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slowgarden_gw

Why such poor fruitset with cranberry bush + red-osier dogwood?

slowgarden
10 years ago

...right in my garden, when next to it, in the wild and poorly - if at all! - maintained city ornamental plantings, the fruits are plentiful??...

I just don't understand what I seem to be doing wrong... There are tons of black aphids, and of course the ants raising them, in the terminal flower stems, then, later, even while the plant tries to set fruits... I used to try controlling these, with green methods of course (barriers for the ants, green soap, spraying, etc.): no results! Then a couple of years ago I decided to let Mother Nature do the work all by herself: still the same thing!...

I may understand my dogwood is planted rather close to the roots of one neighbour's mature Norwegian maple tree...

The cranberry bush though (of the native Trilobum species) I took care to plant it in a good, semi-sunny spot. I have had problems in the past with a second subject that got affected by the introduced Viburnum beetle. But this is not the case at all with THIS subject, for some strange reason (I am familiar with the symptoms of this type of beetle infestation), and its leaves are all healthy, nice and large...

Both plants are well established in the garden as of now. My soil is kind of rich (semi-loamy I would say); we live on what used to be an old dairy farm grassland back in the 50s.

Any hint?

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