Winter Scent - can't beat Lonicera fragrantissima!

The other day, I was talking about Daphne, and how they bring scent into the garden during the depths of winter.

Well, I should also mention one of my favourite scented shrubs, and that's Lonicera fragrantissima, a wonderful name which just rolls off the tongue!  I am never quite sure if Lonicera is Lonny-sarah, or Lo-Nisser-er... but for this shrub, I definitely go for Lo-Nisser-er, so that it rhymes with fragrantissima...

However you pronounce it, the name really gives you a clue as to its Unique Selling Point - it's fragrant! Very fragrant indeed, but now overpoweringly whiffy: in fact, it's quite elusive, and on a cold morning, you  might think that there is no smell at all... but suddenly, as you turn your head, ah! there it is. 

So what is this guy?

So what is this plant?

If you're not familiar with this one, it's in the same family as Lonicera nitida - the thuggish, evergreen shrub which looks like Box but is fast-growing, suckering, and generally badly-behaved - and Lonicera japonica, or Japanese Honeysuckle, which is the familiar scented climber in our gardens. 

It's a sort of combination of the two - a shrub, but with scented flowers. Best of all, instead of wasting them in summer, competing with all the others, it produces the flowers in winter, as though to lure us out of doors on still, cold days.

Left to its own devices, it will form a rather untidy, loose shrub, which looks - well, let's be honest, it's nothing special in the foliage department, so for most of the year it does not really contribute much to the garden.

But in winter....

Here's one in one of "my" gardens, last week: in glorious full flower!

When I say "last week", for anyone who arrived here in the future and didn't look at the date of the post, it's late Feb/early March, ie still very much in the grip of winter.

Yet here it is, like the Daphne, flowering its socks off, and exuding a wonderful perfume over that part of the garden.

Not a leaf to be seen, but lots of flowers!

As with the Daphne, the standard recommendation is to plant one near to a door, or beside the path, ie in a position where you are likely to walk past it on a winter's day. There's no point tucking it down at the far end of the garden: no, put it up by the house.

Here - right - is another one, which I planted on the main steps down to the front door (not my front door, alas, that of one of "my" gardens), so that the owners would get the benefit every time they walked in or out of the house.

As it's next to the steps, I have pruned it into a semi-standard, ie mostly one single stem, with an explosion of foliage at the top.

Not religiously, not too formal: but I wanted to keep it clear of the path, and this shape meant it was easy to keep it down to a reasonable size. It also puts the majority of the flowers at just under head height, which is perfect for perfume-sniffing!

Looking after these shrubs is really easy: once the flowers have finished, and the leaves are starting to grow, I just prune the whole thing back by a foot or so, err, that's 30cm for you youngsters, or by however much it's grown in the previous year. 

My aim is to keep it more or less to the same size: if they get too big, they get top-heavy, and you certainly get more flowers if you prune them every year, but it's important to do this pruning fairly soon after they've finished flowering.

 And in case you are wondering what they do for the rest of the year... well, as I said, not much really, just some green foliage.

Left - this is the same one as in the first photo, but from a slightly different angle, showing the underplanting of Bearded Iris.

Which is another perfectly valid reason for shaping them, into the "standard" or semi-standard form, because then, even in summer, they are still moderately interesting to look at - and by reducing the bulk at ground level, you gain a planting opportunity at their feet.

And we do enjoy getting an extra planting opportunity!

Did you enjoy this article? Did you find it useful? Would you like me to answer your own, personal, gardening question? Become a Patron - just click here - and support me! Or use the Donate button for a one-off donation. If just 10% of my visitors gave me a pound a month, I'd be able to spend a lot more time answering all the questions!!

The oddities of the Micro-climate

One of my students asked me, the other day, what exactly was meant by the term "micro-climate".

It's a good question: this is a phrase which crops up in all the gardening books and articles, and yet it's rarely explained.

We all know what climate is, even though it's very hard to define it exactly: "errr, it means the outdoor conditions which occur where we live, and which vary from season to season but which are more or less predictable".

Here in the UK, for example, our climate is temperate, which means "not too cold (we get occasional freezing weather for a week or two, but we don't have permafrost and regularly get snowed in for weeks), not too hot (we have the occasional "phew, what a scorcher" but we don't live in a barren desert with nothing but sand dunes), pretty wet (but we don't get monsoons that sweep away the soil), but sometimes very dry (again, not deserts, though)."  Although that description is verging towards "weather" rather than "climate".

