Peach leaf curl

It’s a bit like being a teenager waiting to outgrow a really bad acne attack. Here are some sorry shots of my nectarine and peach in the orchard.

Yep, back to earth with a bump. It’s all very well smiling smugly at irises in flower and sticking one’s nose in sumptuous flowers. But in the disaster department these two trees are up there.  Jostaberry bush being stripped by caterpillar comes a close second.

The reason for the angst in the orchard is that I have spent years trying my best to control this problem.

And I’m cross about the nectarine because it is such a beautiful shape. And has fruit.

I’ve given up on the peach next to it. It’s hideous in shape, production and looks miserable all year.  I am just waiting to get the energy to haul down the saw and chop it down.

And then I’ll need to dig it out.

And here’s the curse: there will be a gap in the design.  Can I replant in the same place? I suspect I’ll put another apple tree here this winter.  Apples work for me. No peach leaf curl; a pleasing shape, the potential for good autumn fruit.  And most of the other trees in this part of the garden are apples too.

I must remember to take a large plastic bag down with me on my next trudge to the orchard. That way I will pick the puckered red blistery leaves off these small trees and make them look ever worse than they are now.

The only consolation with the trudge is I get to walk past a small success – the new hornbeam hedge at the base of the rosemary bank.

This used to be the bank with a gorgeous stone wall that came down in the flood. The November 2013 flood. (I sound like an old codger ‘the flood of 13’).  I mass planted hornbeams here hoping they would grow up and fill out and hide the rather sorry bank behind.

Two and a half years later I can happily say it has worked.

Hornbeams. Impervious to mole rats, floods, drought and poncy garden designers. They just get on with it.

They barely need pruning, don’t mind invasive weeds at their base. And their roots are brilliant for flood control.

And fluffy and slightly scruffy work much better in a rural garden than a tight neat hedge. See, I’ve forgotten all about the miseries in the orchard already.

Now where’s my plastic bag and gloves. I might as well pick off a few caterpillars on my way down to pluck the curled leaves.