Sunday 16 January 2011

An old favourite Regal Pelargonium

Regal Pelargonium 'Rosmaroy'
When I first started going to Pelargonium Clubs and shows, the Regal Pelargonium 'Rosmaroy' used to always win prizes in the Regals Classes.   It's not often seen now, but pops up occasionally.   Rosmaroy is a very free-flowering Regal, with showy frilled blue/pink flowers.  The plant has a compact growth habit which is why it makes a good show plant.   Introduced by Mr Hollihead in the UK about 1984.

I have had a bit of a disaster in the greenhouse in the last few days.  On Thursday I found one plant with botrytis - that dreadful grey mould that attacks greenhouse plants during very damp weather.   I cleaned the plant up and thought 'that's fixed that'.  How wrong I was!   On Friday morning, when I went to open the greenhouse doors before we went out I discovered about ten plants covered in grey mould.   It had spread like wildfire.  I probably looked a little odd to anyone passing as I was trying to get rid of as much of the mould as I could whilst holding a plant at arms length in an attempt to not cover myself in it, being dressed fairly smartly for an outing at the time.    When we got home mid afternoon, the first thing I did was get changed in to my gardening togs and headed for the greenhouses, secateurs and a carton of green sulphur powder in hand, to deal with the disaster.   I pulled off all the offending grey mould covered leaves and cut away any stems that looked iffy, and then dusted the plant with the green sulphur powder.  When I had finished I puffed a light film of green sulphur powder over all the remaining plants in the greenhouses.  One greenhouse is affected more than the other, and mostly the coloured leaf pelargoniums.  Unable to check them yesterday due to having to attend a meeting in the Birmingham area and was gone all day, but today, the situation does not look any worse.  I hope this damp weather will end soon.   It really is most odd since we had lots more rain last winter, our garden was almost totally flooded due to a blocked land drain on the highway and one greenhouse had 4" of water in it. I had taken all the plants out and put them in the other greenhouse, the one with the botrytis in now, so it was really jam packed,  No botrytis.   It is no consolation that they make a wine in California from botrytis covered grapes.

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