Yellow balls in centre of Oregano roots
Hey all,
Firstly I apologize if this is in the wrong topic,
About a month back I purchased a Oregano plant that had plenty of leaves on them from Wilkinsons and today I decided that I would split it and put them in to a much bigger pot as it seemed to be dying possibly due to lack of space. When my partner was splitting the roots and dirt in half we saw loads of yellow balls in between the roots and when he squished one, white fluid came out. Does anyone know what these would be??? My partner thought maybe spider eggs or something, we put it in the bin to be on the safe side, it was practically dead but I thought maybe it would be the seeds but I am new to this so I am coming here for advice.
Thank-you, Cat
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The yellow balls are likely to have been Osmacote fertiliser
These are slow-release fertiliser granules added to the potting compost.
As for the oregano - was it outside or indoors - my new oregano plant has been planted out in the garden for over a month, and I have others which have been out in the garden all winter and are fine.
My first thought with dying oregano is always that it's been overwatered - it's a Mediterranean plant that needs gritty free-draining compost or soil and hates having it's feet damp all the time.
Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.
Slug eggs are white and transluscent
Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.
Thank-you Dovefromabove. That first picture you sent is exactly what they looked like, I was nearly sick because of what my boyfriend originally said ha-ha! I feel rather silly now for wasting the herb
, but at least I have learned something from this, they were inside on my kitchen window sill, the bottom of it was really wet so I guess that is what was killing it. Thank-you again for your advice, it is greatly appreciated.
Cat - if you want to keep oregano in a pot transplant it into a bigger pot than it came in, using John Innes No 3 soil based compost and mix in about 1/3 horticultural grit.
To check whether it needs watering stick your finger into the soil - if it's still dry 1" down from the surface, then water it, let it drain and don't let it stand in water.
If you've got somewhere fairly sunny outside it will be much happier there for the summer than indoors.
Good luck
Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.
Ohh that is interesting, Edd, Well at least I know this for the future now. It is already in the bin but I will get another one and because it was so big when I bought it I will separate it right away and put it outside so it can enjoy the weather, Up North here right now it still seems early to put crops out but will my herbs survive?
Are they like these in the pot of a honeysuckle bought the other day from a GC?
They are definitely nitrogenous fertiliser - I just squidged one and tasted the liquid on my tongue (don't do this at home folks) - I grew up on a farm where the smell and taste of nitrogen fertiliser sometimes permeated everything at certain times of year.
Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.
Afraid I have to disagree there Edd.
The nutrients are contained within a permeable coating - as the compost is watered the water permeates through the coating and liquifies the nutrients inside - these then permeate slowly through the coating and into the soil - slow release.
See here http://www.osmocote.co.za/about.htm
Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.
I just found a whole load of these little yellow balls in my dying clematis roots.. they're not fertiliser, as I checked the fertiliser bag and there are no yellow balls in the remaining fertiliser. I don't know what they are.. but I've read they could be worm eggs, fly eggs or the spores of a fungus or bacteria.. so far I've dumped the old soil, cleared them off of the roots as much as I can get to without damaging them, and re-potted in a clean pot with fresh soil.
I'm not sure you really found eggs in your clematis roots and not just fertilizer.
And I'm pretty sure the ones in the oregano were fertilizer.
Often commercial growers put these fertilizer balls in the soil and you'll only see them when you really disturb the soil.
I guess yours could easily have been there already when you bought your clematis and you only noticed them when you insected the roots very closely after you noticed the plant was dying.
The skins of those fertilizer balls don't seem to disappear from the soil for a long time, even after the fertilizer has seeped out.
When I saw them for the first time I also thought I'd stumbled across some sort of eggs, but they really were just fertilizer.