Gardening: Bacteriological warfare

Kenneth Fitchett writes from Corscombe in Dorset about problem pyracanthas, which have disappointed him for the past two years. "Flowers have given way to dead, black clusters of stalks and heads where there should be red berries. My neighbour's orange-berried pyracantha has laid on a magnificent show, protected from marauding blackbirds by a home-made scarecrow. Is there anything I can do with mine to ensure I get an equally good result next year?"

This sounds like fireblight (Erwinia amylovora), though Mr Fitchett does not say whether the problem is affecting foliage around the flower heads, which is what you would expect with this disorder. Fireblight is a bacterial disease which affects trees and shrubs belonging to the big family of the Rosaceae (that includes apples and pears as well as pyracantha and cotoneaster) and it is much more prevalent in the south of England than the north.

The bacteria is carried in on rain (or inadvertently on secateurs) and settles on pyracantha flowers while they are blooming. It turns them black, but the infection then usually spreads into the twigs themselves, causing the surrounding leaves to wither.

There is no treatment except the rather drastic one of cutting out the infected growths, well below the point at which the disease has taken hold. But it seems odd that Mr Fitchett's pyracantha is refusing to set berries at all. Fireblight usually attacks parts of a plant, creeping eventually to infect the whole. If the foliage is entirely healthy, and only the flower heads affected, then fireblight may not be the answer. Blossom wilt, which looks superficially the same, usually attacks only fruit trees. Could this be a new kind of blossom wilt which, like fireblight, infects other members of the Rosaceae? If spraying with a copper fungicide clears it up, then the answer is yes.

When, last year, I first wrote about Easton Lodge, the Edwardian Countess of Warwick's garden in Essex, restoration was already under way, guided and inspired by the new owner, Brian Creasey. The garden, originally laid out by the designer Harold Peto in 1907, had fallen into almost terminal decay. With the help of volunteers, Mr Creasey has now attacked the Italian garden, wrenching saplings from its formal balustraded pool, and remaking the stone containers where water lilies once floated. When light and air were let back into this part of the garden, seeds that had been lying dormant for years sprang up: the giant tobacco plant (Nicotiana sylvestris) the large-leaved vine (Vitis coignetiae) and many mallows.

The garden reopens in February when there are sheets of snowdrops flowering in the Japanese glade. The forgotten gardens of Easton Lodge are at Little Easton, Great Dunmow, Essex (01371 876979) and are open daily (11am-6pm) from February to October, admission pounds 2.

Propagating plants, by sowing seed or taking cuttings, is not in itself complicated. But remembering what plant should best be propagated when is too much for most gardeners to remember without a prompt. The Complete Book of Plant Propagation (Mitchell Beazley, pounds 19.99) tells you just what you should be doing (once you get the hang of the symbols). It explains how long you have to wait, too, before roots are likely to have developed, and how long after that you will have to wait before the cutting is well enough established to plant out. I've just learnt that cuttings taken from side shoots of yew will never make leading shoots. That explains the oddly squat shapes of some yews in the new hedge.

Anna Pavord