After Christmas mistletoe tends to fade away for most people – until Christmas comes round again of course. But for those who grow mistletoe, deliberately or by chance, January is a good time to think about any management that might be needed. Small amounts of mistletoe are not a problem for the host tree, even though mistletoe is a parasite that takes over the branch it is growing on. But large amounts can become a […]

The new mistletoe planting season is here, and we’ve been out harvesting berries for planting projects, grow-kits and just to see how they’re looking this season. Effects of the recent wind and rain are obvious in many of the older mistletoe-laden orchards, with several trees down, complete with mistletoe. Will post some pics of those in due course… Today I just wanted to post some pictures of aberrant berries. Mistletoe normally has such perfectly-formed spherical […]

Studies of European mistletoe’s host preferences often show distinct preferences for particular varieties, or cultivars, within a tree species – so that some varieties of Apple tree are more susceptible than others, as are some varieties of Lime tree, Poplar tree etc. Demonstrating this convincingly on the ground is difficult – as you generally need a lot of data for lots of trees. But on Christmas Day this year I suddenly found the perfect demo […]

Monty’s at it again! His annual mistletoe misinformation project is reduced to one small paragraph this year, published as usual in that bastion of misinformation, the Daily Mail. For comment on one of his longer previous efforts have a look at the the Mistletoe Diary for Dec 15th last winter. Here’s the new article line by line – with my comments MONTY’S PLANT OF THE WEEK (Daily Mail 28th Dec) Mistletoe (Viscum album) “Mistletoe is […]

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Mistletoe and candles – I’ve discussed this before, and as my regular reader knows, have no truck with any of those ‘mistletoe-scented’ affairs – which are all fakes, as mistletoe doesn’t have a scent. For previous diatribes see relevant blog entries from 2011 here and 2010 here. But earlier this year the Mistletoe Shop was approached by Lesley Sparks, of The Hedgewitches Garden, who wanted to produce mistletoe candles and melts, and needed to obtain some mistletoe […]

Plenty of stuff yet to come for the Mistletoe Diary this year – though I’m a bit behind schedule. Time for some light relief from San Francisco, where “interactive artists” (what does that actually mean?) George Zisiadis and Mustafa Khan have made a Mistletoe Drone out of a Parrot AR.Drone (pictured in unaltered form on the right). They wrapped their drone in tinsel and mistletoe and have taken it to Union Square in San Francisco to buzz unsuspecting couples. Zisiadis is […]

“Buy British!” That slogan doesn’t have the same ring about it these days, when so many products are imported, but surely mistletoe is one of those few that we could, in theory, realistically aspire to buy locally. There are regular calls each year to make sure your mistletoe is British, backed up with the idea that this will sustain our native mistletoe industry. But is this at all realistic? There is no labelling scheme – […]

When Mr Bieber’s ‘Mistletoe‘ song charted a couple of years I despaired. It was worse than Biff Pilchard’s ‘Mistletoe and Wine‘ (and it messed up every search engine’s responses to the word ‘mistletoe’ for ever!). News reports this week reveal that Pilchard’s version of Mistletoe and Wine is an over-sentimentalised version of a more politically-motivated original. And the original was part of a 1987 musical version of A Little Match Girl. You can watch a version […]