Water Newly Planted Trees & Shrubs from Spring Onwards

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A recently planted tree or hedge has two main enemies: weeds and dry soil.

It will take 12-24 months before your plants have grown a new root system that is deep enough to survive on its own. Until then, you are responsible for keeping the soil around them slightly moist and weed free.

Dealing with weeds is straightforward: hoe them down before they can set seed and mulch over them.
For best results, use glyphosate weedkiller well in advance of planting to clear the area and use a mulch fabric from the start to make your life really easy.

Watering is the single most important factor in the success of a new tree or hedge.
You must get to know your own soil, in particular: how fast it drains and how fast it dries out in warm weather.

You can water your plants too much: most plants dislike wet soil.
The aim of frequently watering is to stop the soil drying out in the small area where your plants roots are, not to make a permanent swamp feature!

Please remember that light rainfall onto warm soil won’t do a good job of watering your plants. Only a good few hours of heavy rain counts as a free watering!

How to Test if Your Soil Needs Watering

Scratch and feel: dig down about 3-4 inches into the soil near your plants. If it is dry all the way down, or if it is only a bit damp right at the bottom, it’s definitely time to water. Give your plants a good soaking.

The easiest way to water hedges and rows of trees is with an irrigation system like a leaky pipe, which can be buried out of sight.

Make Your Garden Famous at Excuse the Weeds

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We sometimes raise the idea of getting photos from our customers to show how their plants are doing down the years. We all agree that it’s a good idea and then get back to work.

So it’s a good thing that Excuse the Weeds have made it all possible for us – who said that sitting around talking never got anything done?
You can spend some quiet time scrolling through pics of sumptuous gardens around the world and upload photos of your own garden’s highlights.

An Intimate Portrait of the Inside of a Privet Hedge

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How to Prune a Privet Hedge – Do’s & Don’ts

This Privet hedge had a corner section of it cut off, then a few days later it was trimmed all over and the top was also pruned down a bit.
I took photos after the first pruning and then 8 weeks later:

A vigorous plant like Privet responds well to being hard pruned. Most hedge plants do too, but remember that conifers, which are popular for formal hedging, will not grow back from this sort of pruning.

The Good: By cutting off the top of the hedge, sunlight can reach the new growth.
The Bad: The angle of the side of the hedge is not ideal: the top is wider than the base.

In the photo below, you can see how the top of the hedge leans out and casts shade over the base of the hedge.

This hedge is being trimmed in a top heavy way that will encourage the base to become sparse over time.

This is the wrong angle to cut a hedge - the base should stick out further than the top.

This bare strip was caused by shade from the top of the hedge.

Privet is an easy plant that grows well in shady places, so the bald patch at the base of the hedge here will recover quite fast.
Again, most coniferous hedges will not recover from the base at all, so they must be trimmed to the right shape every year.

The right shape for a hedge is a bit like this: / \
Not at all like this: \ /

Give Lavender its first trim in February or Early March

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This post is a bit late for getting in a February trim, but since the weather hasn’t been great this year we think your Lavender deserves a bit of a rest first (phew, I got away with that one!).

Our school of thought on Lavender clipping is to do it twice a year:

  • A light trim in late February / early March – right about now at the time of posting.
  • A hard trim after flowering, sometime in August.

The first trim needs be done by early March. This is the trim that tidies up your plants for summer and encourages lots of flowers.

Lavender that was planted last year must not be spared!
If it often fine to let a shrub settle in for its first year with little or no trimming, but with Lavender it is essential to trim it young.  This forces it to make lots of leaf buds close to the centre of the plant, which forms a strong base for the future.

The second trim should n0t be left too late. The new growth needs time to harden up before the weather gets cold.
If the weather turns frosty early, it won’t hurt to cover up your plants for the first few frosts to give them a bit more time.

Be ruthless with this August trimming! If Ruth wants to join in, ask her politely to sit this one out.
Trim every stem so that about 2cms (at most) of new growth from the previous year is left. Your plants will look pretty sad when you are finished. They will grow back a bit before the end of autumn and look beautifully neat for winter.

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Topics

Hedging Fruit trees Trees planting Yew Hedge Hawthorn beech lavender apple trees prune lavender plants pruning bush summer hedge winter Watering shrubs