Impossible weeding: Horse Chestnut seedling

I quite enjoy weeding: yes, I know, it's a never-ending job, it's boring, makes your back ache, blah blah, but personally I quite enjoy it.

There is a great feeling of satisfaction when it's done, and you know that by doing it now, you are reducing the problem for yourself, because - within reason - small weeds are easier to remove than big ones.

However, I met my match this week: I was digging out Arum lilies (Arum maculatum, common names include Jack-in-the-pulpit, Lords and Ladies, and, hilariously, Waggling Willies. If you don't know what they look like, that last one won't make sense until you do....) which were infesting a small copse of  Beech trees, and I kept finding Horse Chestnut seedlings.

Hardly surprising, as there was a massive Horse Chestnut tree in the next garden: but they're easy enough to dig out because the squirrels tend to only bury the conker an inch or so below the ground, and once you can get your daisy grubber at conker depth, out they come.

Until I found this one.

OK,  this could be considered a bit of an awkward location: it's in the corner of the close-boarded fence, and there's a beech tree which has been planted way, way too close to the boundary, but apart from that, not a problem, right?

That's what I thought, as I wormed my way into the corner, daisy grubber in hand.

Then I noticed that it was growing up through what appeared to be a cow-pat.

Yum, lovely.

("Not.")

Hang on, what's a cow-pat doing in the very corner of a fenced-in garden?

Oh, urgh, perhaps it's a pile of vomit, maybe they have a dog: or perhaps a cat has been sick in the corner.

Nope.

It was a blob of concrete, left over from whatever cowboy erected the new fences. 

And the seedling was growing right through it.

This is as close as I could get: you can see that there was a hole in the concrete blob - maybe there was a piece of garden debris there, when the builder scraped out his bucket and callously tipped it out onto the garden?

Maybe there was a twig or something which fell into the puddle while it was still soft? And then rotted away, leaving a hole?

However it occurred, there's a hole in the concrete blob ("Dear Liza, dear Liza,") and this pesky Horse Chestnut managed to find its way up through the hole and into daylight.

How on earth should I get that out?

For that matter, would it be possible to get it out?

Umm, no.  

The concrete was as hard as, well, concrete: I couldn't lift it up, it was stuck firmly to the fence and the fence post: and of course there was no chance of just pulling on the seedling, it was firmly rooted underneath.

So, when all else fails, turn to Glyphosate. I asked Mrs Client, and within a few minutes, Mr Client had produced a squirty bottle of weedkiller, and I slithered back on hands and knees, and gave it a generous spritzing, taking care not to overspray onto the Beech stem.

(I'm pretty certain that trees can't absorb weedkiller through their stems, having done not only research on the subject, but a practical experiment, which I wrote about in this article... but I'm not taking any chances!)

Hopefully, in a couple of weeks it will have died, and who knows how long it will be, before another seedling manages to find that exact same hole!!

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Neat planting holes? Or graves?

There are times when I think that I am not as bright as I think I am....

Have you ever finished doing a task in a garden, looked back, and realised that you've made a bit of a blunder?

You know the sort of thing - where you start pruning out dead wood from a shrub then realise there isn't much of it left... (don't look at me like that, we've all done it!)  or where you do the annual prune of something like Dogwood, which needs a firm hand, only to discover that now, the neighbours can see into the garden...or you can see past it to the scruffy compost pens...

Well, I was doing an early-season tidy-up the other day, and as Mr Client was giving the grass the first cut of the year, I followed round with the edgers and tidied up the many planting holes.

Hmmm.

That ain't pretty. The holes are too small, in the further ones: they are not in line with each other, or the path, or anything at all - it's all a bit of a mess.

In fact, it looks almost as though Time Team have been doing exploratory trenches, doesn't it?

Oops!

Perhaps I should suggest that we change the planting holes into nicely rounded ovals, instead of rectangles?

Ah, but Mr Client likes the straight edges, because it's easier to mow along them, than to manoeuvre the mower around and between them.

Or perhaps I should revive my suggestion from two years ago, that we extend the rather narrow shingle path, and create a shingled area, to include all these roses, in their planting holes.

That way, the path will be a lot wider, Mr Client won't have to mow between the roses (which is easy enough at this time of year, but gets very scratchy later in the season) and I'll be able to walk all round the roses to prune them, without having to watch where I put my feet.

All I'll have to do is mark out a nice curving edge to the lawn, on "this" side of the planting holes: lift up the turf, make a firm edging of stones (plenty of those in the garden!) lay down some membrane, shovel a couple of tons of shingle over it, and there it is, done.

