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Fruit from Cherry Trees

Fruit from Cherry Trees

Sweet Cherry are not often grown in UK fruit gardens. To get a good crop of cherries you need several varieties for pollination, it takes 10 years to get a good crop (then birds eat them) and the trees take up a great deal of space.  I will get lots of comments to the contrary now.

Going  Ahead with Cherries

  • Fan train your cherries against a wall and pinch out the growing shoots in June and again in September.
  • Add lots of Lime and Potash to feed your Cherry
  • Plant Standards 25 feet apart.
  • Opt for a self fertile Morello Cherry or Acid Cherry like Kentish Red or Flemish Red
  • For early Cherries in June try Early Rivers, Frogmore fruits  in July and Emperor Francis in late August.
  • For the above varieties check on the pollination requirements when you buy
  • Be content to grow Cherries for the blossom that can last 3 weeks in spring.
  • Smaller ‘Colt’ rootstock now allow trees to be controlled to 12 feet high.

I was lucky to be walking through this orchard earlier this month in Prague.

RHS

BBC Gardening Plant Finder

Pruning Flowering Shrubs the Easy Way

Pruning Flowering Shrubs the Easy Way

rhododendron

Spring Flowering Shrubs that have finished flowering can be pruned in early summer. My Spirea were trimmed of flower heads and pruned of about one third of the old wood down to the ground this weekend. Hopefully also taking out weak growth and crossing branches will provide space for strong new stems to flower next year.

Forsythia was pruned after flowering back in April and other shrubs to now receive this treatment include Philadelphus, Ribes, Deutzia and Weigela. Weigela gets a lighter prune to encourage an Autumn flush of blossom. Rhododendrons (above) do not need pruning but I give them the once over to remove any problems.

Late summer flowering shrubs should be pruned next spring to encourage new flowering wood. Buddleja can be heavily pruned but avoid cutting into really old wood. Dogwoods should be stooled or cut bach to  about 10 inches high.  Choisya I just give a trim after flowering to retain shape and control the size but if they are putting on to much growth I will sacrifce flowers and prune early. Winter flowering Viburnum and Witch Hazel do not need much pruning so I tend to leave well alone.

Pruning Aims to achieve regular production of flowers and to keep a shrub healthy. A balance between old and new wood helps flowering. Creating space for light air and growth helps a plant remain healthy. Cutting back to a leaf or stem joint shapes and trains a shrub to do what the gardener wants.

After pruning care includes a dressing of blood fish and bone and a good mulch of compost. This will help the shrub replace all the wood it has grown and lost to my secateurs.

RHS

BBC Gardening Plant Finder

Growing Phormium or New Zealand Flax

Growing Phormium or New Zealand Flax

phormium

Spiky perennial plants sold as Phormium are available in variegated or self colours but all have striking sword shaped leaves. Phormium Tenax is the larger more commonly available variety but there are now approaching 100 varieties to choose from.

Growing Phormium

  • Phormiums are best growing in a sunny position although they will tolerate a fair amount of shade and like a stream side position.
  • Phormium have tough leaves that are resistant to desiccation so in the garden they rarely need any extra watering.
  • Varieties with upright leaves, such as ‘Sundowner’ and ‘Dusky Chief’ are reputed to be suitable for growing indoors
  • P. cookianum varieties are less hardy but with some bracken leaves for winter protection they should be OK. Try Black Adder or Maori Maiden.
  • Fernwood Nursery has a national Collection of over 70 varieties

flax

Weeping Willow in Trim

Weeping Willow in Trim

weeping-willow

There are 400+ species of Willow tree from creeping alpines to the large Weeping Willows of river bank fame.The Weeping Willow has a short life span relative to most other species of less than 50 years and a rapid growth rate. After 20 years the typical Weeping Willow will reach up to 50 feet high depending on variety. For larger garden use ask your nursery man to help you select a restrained variety.

History -In 1908 a German nursery produced a cross between Salix alba the White Willow (a native of water meadows) and Salix babylonica grown in the UK since 1740’s.
Cuttings of single stems up to 6 feet long will root easily and most Willows cross pollinate.
Don’t plant Weeping Willows too near drains or buildings the roots are large and strong. Three times the eventual height or 30 Yards is a safe distance but if you want to avoid subsidence that is the only safe place to plant it.
Don’t prune, the shape is never quite the same afterwards but as you can see the trailing branches on this mature specimen have been trimmed neatly to the same length.
Uses for Willows include the manufacture of cricket bat blades, extraction of chemicals to make asprin and woven willow hedges and wind breaks.

