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36

LIFE

February/March 2012 www.esb.ie/em

Planning a spring break? - Check out our review on Formentera, Ibiza

Make it a good year for the roses!

GERRY DALY

GARDENING

Now is the time of year to lay the foundations for a really good show of roses, writes Gerry Daly.

MORE THAN MANY other kinds of flowers and shrubs, roses take a little extra effort but they also deliver so much more than most garden plants. Bush roses, or bedding roses as they are also called, flower from late June or early July until late autumn and it is not unusual to see some bushes still in flower at the end of the year.

The key point to remember about rose bushes is that they are expected to do a lot in just a few months. If you are thinking about planting rose bushes this spring, do so without delay. They are fast growers and need good sunshine, as much warmth and shelter as possible and well-drained, deep, open fertile soil.

Start with pruning. Rose bushes can be pruned in early winter, although this is usually left until early spring. Remove all damaged or weak and spindly shoots to begin with. This will leave about three to seven or eight shoots on a hybrid tea bush, which has single large flowers, or double that number on the cluster-flowered kinds. Remove some of the old shoots — the bark on older shoots is rough and brown. The remainder are then shortened back to about 20 or 30cm, pruned just above a healthy bud.

Feeding is vitally important. While most garden flowers and shrubs need little or no feeding, roses need heavy feeding. Use a balanced general fertiliser, such as 10-10-20, or a special rose fertiliser. Feeding should be carried out early in March to give a good early boost to growth, using about two handfuls of feed per bush well-scattered over the root area. This can be repeated in wet weather in mid-July.

Weed control is essential because fast-growing roses cannot afford to waste energy competing with other plants, and this is the time to get it right. Remove all existing weeds and trim the lawn edges if the bed is in grass. Weed control by hand is best for roses, with light hoeing on a regular basis. Note that manure and compost tends to carry in weed seeds, so it must be very mature to be weed-free.

The main rose pests are greenflies, but these can be washed off or sprayed with soap-spray. Rose blackspot disease is very damaging, causing blackening of the leaves and severe leaf loss, and requires treatment on susceptible varieties as soon as the leaves are a few centimetres long. Most bush rose varieties are susceptible to blackspot, but there are various branded rose sprays available at garden shops.

If you have not done any feeding or disease control for years, it is amazing how well rose bushes can recover and flower so much better!

Is it necessary to dig out a dead hedge?

’My hedge that joins with the neighbours’ garden died in the frost and we have only now got round to thinking about re-planting. My main question is whether we must take out the roots of the old hedge. He feels that the roots could cause a rot to set in on the new plants.’

There is a very small possibility of rotting roots supporting a soil fungus called honey fungus. While honey fungus can later migrate into nearby hedging plants, this is not all that common, especially if the new plants are healthy and vigorous. On the other hand, it is much less trouble to just cut away the tops and plant between the stumps and take the very slight risk.

Try begonias in pots

Tuberous and pendulous begonias are great value in the summer months, grown in the open ground but even more so in pots, window boxes and other containers. They can be placed on a window sill, flight of steps or on the ground of a paved area for summer decoration and they flower non-stop to late autumn.

The tubers can be started off in March or early April in trays or small pots of moist compost. The sprouting plants can be moved into bigger pots and eventually moved outdoors into their final container at the end of May or early June.

Make sure to water well and give a dilute feed with every second watering. They are big feeders and respond well to heavy feeding. They flower best in sunshine but take some light shade or part-day shade. Colours are hot shades of red, yellow, pink, apricot and orange.

Travel to Formentera: One of Europe’s best kept secrets

TONY CLAYTON-LEA

TRAVEL

Most of us are aware of Ibiza – it lies south of Majorca and is, unjustifiably, regarded by some as an island for young people to let their hair down during the summer holidays. But what of Formentera? Where exactly, I hear you ask, is that place?

Well, Formentera is the smallest of the Balearic Islands, situated a mere 30-minute ferry trip away from Ibiza Town. Formentera is also one of Europe’s best kept secrets – close enough to all that happens on Ibiza to make it interesting, but small and self-contained enough to have an identity and character all of its own. It is a compact island, 19km end to end, with a population of just over 10,000 people who are more than willing to let Ibiza take the lion’s share of tourists and throbbing nightlife. No airport and a lack of large-scale holiday accommodation ensure that you visit Formentera very much on its own terms.

Essentially, people come here to wind down: if you’re of a mind, you could spend a week living it up on Ibiza and a week here keeping it nice and quiet. Quiet is what Formentera really does best. As you stroll through the towns and villages, you’ll understand why the island was a popular place of refuge in the 1960s for members of the counter culture – and a few hippies still remain. It hass this atmosphere of laidback casualness that is so appealing. Over on Ibiza, you might feel the need to make some noise; here, you can just drift from café to bar to beach to coffee-house to restaurant to beach to bar and still have time to read that book you promised yourself you’d finish by Christmas.

If you’re looking for some nightlife, of course, then you’ll certainly find it. North of La Savina, on Platja de Illetes, you’ll discover a bit of a bash going on. Similarly, in the island’s main town, Sant Francesc, you’ll occasionally come across a bustling bar and café hiding in what is in essence a sleepy village. In particular, search out the town’s central plaza, located beside a beautiful, whitewashed 18th-century church, for a hive of bars and cafés that all just ache to be sat in.

But, really, people don’t come here for the noise of bottles clanking together. Formentera is a no hustle, no bustle place. Time to switch off and watch the world go by? We think so.

FACT FILE:

HOW TO GET THERE

Aer Lingus flies direct from Dublin to Ibiza; from Ibiza Town, you can get frequent ferries to Formentera.

WHERE TO STAY: Gecko Beach Club is Formentera’s first boutique hotel and is just as swanky as anything you’ll see on Ibiza. Rooms from €230. Visit geckobeachclub.com. For a more reasonable option, try Roca Bella, a budget hotel for those who want to stay in the island’s main town of Sant Francesc. Rooms from €60.

WHERE TO EAT: Café de la Luna, Puerto Deportivo, La Savina, is a harbour-side restaurant from which vantage point you can lazily watch the yachts drift by as you have dinner with a glass of wine (or two – it’s allowed because you’re on holiday!).