Monthly Archives: February 2009

101 uses for your Beech Hedge – No. 73 – Forecasting Spring

by
1

An entirely random thought.

I stumbled on a site that has kept a record of the date on which a hazel bush has come into pollen each year. The theory is that the date a hazel produces pollen indicates whether spring will be early or late (for the sake of completeness, catkins came 9 days later this year than last).

I wonder if the defoliation of my beech hedge tells the same thing. Here, at the end(ish) of February our beech hedge is fully clothed with last year’s leaves. I am pretty sure that last year, when spring came very early, it was only partially clad by now.

Records will be kept and the story will unfold. In the meantime, on the off chance that we have freakish beech hedge plants this year you can buy our own unguranteed weather forecasting kit on our beech hedge pages until the end of the bare root season.  Which is coming… when?

 Relax, enjoy, and watch your garden grow

A Stake a Stake, my kingdom for… a Stake?

by
Reply

People seem to think that every newly-planted tree needs a stake. They are sometimes (but not always) right as despite lots of writing to the contrary, staking is not always the best thing to do for your tree.

Here are a few reasons why.  Staked trees:

  • tend to have a smaller root system than unstaked ones
  • they also tend to grow taller and so are not as well anchored as unstaked ones.
  • do not like very close company and so they tend to grow away from their stake, so are less straight
  • break more easily in a storm as the tree tie can prevent the trunk acting as a shock absorber
  • can be injured by the tie and the stake if either are used incorrectly

So, when you plant a tree (remember the planting season runs until mid-March) about the first question  you should ask is “Will that tree need staking?”

And here are the reasons why it might.  Your tree:

  • is going to be planted in a windy spot
  • will be planted in loose or thin soil and will fall over unless it is steadied while its roots grow
  • is a 6/8 cm standard or larger which will make it relatively top heavy or tall when compared to its roots (this is often the case with bare root standards)
  • might be an obstruction to people, bicycles, vandals, whatever and so could get knocked over (before it knocks them over…)

If any of the above apply, then staking will help while your tree grows the rootsystem it needs to “stand on its own two feet”. A stake has outlasted its purpose if it has been supporting the tree for more than two years, and 12-18 months is better.

So much for whether a tree needs a stake or not.  What about the tie?

Well, if you think about what a tree does when the wind blows hard, it bends, or sways.  The top is blown the furthest and the trunk bends from the ground up, acting as a shock absorber.  The tie must therefore NOT be three things.

It must not be:

  • too far up the trunk, otherwise the trunk can’t do its shock absorber thing, and
  • too tight, otherwise the bark can be damaged, disease can enter through the wound, nutrients do not flow properly and so on.
  • made out of thin hard material – no wire, string or rope here. Use buckle and strap ties or elastic tie fabric only

Relax and watch you plants grow!

Hawthorn Hedge Planting – Tip 1

by
1

A lot of people will tell you to spray the weeds off before planting a hawthorn hedge.

Don’t bother. Use woven polypropylene weed prevention fabric instead. Cut the undergrowth short, put the fabric down where you want to plant the hedge and weigh it down with stones. If you want to be really tidy, push a strip about 2″ (5cms) wide of the fabric into the soil with a spade down each edge and at both ends (there is a good film on how to plant a native hedge on our site).

You slit the fabric where you want your hawthorn plants and plant as normal. No weedkillers, no regrowth. And no need to water as it acts as a mulch as well. Over the 2-3 years it takes your hedge to establish this is an amazing labour saver and will cost you less than the weedkiller bill over the same time.

And, if you need them, we can supply the hawthorn hedging plants too….

Sit back and watch your hedge grow. Enjoy.

Escallonia – A Winter Surprise

by
11

Everyone knows that Escallonia gets badly frostbitten. Every book says that Escallonia is a tender hedge plant. Every list of plants that “only grow in the south-west” (it used to be “in the Scillies”) contains Escallonia.
I even read an article in a reputable gardening magazine that suggested you cover your escallonia with horticultural fleece. So you would think that the recent freeze would have made your escallonia red raw with cold.

I’m going to argue with the books on this.  We are in Somerset, it’s true. All the same:
The temperature dropped to -11C this winter and there was plenty of windchill for long periods.
A 2.5 metre escallonia hedge near us, used as a windbreak, showed bronzing of a few leaves but apart from that it looked great.
We are on fairly heavy soil, but we are on a sloped valley and the drainage is good.

By way of supporting evidence, the smaller escallonia hedge plants here on the nursery (which is 300 feet higher above sea level than home) are looking fantastic. Not a brown leaf amongst them.
These plants are being pot grown outdoors, so they have perfect drainage year round.

So we say that Escallonia is pretty hardy, it’s more the damp that it hates.

You can find our strongly-suspected-to-be-frost-hardy escallonia hedge plants here.

Watch your garden grow and enjoy.