I'm being greedy by posting twice for different reasons. Hope this is ok.

My camelia caught a disease and died. Following advice I recevied from my garden centre, I cleansed the soil with diluted Jeyes fluid. A while later I moved a pot containing a handsome acer to that very spot. Then that died within a very short period of time. I am now thinking the soil in the pot is infected also.

I would like to re-use the pot but would I need to cleanse the soil? Get rid of the soil and cleanse the pot? Throw the pot away and buy a new one?

Here is more about the disease and my poor camelia:

The beautiful pink flowering camelia was healthy in its pot for years. Then I transplanted it to the garden in between a lilac tree and a four foot high bike shed. Soon it got badly infected by sooty mould. It was so bad that it looked almost fire damaged. For four years I spent hours cleaning the leaves and wiping off the sooty mould. I seemed to be on top of it. Then suddenly all the leaves dropped off and it died. By this point it had developed these strange 'berries' - brown sacks that emitted a grey dust if squeezed.

I dug the plant up and cleansed the soil. A few months later I moved my potted acer on top of the infected spot (in hindsight that was a dumb thing to do).

So back to my question, will this pot continue to kill whatever I put in it even if I clean it really well? Suggestions on how to clean it would be very useful.

I feel I am out of my depth with this one!

Jackie D

Jackie D writes

I'm being greedy by posting twice for different reasons. Hope this is
ok.

I don't know what the rules are in gardenbanter, but here in
uk.rec.gardening (which is what you're posting to), you're welcome to
post as many questions as you like!


The beautiful pink flowering camelia was healthy in its pot for years.
Then I transplanted it to the garden in between a lilac tree and a four
foot high bike shed.

That sound like a fairly unhealthy place for lots of plants. How much
light did it get in there?

Soon it got badly infected by sooty mould. It was
so bad that it looked almost fire damaged.

Sooty mould is often because you are affected by something like scale
insects which suck the sap and excrete sticky liquid on which the mould
grows. So removing the mould isn't curing the problem.

--
Kay

"Jackie D" wrote in message
...

I'm being greedy by posting twice for different reasons. Hope this is
ok.

My camelia caught a disease and died. Following advice I recevied from
my garden centre, I cleansed the soil with diluted Jeyes fluid. A while
later I moved a pot containing a handsome acer to that very spot. Then
that died within a very short period of time. I am now thinking the
soil in the pot is infected also.

I would like to re-use the pot but would I need to cleanse the soil?
Get rid of the soil and cleanse the pot? Throw the pot away and buy a
new one?

Here is more about the disease and my poor camelia:

The beautiful pink flowering camelia was healthy in its pot for years.
Then I transplanted it to the garden in between a lilac tree and a four
foot high bike shed. Soon it got badly infected by sooty mould. It was
so bad that it looked almost fire damaged. For four years I spent hours
cleaning the leaves and wiping off the sooty mould. I seemed to be on
top of it. Then suddenly all the leaves dropped off and it died. By
this point it had developed these strange 'berries' - brown sacks that
emitted a grey dust if squeezed.

I dug the plant up and cleansed the soil. A few months later I moved my
potted acer on top of the infected spot (in hindsight that was a dumb
thing to do).

So back to my question, will this pot continue to kill whatever I put
in it even if I clean it really well? Suggestions on how to clean it
would be very useful.

I feel I am out of my depth with this one!



