Thank you for replying. I posted somewhere else and have yet to have any replies. They don't seem to be common??? I've been googling as much as possible to find any answers to my questions. Maybe I'll just post them and maybe someone might have any idea....ok here they go.....
1. My garden bed shares a wall with where our clothes dryer vent is connected to, so when I do a load of laundry, the humidity, I think it is, blows towards one of my Kingfisher and two of my marguerite. As well as, my One of my New Zealand Tea Tree. While I'm not concerned about the Tea Tree, the three daisies look weird and I don't know if this has to do with it?
2. Along with the first explaination in question 1, two of the daisies getting the dryer air, look leggy. These are the only ones in my garden and I have three others. I have now cut these back due to slugs eating them. So I'm not sure why they were the only ones that were growing crazy or very leggy. The foliage was drooping when first planted but have since perked up and just the flower head were strange, like I said compared to my other daisies. Any clue?
3. I have been getting dry brown spots within the kigfisher daisies. A friend has a very mature plant and says she gets the same thing. Is that normal or should I be concerned. When I say dry spots I mean, a bunch of stem to foliage to buds about 1 inche around and my plant is about 10-12 inches all around. So I will clean these dry stems and foliage out, meanwhile, the rest of the plant looks fine and still blooming. Any clue?
4. Diatomaceous Earth, anybody work with this? Any insight on how I should apply it since we have lots of slugs and snail killing my flowers. As well as some other bad bugs like earwigs. I'm just scared about killing good bugs, but I don't want to use pesticides. Also I am going to try beer traps at level with the mulch.
5. Speaking of mulch, how close around the plant should it be?
6. Last question, thank you for reading these through, I noticed that dirt/mud splattered up on foliage when I watered or especially when it rained. I have mulch down but a ring built around the new plant so mulch doesn't cover the top of the plant. I just don't know if I should have the mulch a little closer, going hand in hand with question 5. With this, is making sure dirt and mud don't splash on the foliage a must? I lightly sprayed the Marguerite Daisies to clean them off a bit. The petals have dryed brown spots on them which I am conecting to the dirt splatters. At first it was dirt, I'm pretty sure, then turned to a brown color from drying out. Is this something I was to be careful of like my Gerbera can get crown rot from watering foliage. Which I'm not saying this looks like crown rot, I just don't know what it is and if this means I need to add more mulch, which I think I do by the way. Or, is this from the slugs/snails or other creatures. My garden has some bugs but from the looks of it the infestation is with slugs/snails and earwigs. Possibly a little round beetle with black to almost irredescent colors. Which I am hoiping some beer traps and DE can solve. Any Clue??
So with all this said, hopefully have given enough info that someone can help me with at least one of the questions. Thanks foor taking time to read as I am determined to be a successful gardener. If these daisies don't work out then I am going to have to pick a better plant for our soil. I'm starting to be concerned that we don't have well drained soil. Like I said though, no everything looks weird in the flower bed, some stuff looks great, I think!