Catkins are produced in spring by male and female trees with the male generally more showy.

male-catkins

Grow a Yellow Rose

Grow a Yellow Rose

As the song goes ‘Oh! the Yellow Rose of Texas …..’ but what variety of rose would you choose? Well for me top of the pops is still that old 1940’s classic ‘Peace’ accepted by many as the all time top Hybrid Tea rose.
There is a special World Peace rose garden in memory of Martin Luther King ‘I have a dream’.
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Growing Blue Ceanothus or Californian Lilac

Growing Blue Ceanothus or Californian Lilac

c-of-seanothus

This Sea of Ceanothus blooms is typical of this densely flowering shrub. Most Ceanothus are blue flowering, evergreen shrubs from low growing prostrate forms to good sized bushes (this one is 5 feet tall and 3-4 feet wide).
The blooms are very attractive to bees and hover flies and during flowering it is covered from dawn till dusk with pollinating insects. They grow from cuttings so I have take to dotting them around the garden in case I loose one or two but they seem quite hardy.

Varieties of Ceanothus
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Best Flowering Shrubs

Best Flowering Shrubs

cytisus
cytisus


Broom or Cytisus scoparius is an old favourite shrub for the pea shaped flowers in June. The traditional yellow is now supplemented by many cultivars in red and bi colours. They are short lived shrubs and need to be pruned to stop energy going into seed production. They flower on wood produced in the previous year. In the wild they can be perceived as weeds and seed prolifically in the right conditions. Broom is sometimes confused with Genista or Spanish Broom which is similar in flower and habit.

abutilon

I have included this Abutilon vitafolium for its height (20′) and its colourful blossom. They can be grown from the little hard, black seeds similar to lupin’s. The flowers are 1-2″ across and come in good bunches. The shrub retains most of its grey-green leaves through winter.

forest-flame

A good workhorse in my garden is the Pieris ‘Forest Flame’ or Lily of the Valley bush. It flowers a bit earlier than June with a host of small delicate white bell shaped flowers in large panicles. The leaves that follow the flowering are glossy, strong bright red or pink and give the shrub great character. After 5 years the evergreen plants will grown to about 3-5 foot and are well behaved easily controlled shrubs.

Honeysuckle Climbing Lonicera Varieties

Honeysuckle Climbing Lonicera Varieties

honey
                               Lonicera Heckerottii ‘Gold Flame’

Woodbine is the common name for this Honeysuckle that provides a strong sweet scent in the cottage garden from the end of May. The climbing twining Honeysuckles are part of a large family of Lonicera that also includes a range of shrubby plants.

For sweetly flowering honeysuckle in winter try Lonicera fragrantissima or Lonicera Standishii whilst the best flowering summer species are the evergreen Lonicera Japonica. Sacrificing some scent for colour tryLonicera tellmannianawith flowers that are orange with red streaks on the outside or ‘Dropmore Scarlet’ for a terrific summer show of long scarlet flowers.
Belgica or the later flowering Serotina are true Honeysuckles that with a little support on a wall will scramble away to 10 feet or more. They will twine through branches of other trees quite happily and combine with robust roses to good effect.
Honeysuckle can be cultivated from cuttings and I have one plant that has had progeny in 5 gardens over the last 50 years as I moved house.
Pruning tips: …

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Flowering Currant – Ribes sanguineum

Flowering Currant – Ribes sanguineum

flowering-currant

In my garden the flowers of the flowering currant are over for another year so this morning I started to prune the shrubs. The lobed leaves of the Flowering Currant are seldom of special merit although they look lime green fresh at the moment. Therefore I am happy to prune very hard immediately after flowering.

Pruning Tips

  • Cut out dead, damaged or diseased wood as a first priority.
  • Cut out some of the old thick blackened stems at ground level to reduce the thicket and open up the shrub. At least one third of the branches should be removed in this way.
  • For an over grown shrub prune all branches right down to the ground immediately after flowering.
  • Shape the shrub by reducing the length of the remaining branches to create an open framework with space for new branches .
  • From the pruned branches new growth will grow and buds form this summer and provide the base for blossom next year.

If you want to grow more plants stick some of the pruned branches into the soil in an out of the way spot and chances are good that several will root. I try get a cutting 6+ inches long with a bit of the older wood as it breaks in to new wood,  I strip off the leaves for the first 4 inches or so and plant in normal soil with no special effort.

History from The Daily Mail

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Australian Plants & Trees

Australian Plants & Trees

snow-gum

Gondwanaland

This white barked tree is an Australian Eucalyptus debeuvillei’ Snow Gum’. It is planted in the special southern hemisphere enclosure at Marks Hall in Essex as part of the Arboretum. Gondwanaland was the ancient name of a super continent that split apart to form Australia, Antartica, New Zealand and South Africa (although I don’t know who was around to call it that).

In the planting there are a large number of as yet quite young Monkey Puzzle trees Araucaria araucana but that adds to the attraction of this fine garden. It is good to see new planting that will be there when the 500 year old Oaks reach their millennium. One of those plantings will be the the Wollemi Pine one of the world’s oldest and rarest plants dating back to the time of the dinosaurs. With less than 100 adult trees known to exist in the wild, the Wollemi Pine is now the focus of extensive research to safeguard its survival.It is far sighted to plant several of these trees as part of the Southern hemisphere garden which will itself develop as the trees mature and provide shelter and (globally warmed) conditions.

wolemi-pine

Marks Hall Gardens & Arboretum

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