This post is a bit late for getting in a February trim, but since the weather has been fresh and plants slow to wake up, we got away with it. Our school of thought on clipping Lavender is to do it twice a year: The first trim needs to be done by early March. This… Continue reading Trim Lavender Around Late February / March
Tag: Pruning
Cutting A Chamfer Into Your Hedge When Trimming
An angled cut along the top corner of a hedge lets more light in
How to Say Coppice and Coppicing
The managed woodland is a copse (coppice), the pruning action is to coppice
Get As Many Fruit Varieties As Possible From A Small Area
Cordon apples & pears are even better suited to grafting than freestanding trees
Trimming Country Hedge Season & Cycle
Unlike garden hedges, country hedges are typically trimmed every 2-3 years
Formative Pruning New Hedges
Pruning Young Hedges While Growing to Mature Size Formative pruning of a new hedge is handled differently from trimming a mature hedge. Because you want your new hedge to reach the desired height, the general aim is to remove the tips of the stems all over the plant once a year, maybe twice for vigorous evergreens. Deciduous Hedges Evergreen Broadleaf Hedges Evergreen Conifer… Continue reading Formative Pruning New Hedges
How to Trim a Garden Hedge
Trimming a Hedge Means Mature Hedge: Cut off practically all the new growth (less than a year old), in order to keep a mature hedge at the desired size. It’s like shaving back to the same line every time. New Hedge: Cut off the tips of all the shoots, pruning back thin or straggly stems, to maintain bushy growth while… Continue reading How to Trim a Garden Hedge
Cutting Back A Pyracantha Hedge Hard
Pyracantha, like almost any broadleaf, hardwood hedge plant, can be hard pruned as needed to reduce its size and keep it tidy. In this video, we take the opportunity to show training it against a fence as well. You will need a good pair of secateurs, leather gloves, pruning saw or loppers and some garden… Continue reading Cutting Back A Pyracantha Hedge Hard
Trimming & Hard Pruning Yew Hedges
Best Time to Trim Yew Hedges To keep a mature yew hedge tidy with only one cut per year, the ideal time is September-October. How to Prune a Yew Hedge You do need to clip yew plants to make them bushy – shortening side branches causes them to produce the twiggy growths that help make a… Continue reading Trimming & Hard Pruning Yew Hedges
Pruning New Fruit Trees
Formative pruning of new, freestanding fruit trees, starts with either unbranched Maidens, or young Bushes or Half Standards with a further year’s branch development. Pruning A Maiden Fruit Tree “Open Centre” These videos apply equally to new fruit trees containing pips like apples and pears, and those containing stones, like plum and cherry, being grown as “ordinary trees”. There are… Continue reading Pruning New Fruit Trees
Pruning Tip Bearing Apple Trees
Most Apples are spur bearing; partial tips are like spurs Most apples and pears are spur bearing: they are pruned “normally”, and are suitable for cordons and espaliers. Partial tip-bearers have spurs too, and are pruned about the same way, a bit less often. Few Apples are true tip bearers Pruning Tip Bearers VS Spur… Continue reading Pruning Tip Bearing Apple Trees
Pruning Plum Trees In The UK
The Best Plum Tree Pruning Videos Plums are vigorous trees and respond well to pruning. If they are not pruned, they quickly get tangled and less productive, often with branches breaking under heavy crops. By watching several big plum growers expertly handle their wood, you can improve your plum wood handling at home. Pruning a… Continue reading Pruning Plum Trees In The UK
Growing Cordon Fruit Trees
Cordons are compact wire trained fruit trees, usually apple or pear
Building Wire Supports To Grow Fruit On Walls, Fences & Posts
How to start training fruit trees on wires These instructions apply to fixing wires to existing fences or walls for training maiden fruit trees into cordon, espalier, fan, and sometimes “step-over” shapes.Some nurseries sell some of those shapes in a starter form, lashed to a bamboo frame, for reasonables. At Ashridge we stick to the core forms:… Continue reading Building Wire Supports To Grow Fruit On Walls, Fences & Posts
Hedgelaying in the UK
Hedgelaying Services & Grants What is Hedgelaying? For those who don’t know, asking a farmer is a sensible place to start: Hedge laying is the art of rejuvenating a hedge to keep it solid and stockproof. How to Lay an English Country Hedge The National Hedgelaying Society has records of over 30 hedgelaying styles, the eleven most common… Continue reading Hedgelaying in the UK
How To Grow ‘Brown Turkey’ Figs
The most popular fig variety in the UK for getting fruit from is the ‘Brown Turkey’ fig.The instructions for ‘Brown Turkey’ apply to other figs, such as the wild species Ficus carica, but those are more commonly grown as ornamental trees.The dwarf variety, ‘Little Miss Figgy‘, is different: very slow growing and requires little pruning. How… Continue reading How To Grow ‘Brown Turkey’ Figs
How To Pleach A Flat-Head Lime Tree
How to pleach a flat-headed Lime tree Pleaching trees creates a “hedge on stilts”. Many trees are suitable, and limes are ideal pleached subjects: VIDEO TRANSCRIPT So, I'm going to show you how to pleach a lime tree, which are useful for aerial hedges to fill in a gap above a wall or to screen… Continue reading How To Pleach A Flat-Head Lime Tree
