"Helen Deborah Vecht" wrote in message
...
"Gill Matthews" account I no longer havetyped



"Helen Deborah Vecht" wrote in message
...
I was given some busy lizzies, which we planted in a large half-barrel
on the patio.

They flowered well all summer, though became somewhat 'leggy' over the
early autumn. They all appear to have jumped out of the pot; the last
jumped out an hour ago, having seemed fine this morning.

Is this phenomenon well-known?

Root rot or vine weevils can cause this. make sure you send the
compost from
the pots to green recycling where hopefully they will be composted to a
sufficiently high temperature to kill things. Don't put pot content on to
your own garden or domestic sized compost heap

Gill M


Thanks. The 'pot' is close to a cubic metre in volume, which I wouldn't
realistically be able to dig out. Is there some kind of poison I could
use or should I just plant some other plants (less vulnerable to this
pest) in it?

I had hoped to put some bulbs in it soon.

Oops. Then you had better diagnose the problem. Dig carefully around where
the busy lizzie roots were. if the roots are a brown splogy mass or if they
have gone gooey with grey furry appearance the you have rot. Dig down to the
bottom of the rotten bits and chuck that away. I would also incorporate some
sharp sand into the remaining compost to improve drainage as poor drainage
can be a cause of this problem and the bulbs won't like it either.
If the roots look chewed and less than you would expect and their are white
maggoty things in amongst them, you have vine weevils. Crush as many as you
see. If you are not organic there is a chemical called provado which can be
watered in and will kill the little blighters. If you are organic conduct a
careful search and squish You probably won't get all of them but you could
still get some decent results from your bulbs. There is also a nematode
which is I have found very effective, but the weather is now too cold for
the poor wee beasties to work.

Gill M