Classic Gardening Magazine | Gardening as it ought to be

What to do about apple canker and woolly aphids

The Cox has developed a bit of a problem over the past few years. It is prone to apple canker, which causes the branches to weep sap and turn prematurely old and grey. The sap attracts woolly aphids, so you get a sinister, fluffy white accretion on the affected branches.

Treatment for the canker involves a regime of spraying, which I’m very reluctant to embark upon. For the aphids, it involves taking an old toothbrush – or the toothbrush of someone you don’t like all that much, dipping it in a bottle of meths, and scrubbing the affected parts.

We had our first outbreak a few years ago, and it spread to the Bramley, but it is the Cox that is particularly prone to it. I planted a resistant alternative – a Kid’s Orange Red, but found that – contrary what I was told, the apples weren’t a patch on a Cox – bland and a bit woolly, as opposed to crisp and tart.

I thought I had the problem licked, having had to lop a few boughs in the process, but this weeks it’s back. So, whose toothbrush should I use?