And if you are not sure of the difference -  "Climate is, but weather might be".

So, if it's raining one day, and sunny the next, that's the weather: but overall, we have a climate which is generally fairly stable and predictable: it gets colder in winter, it gets hotter in summer.

Within our own gardens, we all know that the north-facing side is going to be shady, damper, and colder than elsewhere in the garden. The south-facing side is going to get a lot more sun - so having a south-facing garden is often seen as a benefit when selling a house. East-facing gets the morning sun, and west-facing gets the evening sun.

So we all understand how the "climate" within our gardens varies according to things like which way it faces.

So what's a micro-climate, then?

Answer, it's the same type of variability, but on a very much smaller scale.

For instance, here's a lovely example: in one of "my" gardens, we have a wooden arch with climbers, at the base of each side we have an edged raised planter, containing a climbing rose. As these beds are a bit bare in winter, we moved a load of winter-flowering cyclamen from elsewhere in the garden. 

The situation, or location, would appear to be identical: the arch and the planters were built at the same time, using the same materials, the same soil to fill the boxes: two matching roses were planted.

The cyclamen came from the other side of the garden: a huge clump of them, somewhat overshadowed by other planting, and which we agreed would be just the thing for the planters. 

I divided them roughly into half, and planted up the two boxes: again, same soil, same plants, same time of year, same growing conditions, both equally watered.

So the cyclamen should flower equally well, shouldn't they?

And yet.... here's the right-hand one:

...and here's the left-hand one.

Quite a difference, as you can see!

One is flowering like a trooper, but the other, while making a good showing of leaves, had only a few flowers.

And the reason for this is micro-climate.

There are subtle differences between the two planters, even though they are only the width of the arch apart.

One is closer to the side fence, so it's just a little bit shadier.

One is more sheltered than the other: the presence of an outhouse to the left creates a wind-tunnel, so the less-sheltered one will be very slightly drier than the other.

One is surrounded by grass, one has a narrow paved path in front of it: so rain will tend to run off the paving and into the bed on that side, rather then being absorbed straight down, as it were, into the grass. This means that one planter will get slightly more rain than the other.

And so it goes: there are many small differences of this type, all of which add up to different micro-climates in areas which may be situated quite close together, yet where plants show differing rates of success. 

This isn't a problem, as such: in fact, the presence of micro-climates means that we can nearly always find "just the right place" for a particular plant; if a plant isn't doing well, dig it up and plant it elsewhere in the garden, until you find that spot where it flourishes.

As lovely Mr Bob Flowerdew used to say: "If a plant isn't doin' well, give it a roide in the wheelbarrer/"  

Or, to put it another way - find it the micro-climate that it needs!

Did you enjoy this article? Did you find it useful? Would you like me to answer your own, personal, gardening question? Become a Patron - just click here - and support me! Or use the Donate button for a one-off donation. If just 10% of my visitors gave me a pound a month, I'd be able to spend a lot more time answering all the questions!!

Early signs of spring - Rhubarb!

Some people praise snowdrops for being the first sign of spring... personally, I think they come out while we are still definitely and clearly in "winter".

Then there are Peony buds: but no, they come out way too early.

This photo - left - was taken in December, just before Christmas in fact: and that is most definitely still in winter.

Others sigh happily at the sight of a daffodil: ok, I'm prepared to admit that the emergence of the daffs does usually coincide with a move towards milder weather.

Although they usually don't achieve full beauty until April.... which is what I would call mid-spring. 

Whereas I am looking for the early signs of spring - you know, when it really isn't spring yet, but you get that feeling that it isn't far away...

And then today I saw a sight to lift the heart:

Rhubarb!

Yes, the Rhubarb is starting to swell, and honestly, this photo does not do them justice, they were like shiny, glowing, ruby-red buds, just the thing, on an otherwise rather grey and gloomy day, to lift the heart.

And mine was, indeed lifted!

I'm not a huge fan of rhubarb as a foodstuff, personally: I inherited a large patch when I took over my allotment, and I did rather resent the amount of space it took up, bearing in mind that you can't eat the stuff unless you add a lot of sugar to it when cooking, and I would rather grow apples, or plums, or pears, none of which require cooking, and none of which require added sugar.

Which does rather make you wonder about who first noticed that rhubarb became palatable when sweetened... and also, how long did it take these gastromically adventurous ancestors of ours, to work out that although the stems were edible - subject to the addition of sweetening - the leaves are actually poisonous...

