Oxalis revs up garden passions.

One of the interesting things about writing a weekly newsletter is the immediate response.  I know very quickly weather I have touched a subject that stirs gardener's passions.  Wow! does Oxalis get green thumbs hot?

Some of the feedback is definitely worth sharing.  Two separate correspondents recommend Aeroguard! Yes that's right the mozzie repellent. Apparently it will kill Oxalis and not the surrounding plants.  I thought this was an expensive approach but for spot spraying around plants you want to keep it's cheaper and easier than selective herbicides.  At least it should help Laurie:
Peter . Your solution is off target .My Oxalis grows with my daffodils –camelias and other flowers . There I cannot use roundup or cover with paper . We need a another solution . I use your (grand) father`s solution. 
By the way I haven't tried this so please trial carefully before spraying liberally.  

As usual the best practical advice comes from John, king of the Knox Garden Plotters:

The bane of all our plotters is oxalis.

Many of our members have been plotters for 20 years.

We agree that the only cure is to let it grow till summer. Then it is a large plant and because it is very green and imature, it can be removed. Too late once it has matured - there will be millions of bublets. Need I say more. Make sure you bag it up and put in your garbage or yellow bin. Most of our plotters find that it will be gone in 2 years. Give it a try.

Anyway the recurring theme is do whatever you can to keep knocking down the top growth which will over time starve the bulbs. If you can, dig the bulbs out and destroy them.

These plotters are students at Chelsea Heights Primary School.  This whole area had been invaded by a Banana Passion fruit root stock that had escaped but the kids and their families have done a great job building a really successful vegie garden.

A Horrid Weed... Oxalis!

"Oxalis? Any magic cure for this horrid weed?"  Jane

By chance the subject of Oxalis came up as I joined a gardening forum at Burnley Gardens last Sunday.  I was lucky enough to hide behind those more knowledgeable and absorb information that turned out to be immediately valuable.

Oxalis is not a weed that causes nursery problems.  We are troubled more by the annuals that spread quickly by seed, Flick weed, willow herb and chick weed.
  
This is a form of flick weed, a type of mustard that flings seed far and wide once the seed pods have matured. Comes up like hair on a cat's back if we don't maintain our hygiene.

Oxalis is particularly horrid in gardens because it's an herbaceous perennial with a tiny bulb that lurks deep under the soil surface waiting for the opportunity to sprout.  The bulb is designed to protect the plant and that's why is it so successful. You can quite easily remove the top of the plant but it's near impossible to get at the bulb, especially once it has established. And they multiply!


The usual response to Oxalis is RoundUp (Glyphosate), I think most gardeners are aware of RoundUp or Zero.  It has been around a while now and it's very effective and apparently safe.  It works by interrupting the photosynthesis process (that's why they say it can't hurt us, we don't photosynthesize) which should starve the plant, roots and all.  Because the Oxalis bulb stores energy for the plant you might need a few goes to kill the bulb.

Most gardeners I know prefer not to use chemicals so the question becomes how do you control Oxalis without spraying.  My grandfather used to get me to dig them up from the formal beds at his home.  Very carefully digging down to find all the bulbs. The soil was well worked so the digging wasn't too difficult, but that's just the environment Oxalis loves. The agreed solution at the Burnley College forum was to crowd the weeds out with mulch.  Heavy mulch. Try a layer of cardboard, newspaper or even carpet underlay under a more regular and attractive mulch to force the weeds to stretch too far to find a path to light. The alternative was a really thick ground covering plant like Myoporum parvifolium (I have to say I'm sure I've seen Oxalis bursting out from this type of ground cover so layering all these various mulches sounds the best option).  I'm honestly not sure if the bulbs eventually starve under all the mulch or how long it would take to happen. Still, I'm a big fan of mulching... although that lead to another discussion over the merit of mulching in fire prone areas.  Best leave that for another day.

Small Vegie Gardens

I was asked to speak about "small" vegie gardens last week. I have to admit to going along somewhat under prepared.  My long term operations manager Deb has resigned after 10 years at Scotsburn, 6 years running the show and she finished up on Friday.  It's obviously difficult at these times to express all the emotions so I will publicly say thanks Deb, best of luck with the challenges ahead.  Anyway, my mind was elsewhere when I arrived to talk to the Chelsea Earth Carers about small gardens.

I had planned my standard "hanging basket" talk: good plants, good potting mix, careful watering. You might have seen an Item in the Herald Sun based on that talk a couple of weeks back (thanks Tony).  I took a couple of sample pots along and started by asking what people were looking for when they signed up for a workshop on "small gardens".  Well if you were there (and if you could hear, it was a busy room) it was a fascinating discussion.  Fortunately the basics: good plants, good potting mix and watering kept us somewhere near on track but I was amazed at the level of interest in the sample pots.
   
OK so the one on the left is pretty ornamental but you can see these troughs are big enough to sustain 3-4 fairly substantial herbs or vegies and they look great by the back door or on a patio.

Our Rustic troughs are made from recycled fence palings and other 'collected' timber.  We have had a trough resized to suit a styrene fruit box.  The fruit box is not entirely environmentally friendly and apparently the growers are using them less these days but they are recycled and they make ideal containers for growing small quantities of herbs and vegies.  The polystyrene provides insulation to the soil and protects the timber from voracious soil organisms.  The rustic trough presents the not necessarily attractive styrene box beautifully and protects it from marauding chickens... perhaps it's just our chooks but they just love pecking at polystyrene.  I haven't noticed our eggs developing additional bounce.  We sell these, delivered to your home for $85.00.

The other "small garden" sample that created ENORMOUS interest was the Greensmart Pot.
 
This pic was taken by Andre at Greensmart Pots Eltham you can tell photography is one of his hobbies. Andre's blog willl tell you a great deal more about these cleaver "wicking" pots that have the capacity to sustain far more herbs and vegies than a container this size has a right to. The water is stored in a well at the bottom of the pot and absorbed into the potting mix through 'wicks', it's very clever, water wise and uses nutrients amazingly efficiently.

Greensmart Pots Eltham and Scotsburn are offering planted pots for $100.00 each, delivered.  If you are interested please give us a call 03 9798 7066.