Got to agree with the other posters, you probably weakened the camelia by
digging it up and moving it, then moved it to an unsuitable area, where it
was unable to resist scale insects, then you pointlessly poured chemicals on
the soil which probably didnt doing the acer any good if its roots extended
under the soil, but it likely died because the area was unsuitable. Is the
area damp, shady and not growing much anyway? If so, dont puta plant there,
in a pot or otherwise :-)

--
Tumbleweed

email replies not necessary but to contact use;
tumbleweednews at hotmail dot com

Tumbleweed writes


Got to agree with the other posters, you probably weakened the camelia by
digging it up and moving it, then moved it to an unsuitable area, where it
was unable to resist scale insects, then you pointlessly poured chemicals on
the soil which probably didnt doing the acer any good if its roots extended
under the soil, but it likely died because the area was unsuitable. Is the
area damp, shady and not growing much anyway? If so, dont puta plant there,
in a pot or otherwise :-)

*Some* things will grow there. But look for woodland plants that don't
mind deep shade, rather than the dappled shade plants like camellia and
acer.
--
Kay

Bob Hobden wrote:
"Jackie D" wrote

My camelia caught a disease and died. Following advice I recevied from
my garden centre, I cleansed the soil with diluted Jeyes fluid. A while
later I moved a pot containing a handsome acer to that very spot. Then
that died within a very short period of time. I am now thinking the
soil in the pot is infected also.

I would like to re-use the pot but would I need to cleanse the soil?
Get rid of the soil and cleanse the pot? Throw the pot away and buy a
new one?

Here is more about the disease and my poor camelia:

The beautiful pink flowering camelia was healthy in its pot for years.
Then I transplanted it to the garden in between a lilac tree and a four
foot high bike shed. Soon it got badly infected by sooty mould. It was
so bad that it looked almost fire damaged. For four years I spent hours
cleaning the leaves and wiping off the sooty mould. I seemed to be on
top of it.

Sooty Mould is not a disease of the plant, it is a sign that your plant was
heavily infested with Scale Insect. A spray with a suitable insecticide
would have cleared up most of them and with repeated applications you should
have been able to stay on top of it. It is difficult to eradicate
completely. (Citrus and Acers also suffer)
What happens is that the Scale Insect suck the sap of the plant and excrete
a sugary liquid which the sooty mould then grows on. Wiping off the sooty
mould didn't help your plant at all, it was just a symptom not the problem.

Then suddenly all the leaves dropped off and it died. By
this point it had developed these strange 'berries' - brown sacks that
emitted a grey dust if squeezed.

Adult Scale insect in the process of dieing due to lack of sap (dead plant).

I dug the plant up and cleansed the soil. A few months later I moved my
potted acer on top of the infected spot (in hindsight that was a dumb
thing to do).

Waste of time cleansing the soil I'm afraid, it was never your problem. Did
you ask at a Garden Centre about all this? If so don't go there again they
don't know what the hell they are talking about.

snip

I'm also rather alarmed that he was advised to use Jeyes Fluid - not a
very happy idea for the other plants in the vicinity, I think! It's
great for cleaning algae and fungi off paths etc. but in the soil where
plants are growing nearby doesn't strike me as a very sensible
suggestion. In fact, I was so struck by this as a Bad Idea that I
checked it with Ray who is just astonished and really quite cross that
someone would blithely hand out such bad advice. You use Jeyes to kill
things off, you don't put it into flower beds where other plants are
trying to live. Whoever gave the OP that advice should be sacked,
frankly! This really is a case of a little knowledge being a dangerous
thing. Jeyes has its uses but it is not in flower beds!
--
Sacha
www.hillhousenursery.co.uk
South Devon

"Jackie D" wrote in message
...

I'm being greedy by posting twice for different reasons. Hope this is
ok.

My camelia caught a disease and died. Following advice I recevied from
my garden centre, I cleansed the soil with diluted Jeyes fluid. A while
later I moved a pot containing a handsome acer to that very spot. Then
that died within a very short period of time. I am now thinking the
soil in the pot is infected also.

I would like to re-use the pot but would I need to cleanse the soil?
Get rid of the soil and cleanse the pot? Throw the pot away and buy a
new one?

if the soil is simply in the pot then you can dispose of it somewhere at the
back of your garden where it will not pose a danger to other plants. After a
month or more of weathering I would imagine, and this is only my intuition,
the jeyes fluid will be leached out of the soil to a degree where it can be
added back into an active compost heap and restored. If the soil is actually
in the garden you may have to dig it all out and stand it for a period in a
back part of the garden and then compost it.