Oh, didn't you know that? Yes, Rhubarb leaves are quite poisonous, although it's ok to put them on the compost heap, because the oxalic acid they contain will quickly dissipate, during the decomposition process.

And, if truth were known, they are not that poisonous: for a start, oxalic acid is "toxic" rather than "poisonous", which means that it won't kill you in itself: instead, it harms us by binding to calcium, which in smaller amounts leads to kidney stones, and in larger amounts, eventually leads to death. 

Secondly, you'd have to eat an awful lot of it to become ill: Chard and spinach contain more oxalic acid than rhubarb leaves do - they contain 700 and 600 mg/100g respectively, whereas rhubarb leaves contain 500mg/100g. 

Apparently, this reputation for being a killer goes back to the first World War, when it was being recommended as an alternative (and prolifically available) foodstuff, and at least one person died from eating it. Which doesn't seem like much of a basis for such a reputation, does it?

But to get back to the plot: regardless of the taste, and the alleged lethal capabilities, it's still a job to see those fat, red buds starting to show, on a dull March morning!

 

 Did you enjoy this article? Did you find it useful? Would you like me to answer your own, personal, gardening question? Become a Patron - just click here - and support me! Or use the Donate button for a one-off donation. If just 10% of my visitors gave me a pound a month, I'd be able to spend a lot more time answering all the questions!!

Codominant stems on trees: why they are bad. And good!

I came across this example of a co-dominant stem, while out walking the other day, and I thought I'd share it with you, partly because it's lovely in itself, and partly because it has a relevance to garden trees.

Here it is: 

... and hopefully you can see for yourselves what "co-dominant" means, even if you've never heard the word before.

Instead of the tree having one central stem, with branches growing out on all sides, it has two stems of very much the same size.

Usually, they grow side by side, and this is disastrous for the tree, because it causes a weak spot in the trunk, where the two stems originate.

Eventually, either one stem will break off, or the whole tree will split into two, which usually causes the death of the tree.

So if you plant new trees in your garden, you should always check, over the first few years, that they growing "properly", with one main trunk. And if you spot them deviating from this, you will need to prune out the lesser of the two stems, to allow the remaining stem to take over and become the "leader".

Unless it's a multi-stemmed Birch or similar, of course! 

In the case of the photo above, because it is a windswept position, the left hand stem was blown to the right of the - presumably - original main stem. Then, in a less windy phase, it grew back towards the sun, resulting in this interesting twining.

Such close contact has caused grafting, where the two stems "stick" together, so this particular tree will probably survive perfectly well: the grafted stem will be as thick, and nearly as strong, as if it had been just one proper trunk.

And the relevance to garden trees? If you have trees in your garden, don't let them start this game... unless you want to deliberately grow a tree with a decorative, twining stem. But be warned, it can take years before you see the result!

Did you enjoy this article? Did you find it useful? Would you like me to answer your own, personal, gardening question? Become a Patron - just click here - and support me! Or use the Donate button for a one-off donation. If just 10% of my visitors gave me a pound a month, I'd be able to spend a lot more time answering all the questions!!

Epimedium - why is it so under-rated?

There are some garden plants that simply everyone has in their garden...what you might call the "usual suspects" which may sound a bit disparaging, but actually it's a compliment: it means they thrive in that particular area, are easy to grow, don't suffer from excessive pests and diseases, and are pleasing to the eye.

Then there are some which are quite rare, but usually for good reason, ie they're difficult to grow.

And then we have the oddities: plants which are fully hardy, easy to grow, lovely, but which - for some reason - are not terribly popular.

In the herbaceous perennial department, that would be Epimedium: I pronounce it exactly as it looks, ie Eppy-medium.  It is a low-growing, slowly-spreading perennial, with interesting heart-shaped semi-evergreen leaves through the summer, and beautiful little flowers in late spring.

Here's my own one, right: squeezed into what I call the Narrow Border. This photo was taken in May of last year, and as you can see, it's a nice neat mound of heart-shaped leaves, fresh and green.

OK, not heart-stoppingly gorgeous, but perfectly acceptable, and very well behaved.

At this time of year - March - the leaves  need to be cut back, hard, because the flowers are forming.

 

Now, I think that this might be at the root of the problem for this plant, because the leaves don't go brown, which would indicate that they have served their purpose and can be taken off and given a decent burial in the compost heap.

Instead, they take on these interesting shades of coppery/bronze.

