Wednesday 1 January 2020

Why is the lawn not full of Cotoneaster seedlings?

Exhibit One, M'lud:

This is the lawn under a spreading Cotoneaster tree - probably C. waterii, I'm not sure.

And just to remind you all (I'm grinning at my current Trainee, who struggles with this one), it's pronounced K'Tony-aster.

Not cotton-easter. K'Tony-Aster.

Every year this K'Tony-Aster  produces hundreds of berries, which blanket the ground underneath the tree - it's partly in a shrubbery, partly overhanging the lawn.

I rake up the berries on the beds with ease, but it's a lot harder to get them out of the lawn, and a lot of them get "squashed" into the grass as people walk over them

So why is this lawn not knee-deep in Cotoneaster seedlings, I wonder?

In fact, I wonder this every year! I have yet to see a single seedling, in the lawn or in the bed,  which seems odd, bearing in mind the sheer volume of them.


There is a Sycamore tree in next door's garden, and every year we have hundreds and hundreds of Sycamore seedlings: they pop up in between the patio slabs, in the beds, in the lawn, everywhere: I regularly spend several hours in early spring just weeding the patio!

So why isn't there an equivalent Cotoneaster  seedling forest?


3 comments:

  1. Or the jokey "Cotton Easter"...

    ReplyDelete
  2. ...but to answer your question see https://www.fs.fed.us/rm/pubs_series/wo/wo_ah727/wo_ah727_442_446.pdf Stratification and weed removal for 5 years are suggested if raising from seed. Passing through the digestive tract of a bird might also help.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thanks, Mal, that's fascinating - I had no idea that K'tony-aster were so hard to propagate, as in other gardens, I do find seedlings popping up all over the place. There's one in particular which is very free-seeding, I must make an effort to identify it. It's not a particularly nice one, certainly not as lovely as this one, it's more of a scruffy upright shrub. Ironic but unsurprising that the desirable one is hard to propagate, and the unlovely one is easy peasy!

      Delete

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