Browse Forums Landscape & Garden Design 1 Jan 06, 2015 1:43 am Hi Everyone, I've been lurking here for ages. We're first home owners, completely novice gardeners and I've found the tips on here amazingly helpful, but I can't find an existing topic to help me with this! If my questions are answered already - by all means post the link! I know you may recommend soil improvers etc - we've done everything as recommended by Fu (Thanks Fu!) details are at the bottom We planted our garden 8 weeks ago. Our plants have gone crazy with growth, some have almost doubled in size. The plants don't seem to be showing stress like I've read about online.. (but remember, novice gardener!) A week after seasol-ing I noticed our viburnum's new leaves were burnt by a hot day. All good, we've left them as-is, figuring they at least provide shade for new growth underneath. None of the gardenias or pears have had this problem. Underneath a couple of viburnum were heaps of little white ball things hiding in the mulch. Sorry no pics :/ That week I also noticed some brown spots on one of our ornamental pears, at first I thought it was leftover seasol, but of course my hubby had hosed everything down properly. It's spreading on that tree, but it hasn't spread to anything else yet. Wondering if we may be over watering and it's some sort of fungus? Pics below. The last few days I've noticed a massive increase in bugs. I think aphids (seen 1 ladybird too!) and stink bugs, there's also a white substance appearing on the stalks of some of my gardenias. Pics below. Like ⋅ Add a comment ⋅ Pin to Ideaboard ⋅ Like ⋅ Add a comment ⋅ Pin to Ideaboard ⋅ Like ⋅ Add a comment ⋅ Pin to Ideaboard ⋅ Like ⋅ Add a comment ⋅ Pin to Ideaboard ⋅ I'm happy to just keep feeding the soil and ignore this stuff, but I just have to check that's the right thing to do? My gut is to leave the plants be and assume that if my soil is as good as Fu promises, in time the plants will mature, get stronger and right themselves... or do I actually need to treat this? If so, how do I do it without pesticides/chemicals? I don't want to kill my good bugs! Thanks in advance! Clare. The background details for those who will ask: --We live in WA, Carlisle to be exact. --Added bentonite, zeolite etc etc to our soil... the usual Fu treatment --Organic compost, about 10cm thick, dug in 30-40cm --Organic un-composted tree lopper mulch 10cm thick on top --Seasol-ed once about 4 weeks after planting --Probably not the most waterwise/progressive choices, but we've planted some ornamental pears, gardenias (Aimee Yoshiba) and a sweet viburnum hedge --We might be watering too much, about every second day I'll whip around and hand water. But once the heat of Summer is over, I definitely plan to cut back on this. We're just nervous of letting our plants die (novice gardeners, remember!) Hi VK, I am now retired however I have stood beside over 300 owner builders in the past 18 years that have successfully built their own homes. First of all a building… 10 18935 6 7971 Thank you so much for the effort. We will use it to talk with builder. We also had idea of building duplex instead and seeking suggest ions. viewtopic.php?f=31&t=106744 11 10738 |