So interesting, in fact, that people don't realise that it's time to remove them.

Why this urge to remove them, then? I hear you asking.

The reason is that the flowers of this plant are a bit on the elusive side: their stems are just a wee bit shorter than the wiry stems of these old leaves. 

So if you never remove these old leaves, you may well not realise that it's a flowering plant at all!

In fact, you have to choose between foliage and flowers.... here's mine, again, in my own tiny garden:
 

I took off all the leaves, cutting their stems right down to the ground.

This left it looking rather sad and bare, but a fortnight later, you can see there are now a mass of tiny yellow flowers.

But no leaves.

New leaves appear in no time, though: here's the same plant, another fortnight later:

 

So there you have it, Epimedium - rather like Happy Medium, I always think - is a neat, interesting little plant, which will spread to form tidy mounds, without swamping the bed or taking over the garden.

But you do need to apply a firm hand, with the secateurs, in mid to late winter, otherwise you won't be able to see the flowers when they appear, as they will be lower than the canopy of leaves.

And that, I suspect, is why so few people have this plant in their garden!

Did you enjoy this article? Did you find it useful? Would you like me to answer your own, personal, gardening question? Become a Patron - just click here - and support me! Or use the Donate button for a one-off donation. If just 10% of my visitors gave me a pound a month, I'd be able to spend a lot more time answering all the questions!!

Daphne odora - fragrant, but sometimes less than spectacular

Whenever someone asks a question about scent in the garden, the same names are always suggested: and one of them is Daphne. There are many species of Daphne, one of the most scented being Daphne odora: one of those nice, 'obvious' names which tells you that it has an 'odour'.

The books (and now, "the internet") always say the same sort of thing: sweetly scented, very fragrant: "so plant them near to the path or the door, so that you get the benefit".

What they fail to mention is that they are not fully hardy, they don't like being waterlogged, or drying out: they don't like sandy soils, they don't like being moved, they are not that keen on being pruned, they don't do well in pots at all: in fact, they are quite fussy!

They are expensive to buy, because they are slow-growing, and difficult to propagate - although some of them will set seed quite prolifically. 

I had a Daphne mezereum, in one of "my" gardens, which refused to be propagated by cuttings, but seedlings would pop up all over the garden. 

Yes, I would go round every month or so, and carefully weed out, take home, and pot up all the babies... it was ironic that we couldn't get any cuttings to "take" from the parent plant, but we were over-run with seedlings.

Here is a batch of them - left - and these little things are four years old.

So perhaps you can appreciate how long it takes to grow a saleable plant, and why they are so expensive!

This one is Daphne odora, photo taken one April:

 

As you can see, it's lush: covered in fresh, green foliage, and there are even a few flowers still on it.

Lovely, isn't it?

Here it is, the same plant, the following March, at the tail end of a long, wet, dark, miserable winter: 

Kinda sparse!

It was like this every year, not matter whether I fed it or not: but the scent was extraordinary, even with so few - comparatively - flowers.

Going back to that comment earlier about the advice to not prune them: you can see why, the few flowers that we have are all pretty much at the tips of the branches. So if we pruned the plant, we'd lose most of the flower.

Also, because they are so slow-growing - this one is about seven years planted, and it was probably at least four years old before being planted - if you were to prune them, they would take a long time to grow back to the size they were. 

Ideal for a small garden, of course! 

They are nice in a pot, here's one which I had for many years in my own garden, until someone made me an offer for it....

 

Daphne x burkwoodii - right - is reputed to be one of the hardier Daphnes,  although it has quirks of its own: it has a habit of dropping its leaves in the middle of summer...which can be a bit unsettling, because it looks as though it's dying, just when everything else is in full glory. 

However, hang on until late winter and here it is - tra laaaa! - flowering and scented, and earning it's keep.

And yes, it's planted by the gate, so that you get the benefit every time you walk in or out - perfect positioning.

And finally, a word of warning: all parts of most of the Daphne - leaf, bark, fruit - contain toxic compounds, so don't eat it!

Did you enjoy this article? Did you find it useful? Would you like me to answer your own, personal, gardening question? Become a Patron - just click here - and support me! Or use the Donate button for a one-off donation. If just 10% of my visitors gave me a pound a month, I'd be able to spend a lot more time answering all the questions!!

Why are my Iris leaves pleated?

Yes, you read that correctly - pleated!

Here are some emerging Iris leaves, and this is from a fortnight ago,  so we're talking late February, which is end-of-winter heading into early-spring.

