Sowing old seed

[David Pilling]

The chief BBC gardening expert would say "if pests are a problem, grow something else" along with "all pesticides will be banned". I did not like that advice, I was going to carpet the land with Nomocharis.

But that is where I have ended up. I use very little in the way of pest control. Slug pellets just when putting out new seedlings, that is when they are most vulnerable and maybe most tasty. The rest of the time I have to put up with whatever happens.

I did spend five years growing a Nomocharis, and a slug bit the flower bud off it, and that was the end of it. Who needs a hobby that is so much at the mercy of random events and not much fun.

I can fill the garden with colour and interest, but as with the weather, only some things will succeed.

[CG100]

Chemicals, across the board, used to tend to get banned due to their potential for affecting human health, general environmental concerns are now much more common, presumably as much as anything because anything new has to get past so many checks for potential human health implications.

No bad thing, but used as intended, but not in the "outside world", but in greenhouses, even in our homes, they pose no major threat to anything except the intended. The problem is that the legislating bodies have little faith in Joe Average sticking to such restrictions, although good numbers of horticultural treatments are licenced for professional glasshouse use only.

I probably have, but do not recall ever using slug pellets outddors. Inddors and in the greenhouse - certainly. I also use neo-nic's in both.

[Diane Whitehead]

I just pick slugs off my plants and stomp on them.

[Martin Bohnet]

with that method i'd have to camp 24/7 beside my dahlias, orchids and most amaryllids. my slugs have a rather exclusive taste, so I can feel with david's nomocharis pains - and it pains me that nomocharis seems to have been sunken into lilium now?

To make it worse, I can't use slug pellets in the bog garden, where the pressure on orchids is astronomically high and the slugs can re-hydrate even in mid-summer.

[Diane Whitehead]

Well, Martin, if you had a dry garden like mine, you wouldn't have many slugs.

[David Pilling]

it pains me that nomocharis seems to have been sunken into lilium now?

Yes, merging Nomocharis into Lilium has been on the cards for some years, Mary Sue has recently made the changes on the PBS wiki. Pity because they are different to most lilies.

Changing "Nomocharis hybrids" to "Lilium hybrids" is a bit misleading, but if they're all Lilium what else can you do.

[CG100]

They must surely have their own group or sub-family?
The latin form of Nomocharis will have changed but presumably still exists?

[fierycloud]

 Front. Plant Sci., 01 February 2022
Sec. Plant Systematics and Evolution
https://doi.org/10.3389/fpls.2021.699226
Phylogeny, Age, and Evolution of Tribe Lilieae (Liliaceae) Based on Whole Plastid Genomes
[img width=30px]https://www.frontiersin.org/files/Articles/699226/fpls-12-699226-HTML-r1/image_m/fpls-12-699226-g001.jpg[/img]

[David Pilling]

https://doi.org/10.3389/fpls.2021.699226

Good reference. Maybe one can now cross Lilies with Nomocharis to gain more robustness.

PBS Nomocharis wiki page:

https://www.pacificbulbsociety.org/pbswiki/index.php/Nomocharis