Another perhaps simplier solution is to dig in a good quantity of compost in
to the infected area and the soil goodies should deal to the Jeyes over
time. Below is some advice gleaned from FAQ -- rec.gardens.ecosystems.

B.02.12: What's the best way to deal with degraded or corrupted soils that
seem beyond repair?
The best way to know the extent of damage to the soil is to have the soil
tested. The best way to tell when the damage has been corrected is to have
the soil tested again. Soil organisms have the capacity to clean up just
about everything including toxic waste. (See B.03.04 on Bio-remediation.)
They do, however, work by their own schedule and clean-up of seriously
corrupted soils may take several years. In those situations where the damage
is limited to a relatively small area and there is no good way to garden
around it, it may be more realistic to simply dig out the problem soil and
to replace it with a good garden loam. In most cases however, the problem
soil can be cleansed by simply digging in an abundance of well composted
organic material, keeping the site well watered and giving the soil
organisms the time to do the job. The extra organic material and the extra
water are to help build stronger populations of the soil organisms.
http://www.ibiblio.org/rge/faq-html/...b.htm#B.02.10:

As for the pot, I guess gove it a good wash with clean water and the Jeyes
residue will be sufficiently diluted. The rule of thumb for washing out agri
chemical containers is rinse 3 times and drip dry at least 30 seconds.

rob

The hazards of summarising a problem! I'm afraid you have jumped to conclusions and made assumptions about my camelia, its bed and my garden centre. Please allow me to clarify.

I know what causes sooty mould and I took the appropriate action with an insecticide. The Jeyes wasn't to cure the sooty mould issue, it was to tackle the cause of the camelia dying. This was thought to be linked to the brown berry things which had grey dust and dozens of tiny mites inside.

I was advised to buy a product to cleanse the soil and kill of any infection. Of all the products on sale suitable for this task, Jeyes fluid seemed good enough. I discussed the pros and cons of using diluted Jeyes with the garden centre advisor. I discussed my dead camelia at length, he saw a sample of the dead plant and the brown berry things. It was firmly established that there were no other plants in the vicinity. Do you really think I would have been advised to use Jeyes if there were? Doubtful.

I am alarmed by the tone of some of the replies and concerned by one or two of the comments: for example, my garden centre experts do not give out advice 'blithely'. Did I say they did? No, I don't think so. As this is a public forum, can I suggest that we choose our words with care otherwise we risk defaming innocent people.

My original posting wasn't about sooty mould or the camelia. I was wondering why my acer died. It was in a pot. Some months after I used the Jeyes on the soil, I put the pot on top. Was it the Jeyes or the infection that killed the acer? Either way, can I re-cycle the pot if I clean it out?

Jackie D wrote:
Sacha Wrote:
"Jackie D" wrote

My camelia caught a disease and died. Following advice I recevied
from
my garden centre, I cleansed the soil with diluted Jeyes fluid. snip
Then I transplanted it to the garden in between a lilac tree and a
four
foot high bike shed.
snip

I'm also rather alarmed that he was advised to use Jeyes Fluid - not a
very happy idea for the other plants in the vicinity, I think!
snip
It was firmly established that there were no other
plants in the vicinity. Do you really think I would have been advised
to use Jeyes if there were? Doubtful.

Unfortunately not doubtful at all. There are places that sell plants
that do give poor advice. Quite rightly, you don't name the garden
centre so we have no way of knowing whether it's in that category, or
not and most of us probably wouldn't know it anyway. As it and the
person who advise you are unnamed, they can't be defamed, by the way.
In your original post you said that the Camellia was by a lilac. That
was, presumably, a plant in the vicinity. If it wasn't, there was no
point in mentioning it.