Several of the leaves showed this strange accordion pleating.

Not all of them, just a few of them.

Weird, huh?

I did some internet research, and there was a not of information on the subject: but when I consulted my fellow self-employed gardeners, quite a few of them had observed this phenomenon.

But no-one really knew what causes it.

My initial assumption was that the leaf had become temporarily trapped, while emerging: I find this sometimes, on roses and on peonies: if we've had some wet weather, the outer layers can become mushy, then they dry to form a papier-mache skin, which prevents the flower from opening.

Sometimes, if you catch it early enough, and pull the outer layers off, then the flower will open normally: but sometimes the whole bud rots inside the papery outer layer, and is ruined. Ruined! (*laughs*)  (and if you are wondering why that makes me laugh, it's because I always say the second "ruined" in the style of Kenneth Williams.)

So when I saw these pleated leaves, I assumed it might be something similar - but of course, as soon as I thought about it, I realised that no, it can't be that, otherwise it would be the tip of the leaf which was pleated, not the middle section.

Some of my fellow gardeners thought it was do with water - either too much of it, or not enough of it, at a critical point of development.

Some others thought it was to do with temperature changes, and I did find one reference on the internet to this being caused by a sudden onset of hot dry weather: but the site in question was not a scientific site, and - bearing in mind that it's mid February - I don't really think that we've had any hot weather lately!

The pleated leaves don't seem to be harmed in any way other than cosmetically: they are still green, they are photosynthesising, they just look a bit weird. I suppose I would suggest that, if these leaves are not pleasing to your eye, just cut them out at the base and don't worry about them.

This means that my answer to the question "Why are my Iris leaves pleated?" is "I'm afraid I don't know!"

Did you enjoy this article? Did you find it useful? Would you like me to answer your own, personal, gardening question? Become a Patron - just click here - and support me! Or use the Donate button for a one-off donation. If just 10% of my visitors gave me a pound a month, I'd be able to spend a lot more time answering all the questions!!

Who cares about Snowdrops, it's Crocus time!!

Hahaha, only joking! 

I love Snowdrops (although my utter favourite are the Winter Aconites, Eranthis hyamelis), but today it's time to say hello to -  errr, Croci? Crocuses? What's the plural of Crocus, someone?

Anyway, regardless of what we call them, it's crocus time, and here's a clump of them from one of "my" gardens:

Aren't they lovely?

Mrs Client was somewhat mystified as to the state of the crocuses - yes, I think we'll go with "crocuses" - on the main lawn, because they were all lying on their sides, utterly flattened.

Unlike this lot, which were standing up, proudly.

"I don't understand it," Mrs Client said, "We thought that ours were all flattened because our doggo runs around all over the lawn, but we were visiting some dog-free friends, and theirs were exactly the same."

I asked if the crocuses on the friend's lawn were, like hers, mostly single flowers, or were they in clumps, like the ones in this photo.

"Oh, just like ours, all single ones," she replied.

Well, there's the answer: Crocuses are delicate, tender little things, and when growing singly, they just can't stand up to any degree of punishment, whether it's dogs running around on them, wind blowing them over, or frost causing them to sag over sideways.

Single crocuses - usually found in a lawn, but not always - are the result of  natural seeding, where an individual seed creates an individual plant.

Big tough clumps not only look better, but the stems can support each other - not against dog trampling, admittedly, but against wind and frost.

Clumps are normally planted, or at least they start off as a planted clump: you get a much better density of colour when they are grouped together like this, and because the stems are closely packed, quite a lot of the seeds will fall between the stems, rather than being blown away on the wind, so over time, the clump will get thicker and thicker.

Eventually, there will come a time when the clump may need to be lifted and split, but not for many years.

Meanwhile, what of those rather forlorn individual crocuses in the lawn? Well, eventually they will create a swathe, rather than a clump, which will be lovely to behold: another of "my" gardens has a wonderful swathe of golden yellow crocuses, under a very old Apple tree, and although they are individual plants, rather than a clump, the effect is magnificent. 

Also, because they are older plants, each individual stem is stronger than those in the "flattened crocus" garden. I happen to know that the flattened ones are young plants, because I've been there four years, and when I started there, the lawn was just grass, not a single wildflower or bulb in it. Since we stopped mowing the grass (we just cut curving grassy paths) and started encouraging wild flowers, the crocuses - which, presumably, were mown off before they had a chance to grow - have started to spread out across the area.

