Managers around some of the UK's leading garden attractions will be watching carefully for the results from the DEFRA consultation process designed to determine a the control and management of Phytophthora ramorum and kernoviae.
It is vital to enhance containment and eradication at nurseries and garden centres and continue destroying the hosts of the diseases, especially Rhododendron ponticum, in woodlands and gardens.
Phytophthora is a devastating pathogen that can be spread quickly by wind dispersal or soil and groundwater contamination.
The disease has the ability of destroying features in some of Britain's best historical gardens such as the famous two hundred metre Yew hedge at Sissinhurst in Kent.
The hedge was planted in 1930 by Vita Sackville-West and had been suffering from the curse of Phytophthora for some time.
Head gardener Alexis Datta installed a new drainage system to alleviate waterlogging around the roots of the hedge and turned to air injection to break up the compacted soil structure and dissipate the standing water thus reducing the potential for the disease to spread in the stagnant water.
Photo: Sissinghurst Castle Kent
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