Many years ago, I met a horse whisperer. I was flying first-class and it was the first time I had been up-front during a long-haul flight. It was an upgrade of an upgrade and I was thoroughly enjoying the experience – as one does when is served pre-take off cocktails while deciding upon wines for the various meals you are about to receive.
Next to me, on this flight was a horse whisperer, I recall thinking that not only were horse whisperers real, but they flew first-class. Obviously. The horse whisperer was on his way to Hawaii at the request of the king or some distant descendent thereof. This all made sense at the time. From there the cocktails flowed and things became properly surreal; my horse whisperer was able to remotely heal animals, and when he didn’t have an internet connection he could use ley-lines, and luckily (for the sick animals) we flew over several.
Once we landed, he was met by a chauffeur and was driven away, and I returned to the real world and joined the back of the taxi cue. Normality restored, but dented…
What’s this got to do with trees – nothing really, except to point out that the world is a crazy place. Sometimes things happen that can’t be easily explained (horse whispering), and sometimes things happen that should be stopped (remote healing via ley-lines).
Yesterday I read in the paper that the ‘council will remove the trees when they get too big and become dangerous’. Eek, a big tree is just a big tree, it is only a little person that thinks something is dangerous just because its big. I then spoke to my mother about winter fertilising and tried to dissuade her, I requested that she just sent me her fertiliser spend, because giving me the money would do as much for her plants as her fertilising them in winter, and it would be better for the environment (especially if she sent the money electronically). And then I see this…
What not to do!
It is beyond crazy when someone thinks applying grease to a pruning cut will somehow stop it from being a bad cut. And surely nobody actually still believes that applying petroleum products to plants will somehow heal them – haven’t they heard about oil-spills and the damage they cause?
Much of the old-school quaintness around wound treatments on plants came about through some misguided anthropomorphic belief system; ‘if it works for us, then it has to work for the plants too’. I’m not sure I could follow that logic – plants and humans being somewhat different… but even so, how many people put a bit of petrol on a cut, or rub some axle-grease into a wound? [If you do – stop doing it!]
Much of the old-school quaintness around fertilising in winter comes from the time when winter was the time to get jobs done, – they would dig-in their green crops and manure to prepare the soil for spring. That was then, now we can pop into the garden centre at any time and two hours later we can be loading up the soil. The issue with fertilising in winter is that in winter our plants are mostly dormant; their metabolism has slowed, and they are not taking much if anything from the soil. So, when fertiliser is added to the soil the vast majority of it will simply wash away with the rain.
The world is indeed a crazy place – I don’t mind the crazy, but the silliness has to stop.
Your mother might take umbrage to the advice – she has, of course, been gardening forever compared to your spritely 30 years! Another good little read.