Pruning A Crab apple Tree
When to Prune Crab Apple Trees This video demonstrates a crab apple tree, and the same principles apply to a lot of other deciduous trees. But do not worry if you have to prune at some other time of year! Crab apples, like most garden trees, are extremely tough, and nothing bad will happen if you prune… Continue reading Pruning A Crab apple Tree
Deadhead Repeat Flowering Roses
How to Deadhead a Repeating Rose Bush, With Some Summer Pruning In this example, we are using the vigorous, repeat flowering rambler, Narrow Waters, but the principle applies to most roses that require deadheading, which means most roses that are popular today! Deadheading back to a breaking bud gives the rose a head start on re-flowering. Do I Deadhead… Continue reading Deadhead Repeat Flowering Roses
Pruning & Trimming Bush Roses
Climbing roses are pruned differently, into a framework of long, ideally winding canes that cover its supports. How to Prune Rose Bushes Pruning increases flower production and keeps your roses tidy. It is easy, although we recommend a nice pair of goatskin gloves! For best results, different roses are treated in slightly different ways, but it is far better to… Continue reading Pruning & Trimming Bush Roses
Pruning A Climbing Rose
Climbing roses have a different regime than pruning rose bushes. They are not really true climbers, meaning they don’t twine like Honeysuckle or stick like Ivy. With a little guidance to start them off, they will scramble up through a tree or large shrub, but mostly you must tie them onto sturdy support wires against a building, wall, or trellis. You… Continue reading Pruning A Climbing Rose
How to Grow Blackcurrant Bushes
How to Grow Blackcurrants Bushes Blackcurrants are simple to grow, and the pruning regime is a bit different from pruning Red & Whitecurrants. Currants are one of the few soft fruit bushes to like damp soil next to water, and they respond to dappled shade by making smaller crops rather than inferior fruit. Along with their close relatives gooseberries,… Continue reading How to Grow Blackcurrant Bushes
Pruning Gooseberries & Red/White Currants
Gooseberry bushes are pruned almost exactly the same way as Red & Whitecurrant bushes. Pruning is so important for getting good crops of well-developed fruit. The difference between pruning a Gooseberry Bush, and Red or Whitecurrants Gooseberry bushes are pruned the same as Red or Whitecurrants, with one detail different. Pruning as An Open Centred… Continue reading Pruning Gooseberries & Red/White Currants
How to Train & Prune Blackberry Bushes
Blackberry bushes are easy to cut back, this page is not here to overcomplicate things. It’s just a matter of choosing what works for your garden: a bushy, natural style, a quite tidy trellis, or a very tidy trellis! How Blackberry Canes Grow The base of a blackberry is a woody crown just above ground… Continue reading How to Train & Prune Blackberry Bushes
How to Prune Wisteria
January-February is the ideal time to prune your Wisteria – have you?
How to Cut Back Lavender Hard In Late Summer / Early Autumn
August or September is the best time to hard prune Lavender for great flowers the following year Late August is the absolute best time to prune your Lavender plants, when the final flush of flowers has died down.September is also fine, but it’s best not to leave it later, or you will get sparser flowers… Continue reading How to Cut Back Lavender Hard In Late Summer / Early Autumn
Should I Cut Lavender In Spring Or Autumn?
Lavender should be pruned hard every year to keep it dense, bushy, and covered in flowers during Summer It’s not good to prune your Lavender plants in late Autumn / Winter when it’s not in growth, and if you prune it in Summer you will remove all the flowers, so that leaves either Spring, or late-Summer… Continue reading Should I Cut Lavender In Spring Or Autumn?
Cutting Back Buddleja Bushes in Early Spring
Or: How to Record a Gardening Video Using a Potato I am sorry everyone, really. I genuinely didn’t realise how bad the camera in my potato is: it was a good potato when I bought it second hand down an alleyway ten years ago, so it came as much of a shock to me as… Continue reading Cutting Back Buddleja Bushes in Early Spring
Cutting Back Overgrown Elderflower in a Mixed Hedge
Elderflower, Sambucus nigra, inevitably finds its way into a country hedge sooner or later, and it’s far from unheard of to add it to the mix at planting time. It is suitable for growing as a hedge plant, and is desirable for its flowers and fruit that make elderflower cordial and elderberry syrup respectively. However,… Continue reading Cutting Back Overgrown Elderflower in a Mixed Hedge
Why Steven Edholm’s Fruit Tree Pruning Films are Better Than Ours
As a company, we have invested billions (approximately) in producing nicely edited videos about planting and pruning fruit trees Rodney, local movie star and coincidentally our warehouse manager, has been ogled over a million times on YouTube, where his charisma and acting skills steal the show in our best film work to date, how to… Continue reading Why Steven Edholm’s Fruit Tree Pruning Films are Better Than Ours