 3, & was well chuffed with what looked like a 100% outcome. However, part of the point of this blog was to keep a record of what I'd actually done rather than rely on my flaky memory. A quick skip back to the post about planting up the Spring bulbs shows I actually bought 6 bulbs... That seems about right - a 50% success rate is much more normal for me ;)

I wonder what happened to the others? I wasn't going to go to the faff of emptying out the pots, drying the bulbs, potting them back up again in Autumn - it's what's usually recommended but frankly it sounds like work creation to me. However, once everything has died back I might get my CSI on & try to solve the Mystery of the Non-Exploding Alliums.

 

And what of next year? All the Allium bulbs I've had in the past have flowered for 1 year only, unlike the Daffs & Tulips which (mostly) come back & back & back. As much as I love the result, I'm too tight to contemplate splurging a wad of cash on loads of Allium bulbs every Autumn. 

I wonder how hard it is to grow them from seed? Hmm... a little bit of online digging unearths Monty's Gardening From Berryfields book, & page 101 suggests dividing bulb nodes in Autumn. Cool. I can do than. The RHS Allium page backs this up, & goes further to suggest that seed propagation is a bit trixy, & should be done the same year, if at all. Food for thought.

New tech toy

To change the mood a little: Regular readers might spot that the split screen photo at the top of the post is a new development. 

I've wanted to do some composite pictures for a while, after my mate over at the Oakwood Soaperie had posted some lovely examples as part of her Christmas promotional run.

So I had a look for a photo collage app (which is made trickier as I always always read collage as college) but all the examples seemed as tacky as hell. I really should've paid attention when she told me which app she used...

But yesterday's Allium photos were just begging for split screen treatment so I thought I'd have another look - 6 months is an Ice Age in App-land.

After a bit of rootling around the AppStore, I plumped for the well rated Framatic Pro (which I keep reading as Fragmatic - what is wrong with my eyeballs atm?!!). It was on offer... for free.

The app is a bit pop-up-happy at the mo, plugging its many many in-app purchases, & the tasteless framing options are all still there, but if I keep it simple I can avoid their worst excesses. 

The downside is that if I want to do photo tweaks, such as centre focus, I have to do them in Snapseed first. So there's a real danger I'll spend far too much time photo editing & not enough writing. Need to keep an eye on myself there or I'll end up in the no-post hole again.

Maybe 49%

But enough of the tech, let's get back to the stars of the moment - the Alliums.

 

50% success is not entirely accurate as there has been one small glitch. For some reason, one of the flowers broke its neck:

Oopsie...

I've no idea what happened here. The stem looks withered, so I suspect lack of water rather than external damage - outside force would've snapped it, surely...? But then the reading I've just done about propagation says they hate to be waterlogged, & there's a distinct risk I've over-watered - I always struggle to get that right.

Gotta say though, I'm impressed with how this flower is hanging on in there. The head went over at the start of the week, but the little flowers that make up the bigger globe are still maturing. Good effort that man! Still doing the business when critically injured. What a trooper.

A glamourpuss that keeps on delivering in a crisis? My kind of plant.

Death of a bumblebee

Beautifully bright & sunny today, so I nipped out & mowed the lawn. When finished, I lifted the lid to remove the cuttings collector box thingy & spotted this little fella.

Not going for a little walk.

Not having a little nap...

Oh dear. No idea how he got in there. I certainly didn't mow over his head. I wonder if he got sucked in through the air intake on the back of the mower...?

 

The bees are having a tough enough time without this sort of accidental insecticide.

Sad times :(

Catch-up part 2

Not sure why I didn't post an overview photo when I did the end of April catch-up, so here's one now, on this beautiful sunny Saturday (as opposed to the freezing, hail & sleet of Thursday - climate change deniers need to look out the feckin window more often).

Look at that! Your genu-iiiine sunshiiiine.

 

This image was taken with Photosynth, so is several overlapping pics stitched together, hence the rather odd window frame sculpture.

Comparing with last year's pic, I realise these pics aren't very good at all! Hmm... I'll work on that.

 

The main difference between this year & last, not that you can see it very well here, is the fencing Hubby finished last week. A nice bit of horizontal structure, repeated in 4 locations:

• 2 panels at the far end of the garden increase the privacy without making us feel boxed in, & give us some extra support for climbers.
• 2 panels nearer the house, to reinforce the paving/lawn break, & help to break up the rather monolithic pizza oven/BBQ construction.

It was so sunny out there today that breakfast was taken on the bench under the living room window. The view was sausagey:

Cumberland sausages from Moorhouse Farm Shop. Mmm... tasty.

The pots around the bench are doing grand & the alliums (last of the Spring bulbs) are about to pop. Not all have fired, & we're light years away from Warmenhoven's award winning Pavilion display (as stalked by Alan Titchmarsh all this week on the BBC's Chelsea coverage) but it looks like we'll get at least 3 big glamorous flowers.

Pop goes the allium

This one & its companion are in a pot right under the living room window, so we'll be ringside when the blooms finally burst. Should be quite a show.