Learn To Get Healthy

Not all gardens can support the bulk of forest trees, yet it is still feasible to achieve a very satisfactory winter landscape in miniature. Various forms of Japanese Maple, Acer palmatum, even grown in pots will soon develop the mushroom-like, slightly windswept outline which makes them excellent plants for the heather or rock garden.

For contrast I use a columnar conifer, erect, puritanically uncompromising as its bisects the horizontal lines. My favourite maple for this purpose is dissectum atropurpureum, which in addition to having an attractive rounded habit colours handsomely in the autumn.

Wandering amongst them all is a yellow-flowered Clematis tangutica which is better used as ground cover than grown in the traditional way over a trellis.

I see Sorbus decora nano (S. scopulina) every day in the summer, a shaft of green against the hills behind and in winter the branches exhibit the same fastigiate habit. This rowan is good value for the small garden as it rarely exceeds 15 ft. in height.

Conifers play a dominant role in the second group which began with a specimen of Juniperus x media pfitzeriana and then had a Chamaecyparis pisifera plumosa aurea added for contrast with its yellow cone outline showing up well against the tiered grey-green of the juniper.

The composition of this piece of garden took my ingenuity to the utmost but gave me infinite pleasure also. Now, as it matures, I look for t other ways to improve it, for such is the essence of gardening, changeless yet ever changing.

Cayenne (sometimes inappropriately labelled as ‘cayenne pepper’ or `red pepper’) is an extremely pungent ground spice prepared by blending the small pungent chillies grown in East Africa, Japan, India, Mexico, Louisiana and some other areas, but not from Cayenne (French Guiana). Red pepper is sometimes regarded as identical with cayenne, but is, nevertheless, milder, being prepared mainly from the larger-fruited, moderately pungent capsicums from Turkey and some of the southern states of the USA.

Aiyadurai (1966) also records Aphis gossypii Glov. and A. evonymi in India, which are also vectors of mosaic. The European corn-borer, Ostrinia nubilalis Htibn. (syn. Pyrausta (Htibn.), has become a serious pest of capsicum along the Atlantic coast of the United States. The lesser cornstalk borer, Elasmopalpus lignosel/us (Zell.) was reported causing damage in Georgia, USA.

Lines of interspecific hybrids were obtained showing a high heterosis effect both in their viability and resistance, and in their earliness and productivity. The species C. annuum and C. pendulum did not cross with C. pubescens, although a separate cross- hybridization between C. annuum and C. pubescens could be achieved provided a solution of vitamins B and B6 was used.

The oleoresins of chillies and capsicums are prepared mainly by the food industries in North America and Western Europe. By contrast, a substantial amount of paprika oleoresin is prepared.,in the major growing areas (Spain and Eastern Europe), in additicin to extraction being carried out in the principal paprika-importing countriesin the Western hemisphere. The three types of oleoresins find similar applications to the ground products in the preparation of’ processed foods. Chillie oleoresin (more commonly known as ‘African capsicum oleoresin’) is also incorporated into a number of pharmaceutical formulations.

The dried forms of the fruits of Capsicum species which are traded fall into three groups: the highly pungent ‘chillies% the moderately to mildly pungent `capsicums’; and paprika, which may be sweet or mildly pungent. Paprika is always a ground product, whereas chillies and capsicums arc traded in the whole or ground forms. All three types are also extracted with solvents to prepare their oleoresins; and blends of ground chillies and capsicums are marketed as cayenne and red pepper or mixed with other spices for the preparation of ‘chili powder’. Related products include the larger-fruited, sweet or mildly pungent varieties of C. annuum used in the fresh state as vegetables or in preserves.

The cosmopolitan corn earworm, Heliothis artnigera (Hubn.), and the fall army worm, Laphygma frugiperda S. & A., have been reported attacking capsicums in some areas. They have a large number of alternate hosts.