November 23, 2006

Coppicing is a horticultural term for cutting down trees when they have a diametre of six to 12 inches and then letting them grow again. The trees will ‘coppice’ by sending up a number of shoots from all around the remaining stump. These are then left to grow to a usable size before repeating the performance. In this manner one can harvest firewood on a more regular basis than would otherwise be possible from a single tree

Q: Can you please tell me about coppicing and the names of trees suitable for this purpose? I want to use them in Quetta and Kharan, Balochistan. Kharan is really arid so I wondered if the matka irrigation system you once wrote about will help.

Also, which plants can be used for making wicker baskets and what are their English and botanical names. Is there an Urdu name for acacia and gingko biloba? Finally, you featured an Italian oven in an article last year, where can I obtain one?

A: Phew! So many questions at one go but I will do my best to answer them. First of all coppicing; this is the horticultural term for cutting down trees when they have a diametre of six to 12 inches and then letting them grow again. The trees will ‘coppice’ by sending up a number of shoots from all around the remaining stump. These are then left to grow to a usable size before repeating the performance. In this manner you can harvest firewood on a more regular basis than would otherwise be possible from a single tree. Also, by coppicing, the trees tend to form more of a dense ‘bush’ than an actual tall growing tree.

Coppicing can be done with many species of trees but in the areas you ask about I would suggest some members of the ‘salicaceae’ family of plants such as popular (populus caspica, P.alba, P. nigra and P. euphratica for example); ‘salix’ the same family but better known as willow (S. acmophylla, S. aegyptiaca, S. micans and S.babylonica are just a few of dozens). Some members of the eucalyptus family may also be suitable but do drink vast amounts of water.

The reason for naming these families of trees is that, whilst you can coppice others which are indigenous to your locality, the aforementioned ones are also suitable for basket making and, I presume, that you want to coppice trees in order to produce the raw material for wicker work. Baskets can also be woven out of many indigenous species of reeds, grasses and vines and please don’t forget that baskets, mats etc. can be made from date palms.

There are literally dozens and dozens of members of the acacia family (mimosoideae) which are indigenous to Pakistan: A. catechu (khair or katha in Urdu), A. modesta (phulai) A. nilotica (kikar or babul) and A. farnesiana (vilaiti kikar) being examples. Gingko biloba, indigenous to China, is cultivated in Lahore, Abbottabad and a few other places but I’m afraid I do not know the Urdu name.

I believe that the design for the Italian oven was taken off the Internet. Do a search for one and see what pops up!

Q: I live in Karachi and have grown some ixora in a corner of my garden which gets full sun from noon to 4pm. I water them on alternate days but I don’t get the gorgeous blooms that I see elsewhere. What should I do to get the best out of them and to protect them from bugs etc.?

A: Ixoras tend to be very slow growing and are most susceptible to ‘stunting’ if growing conditions are not up to the mark. Such ‘stunting’ affects the size of the flowers. These plants, available with red, pink, lemon, white or orange flowers, the red one being the hardiest, can be quite finicky to grow. They can be located in either full sun or partial shade so your plants are in a suitable spot. Your watering programme also sounds fine but….perhaps the water quality is poor or brackish and, if so, this will not help your plants one bit.

Try giving them a once a week liquid feed or organic fertiliser for a month, take a month’s break and then do it again. If they are short of nutrients then this should help.

Alternatively, make sure that the soil around them is topped up with sweet earth mixed with well rotted manure during early spring and again in autumn. Also, ensure that the roots do not get water logged as ixoras will not tolerate overly wet conditions. For bugs: take a quarter kilogram of whole garlic, separate the cloves, boil them up in one litre of water, leave to stand for 12 hours at least, strain off the water and spray your plants with this to kill or keep bugs away. Do this once a week.

Or, fill a bucket with fresh neem leaves, cover them with boiling water, leave to stand overnight and then spray the strained liquid on and around your plants. Keep topping up the bucket and spray daily for at least five days for best results. By the fifth day the neem leaves should be ‘mushy’ and can be used to mulch your plants. Neem both feeds your plants, any plants, and helps to keep them insect and mosquito free at the same time.

Q: I am looking after a community park on a volunteer basis. Before I took charge it had been neglected for three months and the lawn had grown wild and was full of mature weeds which had seeded all over the place resulting in a major problem. We have been hand removing the weeds for the past one month but this has not controlled the problem. Please advise us about a ‘weed and seed’ medicine/herbicide for controlling this menace or give details of an alternative solution.

A: Hand weeding for as long as it takes is the only safe solution. I realise how backbreaking the job is but please keep it up for at least the six months as it takes time to make a visible dent in the problem. I do not advocate the use of chemicals in any form and most certainly not in a park where children play.

Q: You recently wrote about lady bugs. Where can I get these in Karachi as it would be lovely to keep the other problem bugs under control organically?

A: Sorry. Lady bugs will not survive in Karachi’s heat and pollution. I believe that Pakistan Agricultural Research Council is currently experimenting with organic pest control methods which use suitable bugs and fungi as predators. Let’s hope that they make such methods easily and affordably available to the general public.

Q: Last week I bought tulip, hyacinths and Dutch iris bulbs plus dried ranunculus roots. I asked the gardener in the nursery about planting them and the first time he told me to grow them in a shady area and the next to plant them in full sun. I am trying bulbs for the first time but am now totally confused. I live in Lahore. Can you help me please?

A: In the Lahore area you can plant your bulbs either in full sun or in partial shade. Ranunculus is happier out of direct contact with the noon time sun. The flowers on all of these will remain on the plants longer if they have a certain amount of shade which could also offer them some protection from any winter rains. Hope this helps.

Send your gardening queries to zahrahnasir@hotmail.com Answers to selected questions will appear in a future issue of ‘The Review’.

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