Ask Gerry

Back in May or June my two young dogs managed to strip the bark completely from the trunk of my dwarf weeping willow. The tree is about 10 years old and continues to survive. There are fine healthy buds on the branches at the moment and it kooks fine despite the fact that the trunk is bare. Ia there anything that I can paint onto the trunk that may save it or is it likely to die,sooner or later.

My escallonia hedge badly damaged last winter I cut it back hard late spring. and removed lots of dead wood .It grew back during summer thou many leaves seemed to have disease - yellow and black spots.By September foliage was quite good but now following recent rains and winds most of foliage has been shed with very few leaves left so it is now worse than it was last March. Is it too much to hope that it will recover to its previous condition ?

Might you advise on a remedy or cure for hole shot in a laurel hedge, as whilst the hedge fairly full of foliage, it would seem that it is not triving either.

How do I dispose of the weeding rubbish which contains bindweed and the roots as I was told they could not be composted and could continue to survive in the soil. At present I have it all stored in a plastic barrell.

Please put my husbands mind at rest as he keeps insisting they might be usable. He knows nothing about gardening but like all men, never takes his wifes knowledge as 'gospel'. The mushrooms in pics are growing in my garden under a Pine tree. They are beautiful but I would love to know the name of them and if they are poisonous.

A year ago I had lots of evergreen trees cut down at the back of the garden, one metre high stumps now remaining. I notice many many yellowish mushrooms all over various parts of the lawn and especially surrounding the jacquemonti birches. I'm very worried it is honey fungus as one of the tree trunks is full of fungi.

I moved the Philodendron Xanadu to the front porch of my house which is enclosed and it is doing much better and I will move it indoors completely soon. It gets tiny aphids mainly on the back of the leaves. I have sprayed it with a house plant pest spray containing fatty acids its (been in the garage a long time perhaps it's gone off.")as they seem to keep coming back. Can you reccommend a treatment please?

There is a bad looking split in the base of this juniper. I'm wondering if there is anything I can do to save it and if it's not a problem, is its position of hanging over a wall in a sunny, well-drained (almost dryish...) spot not a good one for it?

Hundreds of (small-size) wasps are buzzing around in my weeping willow. On the stem and the branches there is busy traffic of wasps, and flies of all sizes, and fat blackflies. The leaves of the shrub under the tree or coloured black. So probably, flies and wasps are feeding on excreet/fungus from the blackflies. The remarkable thing is that the grass under the tree is literally covered with wasp corpses, and even more that these corpses are missing the hind tip of their abdomen, which is empty. Are they killed/poisoned, and then eaten, or are they being consumed from within? What is happening?

One of the horse chestnuts in the garden died this past winter, and now this one looks like this, which could be early autumn normal activity but I feel it's too early (this started in mid-August) and wonder if it could be chestnut blight I've heard about. If so, is there anything that we could do to save it?

can you tell me why so many wasps are attracted to my bay tree

See attached photo of what looks like a small brown crustacean on my wisteria. The branches of my blackcurrents were also covered in these. When picked off, the surface underneath them is slightly white. The inside of the crust is covered in a minute amount of whitish powder.

We have seed feeders in the garden for the birds; however long periods go by when no birds visit - I am wondering is there a reason. Also, we have a Nyger seed feeder for the goldfinches, but they only visit infrequently.

What is the best systemic pesticide spray for wooly beech aphids control in a young beech hedge? Also, what is the best spray for aphids in a cotoneaster hedge?

Mixed hedge planted 2 years ago. Clipped back last Februray, grew great this year. Over the last month however leaves on whitethorns plants only have gone white and some of the trees are starting to look dead. Do you have any idea what it is and can it be cured.