I am alarmed by the tone of some of the replies and concerned by one or
two of the comments: for example, my garden centre experts do not give
out advice 'blithely'. Did I say they did? No, I don't think so. As
this is a public forum, can I suggest that we choose our words with
care otherwise we risk defaming innocent people.

snip

Clearly your post has misled a few people, given the answers you
received. Can *I* suggest that explaining your problem more clearly
would have avoided that. Either the lilac was near the Camellia or it
wasn't. Now you're saying it wasn't where before, you indicated that
it was. Perhaps you should return to the garden centre that told you
to use Jeyes Fluid and ask them if that caused the acer to die and
whether or not it is safe to use the pot again.
You received good information and advice on the matter of the Camellia
because firstly you wrote about it at some length and secondly, this is
an unmoderated newsgroup, not a forum, so nobody dictates who answers
what and how they do so. Perhaps the fact that you post through Garden
Banter has made you unaware of that.

--
Sacha
www.hillhousenursery.co.uk
South Devon

so nobody dictates who answers
what and how they do so. Perhaps the fact that you post through Garden
Banter has made you unaware of that.


?

:-(((

garden banter gets another dig at it :-(((

Hi Rob

That's very useful advice. Thank you very much.

Best
Jackie D

Sorry, you've lost me with your last comment. But please don't bother explaining it; it's too far off the point really. Rob has kindly answered my question (about re-using the pot etc) and offered some pretty sound advice. Thanks Rob.

Best
Jackie D

The message
from Jackie D contains these words:
Sacha wrote

You received good information and advice on the matter of the Camellia
because firstly you wrote about it at some length and secondly, this is
an unmoderated newsgroup, not a forum, so nobody dictates who answers
what and how they do so. Perhaps the fact that you post through Garden
Banter has made you unaware of that.

Sorry, you've lost me with your last comment. But please don't bother
explaining it; it's too far off the point really.

Not at all. Usenet posters are understandably somewhat tired of
gardenbanter members instructing us on " forum behaviour" and
complaining about the standard of advice and service.
This is a usenet discussion group, not an advice bureau. It's not
under gardenbanter's jurisdiction.

Rob has kindly
answered my question (about re-using the pot etc) and offered some
pretty sound advice. Thanks Rob.

Horses for courses.

Since you're reading in gardenbanter you don't see where posts originate.
Usenet users do. It matters a lot because gardening advice that's
perfectly good for, say, Florida, may be totally inappropriate to
anywhere in the UK.

Sacha posts from, and gardens in, the UK and is married to Ray, a
somewhat famous plant-nursery owner. She posts under her real-life ID
and her posts have a many-years reputation in this group for
horticultural accuracy backed by Ray's expertise..

Rob, aka George Com, is posting from an unknown location in New
Zealand, quoting advice from the FAQ of an American newsgroup.

Janet

Janet Baraclough wrote:
The message from Jackie D contains these words:
Sacha wrot
You received good information and advice on the matter of the Camellia
because firstly you wrote about it at some length and secondly, this is
an unmoderated newsgroup, not a forum, so nobody dictates who answers
what and how they do so. Perhaps the fact that you post through Garden
Banter has made you unaware of that.

Sorry, you've lost me with your last comment. But please don't bother
explaining it; it's too far off the point really.

Rob has kindly
answered my question (about re-using the pot etc) and offered some
pretty sound advice. Thanks Rob.

Since you're reading in gardenbanter you don't see where posts originate.
Usenet users do.

What do people posting to Usenet see that people using the Garden
Banter portal don't see?


Rob, aka George Com,

"George.com"


is posting from an unknown location in New Zealand

Using a provider in NZ, yes. Posting from NZ, possibly.

Sounds very much like a bad case of soft scale .... . This link will provide further information.

http://www.rhs.org.uk/advice/camelli...hion_scale.asp

Jeyes fluid can also cause a lot more harm than good!!

Hi

Thanks for the link. I have discovered Jeyes is trouble...

Best
Jackie D