Season of itch and mellow scratchfulness
If you've seen me lately you'll know I look a bit like a teenager, absolutely covered in pimples, even on my arms and legs... Well, a week ago, I hugged a cactus. I had to move the pot, and it was a prickly pear, so the cactus was large and wide. I was wearing a jacket and two jerseys, so I figured I would just lean the cactus against myself as I moved it- surely I wouldn't be stabbed too much owing to all of the clothes.
The Desert Museum writes, “The white spines are 3" long and can be flat, curved or straight. They also are covered with tiny, barbed hairs known as glochids. Groups of up to 6 spines emerge from a common center areas known as areole's which are scattered around each pad.”
I dodged the huge big spikes. I definitely managed to get cactus all over me. And then the itching began. It turns out that the cactus I was moving was covered in tiny, hair like spines called glochids. The glochids had poked through the jacket, and were now all over my clothes, skin and scratching me all over.
I had to remove my jacket and jerseys. My skin was covered in these tiny glochids. I tore at them. I tried to forget about them. There was no way out. I spent the day intensely sore and frustrated.
Jesse, one of our fulltimers and a cactus aficionado, has had a similar situation. He said a shower with the hottest water helped. It did, it also enabled me to get some more of them out. All night I would get an itch and pull out the tweezers. By bedtime, I felt like I had gotten the bulk out. I had not. I went to bed and could feel them in my knees, rubbing against the sheets. In the morning, wearing my thermals was agony as they caught the tiny spines and rubbed them in- in frustration I just got a razor and shaved every itchy part of my arms and legs and face. That helped. Finally, relief.
And then the pimples came- tiny skin infections. Whatever, that just made it easier to get the remains of the spines out. A week later, I am covered in tiny injuries but I am no longer itchy. Then my jerseys came out of the wash... and they are still full of spines, so I got halfway to my first job yesterday and the itch resumed. I am going to throw out all of the clothes I was wearing that day.
Then, like clockwork, my tradie flatmate came home with a prickly pear cactus.. he had run over someone's plant pot and he needed me to pot the cactus up in a new pot. Shudder.
Lots of things jammed into the pot to hold it upright. Wrapped in two hessian sacks and jammed into a box. I am not going to let this happen again.
I keep thinking, what should I do next time in order to avoid this situation? I think next time I will wrap the cactus in thick plastic, it worked a treat for potting up the prickly pear this week. But damn, was it awful.
What I'm obsessing over this week
The perfect bush. The traits I am asked for always seem to be-
About a metre tall and wide
Arrives mature sized
Flowers, ideally constantly
Never requires trimming, but is never unkempt (‘low maintenance’)
Fruits
Native
No more than $14
Followed by the perfect tree, which is all of those things, but doesn’t drop leaves (but DOES lose leaves in Winter for more sun), and never gets over 2.5m tall.
Having pored over all of my notes, I do have a few options, although none ever perfectly fit the brief- every single property needs to be re-evaluated in this respect because the conditions contribute heavily to plant size. The problem is that if something flowers, it almost always needs to be cut back after flowering. If something fruits, it needs more attention (food, pruning). If something is tiny, it usually isn’t a good fit for Wellington, or will need more attention to avoid wind/moisture damage.
What staff learnt about this week
This week staff were learning about fruit tree pruning, which is a huge topic, so we will publish a bit more about it next week.
Highlights: Apple trees are actually really easy for a 'maintenance prune' because the branches pointing straight up are cut down to 2 buds above where they start to point straight up.
Lowlights: Any older tree which is not regularly maintained, or has not been carefully pruned for the past few years, is a real bugger to get into shape. It takes a lot of umming and aaahing. Unfortunately for us, about half of the fruit trees that we need to prune are like this- we are called in to sort out old fruit trees quite a lot. At the same time, there are some basic tenets to follow-
Remove any dead, damaged or rubbing wood. This is quite easy to identify, anything which is rubbing on other branches or fences etc should come out because it is a place that disease or bugs can get in.
Think about how the tree exists in the garden, and fruit is accessed- is the tree too tall? Are some branches hanging over a bank? Do you need to get a lawn mower under the tree? Do kids want to climb it? Do I need to climb it to prune it? Factors like this are really important in the decisions as to what to cut away.
Pruning for shape- after all that, if the tree looks lopsided, shape the other sides so that it all looks even.
Enjoy this very blurry photo of a lemon tree- it is within the boundary of the bed, no branches are crossing over, so it doesn’t need a prune this year.
Where to cut a branch back to is always a stressful topic. On some trees, the fruit forms on new wood; on some, it forms on old wood. So if you are unsure, look and see if there are any old stems on the tree- apples, for instance, often leave the stem leading to the apple onto the tree- then you know that it will fruit from that bud. But the easiest way is to just cut a few buds/nodes above where you want it to fruit. Fruit on old wood will still have the old buds to fruit on, if it fruits on new wood there are those buds to jump from. The subsequent years, you can always take each branch back a little further if you are confident it will definitely fruit.
You will be pleased to hear that even I stare at a bud long and hard before deciding it is a 'leaf' or a 'fruit' bud, so avoiding all of that second guessing will make for a much more relaxed experience.
This week I have spent a lot of time complaining about cactuses, so I'm going to bump the usual interview to next week. It looks like we are in for rain for the next week or so, but it's not so cold, a bit of a change eh! Have a great week!