And a final comment - yes, it's a bit sad to see flattened crocuses, but in some ways, I like them for this weakness: it's a bit like cherry tree blossom, we enjoy it all the more because it is so ephemeral, it lasts such a short time.

So let;s all enjoy our crocuses, while we can!

Did you enjoy this article? Did you find it useful? Would you like me to answer your own, personal, gardening question? Become a Patron - just click here - and support me! Or use the Donate button for a one-off donation. If just 10% of my visitors gave me a pound a month, I'd be able to spend a lot more time answering all the questions!!

Kilmarnock Willow and the Behaviour of the Roots

Aha!

Today we have a NEW question about Kilmarnock willows!

I'm all excited about this, because usually I get the same old questions, and I just refer the enquirer to this site, and suggest they type the word "Kilmarnock" into the Search box - top left of the screen - to find all the information they could possibly want on the subject.

But today, all change, we have a NEW question!!

Well done, Matt.

Matt's question concerns the roots of a Salix 'Kilmarnock'.  He asks what the general rule is with the classic "willow seeks water, busts drains to get it" routine, with regards this species.

He continues - and this is the exciting "new questions" part -  "I get that its a grafted rootstock man-made thing, so I'm guessing its not like a proper willow as, effectively, the base is different but have you pulled any of these out and seen how large and/or invasive the roots tend to be, or do you know if they're fine around drains in general?

Oddly enough, the fact that they are grafted actually DOES mean that they are like a proper willow: the upper part is the "fancy" weeping part, the lovely part, the small and dainty part: but the rootstock is common old Grey Willow, Salix caprea, which is indeed a "proper" willow, and which will turn into a full sized tree, given half a chance.  

(For more information on what constitutes "half a chance", and how to prevent it, just check any of the many other articles about Salix 'Kilmarnock', which you can find by typing Kilmarnock into the search box, top left of the screen.)

 Part one of my answer for Matt is therefore this - here's what I said in one of my many posts on the subject: 

1) Roots. It is always wise to consider roots, when planting trees. Willows in particular have a reputation for invading drains, in their search for water, so it's never a good idea - generally speaking - to plant any sort of willow too close to a house, or a building of any sort. 

Salix Kilmarnock is a bit of an oddity in this respect: because it is a grafted tree, and the upper part is very small (compared to a "natural" willow), the roots don't need to grow to full size to support it, so they can be planted in, for example, small front gardens. However, if you read some of those other articles I've written, you'll learn that one of the problems with grafted trees (indeed, with any grafted plant) is that of "reversion", where the rootstock sends out new growth which, if unchecked, can take over the whole plant. 

So, a case could be made that it is never "safe" to plant any sort of willow tree too close to a house, just in case the owner fails to notice it trying to revert, until it has grown into a proper tree and possibly damaged their drains.

And part two of the answer - have I ever dug one up, and if so, how big were the roots? Well, that's the truly interesting question, and the answer is no, I've never personally dug one up. I've recommended it a few times ... (*laughs*)

I've thrown out a couple which were in pots, but that does not really answer Matt's question, as the pots themselves were restricting the roots.

In several cases, I've seen trees in pots - not just Kilmarnock, all sorts of trees in pots - escaping by pushing a root through the drainage hole(s), which then roots itself into the ground. These roots can become quite substantial, but they will never compete with the roots of a tree which is freely planted in the ground.

One final aspect to consider is that trees tend to form roots which are proportional to the size of the tree: so a "big" tree will have a "big" establishment of roots. A Salix Kilmarnock will be, to some extent "dwarfed" because the upper growth is not as extensive as it would be, if it were not a grafted tree.

So a small Kilmarnock in your garden should not grow anything like the extensive amount of roots that it would, if it hadn't had the top cut off and some weeping branches grafted on.

BUT!

It is still a willow, and it will still have the capacity for growing.

So I stick by my advice in the section reproduced above: "it's never a good idea - generally speaking - to plant any sort of willow too close to a house, or a building of any sort".

If you plant a Kilmarnock in your front garden, and if you keep a careful eye on it for ever more, and if you don't ever let it revert... then your drains SHOULD be ok. 

But I take no responsibility for this comment, whatsoever!!

Did you enjoy this article? Did you find it useful? Would you like me to answer your own, personal, gardening question? Become a Patron - just click here - and support me! Or use the Donate button for a one-off donation. If just 10% of my visitors gave me a pound a month, I'd be able to spend a lot more time answering all the questions!!