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

"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

Hi Rob

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

Best
Jackie D