We get hundreds of enquiries a year about growing fruit trees in the UK at altitude and our answers usually start off with something like: “Unfortunately your location sounds beautiful but (from the perspective of fruit trees) terrible. Your site is high up and almost certainly windy given that you are south facing and prevailing… Continue reading Fruit Trees at Altitude
Category: Gardening Tips
Photinia Leaf Spot – Don’t Panic!
Photinia Red Robin makes a really photogenic hedge plant, with blazing red young leaves that can be persuaded to reappear all summer with regular trimming and simple but lovely white flowers. However, just as the most handsome face can be marred by acne, the prettiest Photinia bush can can be disfigured by an unpleasant looking… Continue reading Photinia Leaf Spot – Don’t Panic!
How not to plant a Beech Hedge…
My friend Rachel is a passionate if impatient gardener. Vegetables are really her thing (probably because so many of them are sown and germinate before you get bored). The same, unfortunately cannot be said of her prowess when it came to a beech hedge she planted five years ago. Her mistakes were as follows: 1. She… Continue reading How not to plant a Beech Hedge…
Black Walnut Tree Attacks!
“Could my black walnut trees have killed other plants nearby?” This is a question we often get from people who bought trees and shrubs from us that died when planted near Juglans nigra. When you sell as many plants as we do, this happens sometimes, and we replace them under guarantee, so all is not… Continue reading Black Walnut Tree Attacks!
How to prune Cordon Fruit Trees
This is just about pruning cordons – there is a much longer piece on growing cordon fruit trees if you would like to know more. Cordons should be pruned every year around mid August (i.e. about now). Your cordon is ready for pruning when the new side shoots from the main stem(s) become woody at… Continue reading How to prune Cordon Fruit Trees
What to do with sucking plants?
Some hedging plants and native trees produce suckers (new plants that grow up from the parent plant’s root system). Sometimes this is good – because you want a bushier plant. Rugosa roses make a bushier hedge, for example, because they sucker. Sometimes this is bad – because the sucker is the same as the rootstock, but… Continue reading What to do with sucking plants?
Saving a Tree that is Falling Over
It crossed my mind this morning that we are in August. September is the other month of the equinox (exactly half a year away from Shakespeare’s “Beware the Ides of March”). March and September are the months when the Earth tilts just more than halfway to or from the Sun. So September and March are… Continue reading Saving a Tree that is Falling Over
Dead and Dying Yew Hedges and Trees
Yew has a reputation for being indestructible, and given fair treatment, there are yew trees planted today that will still be alive when mankind is sailing around the solar systems* in fusion powered, garden filled hyper-barges At the same time, Taxus baccata is like any living organism and can die prematurely. Because it is so… Continue reading Dead and Dying Yew Hedges and Trees