Yup, I think that will be my suggestion - widen the path, shingle all around the roses, and no more graves!

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How to: set up your greenhouse ready for spring

It might feel as though spring is a long way off, what with that lovely nip in the air in the mornings, but the daffodils are out, the sun is starting to shine, and the clocks will be going forward any minute now, so now is the time to start getting your greenhouse ready for the growing season.

If you were "good" .... *laughs* ... you will have done all this work last year, as described in this article on cleaning out the greenhouse. 

And it will look something like this one, left.

Everything out, cleaned the glass, swept the floor, lovely!

But if you haven't quite done it yet, no worries, now is the time, so get out there and do now: even if the air is a bit cold, you'll be nice and snug, working inside the greenhouse, and just think how virtuous you will feel afterwards.

Once the greenhouse is emptied, cleaned, swept, and the useful things have been put back neatly, it's time to get your gro-bags ready, and I've written about how to fluff them up, already this year. 

There's nothing worse that pancake flat, rock-hard gro-bags.

Once you've done that, you can put them in position, and I always recommend the addition of some collars, which are these things:

 That - left - is a whole stack of them, and the idea is that you position three of them along a standard gro-bag.

To do this, press them lightly in place - they have serrated bottoms, not enough to cut their way in (well, not without ripping the gro-bag to shreds. Ask me how I know... yes, I tried it once, never again) but enough to leave a ring of small holes.

Using scissors, cut around those holes:

I've shown you all three, here, but of course you'd normally only do one at a time, to reduce the risk of making a mess in the greenhouse.

Having cut the holes, push the collars into place.

Once they are sitting comfortably, fill up the central well with a bit of extra multi-purpose compost.

I don't advocate the use of home-made garden compost in this situation, because it is invariably full of weed seeds, and the whole point of buying gro-bags is that they contain fresh, clean, sterile - as far as weeds are concerned - compost.

So, top them up with bought-in compost, then plant your greenhouse seedlings, one per collar.

(OK sometimes I plant up two per collar, then remove the weaker of the two after a couple of weeks...)

Once they are in place, you can pop in the irrigation drippers, if you have them: and you can then construct your framework of supports.

I always like to do the planting first, because otherwise I am trying to put delicate little seedlings into position, while knocking my head on the canes.. but you might prefer to do the building work first, and then plant them up. 

It really doesn't matter, just do it whichever way suits you.

The collars have three main advantages: firstly, they give your greenhouse plants a bit more soil in which to grow, as gro-bags are pretty shallow.

Secondly, they protect the tiny new plants, because it is much harder to accidentally brush against them while watering etc, when they are protected by the sides of the collar.

And thirdly, the main and best advantage - easy watering! Even if you have irrigation, there are going to be times when you are watering manually: giving them their weekly dose of tomato food, for example. And the beauty of the collars is that you can slosh the water into the outer ring of each collar without disturbing the seedling, without having to be careful not to jet-wash it to smithereens, without getting the foliage wet, and without creating those crusty-topped craters on the soil.

It also keeps all the water inside the gro-bag, and not spilling out all over the floor.

Here's a quick glimpse of one of "my" greenhouses, from last year, with gro-bags, collars, bamboo cane supports, and a promising crop of tomatoes and sweet peppers.

Just to encourage you, to get out there and set it up!

Which also reminds me, that now is the time to start off the plants that you'll be wanting in the greenhouse. 

I always leave a note in my diary to start them off at the end of February, and I always look at the note and think, "Nooo! It's far too early!" and then of course we are suddenly into late March, the sun comes out, the greenhouse gets hot, and I wish that I'd done them a couple of weeks ago....

 

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APHA - plant sales and plant passports - what does the inspection involve?

I've written a couple of articles about APHA and the whole plant sales business: the original, long, one entitled Selling Plants, Working with Plants, New Law:   plus an updated article rather optimistically entitled Plant Passports - possibly the final word. 

 Yesterday I had a new question crop up, about the actual inspections: someone asked, 

"I'd like to sell plug plants on Ebay. Do you know what the inspection involves? ie, what they are looking for, things that will make me not pass the inspection etc. I don't want to have to pay for an inspection before knowing what they're looking for. Thanks"

 Which is a very sensible question! The answer was too long to fit into the comments box, so here it is, for that enquirer, and for anyone else.

And here's the usual disclaimer first: I am not part of APHA, I don't have any inside information, this is just my opinion and my common-sense approach, and in all cases, if you have any doubt, contact your local APHA inspector and ask them.

So, what's my take on the inspections? This is gathered from the forums we used to have, back in January 2020, when we were all panicking about it, and when every APHA inspector told a different story, so everyone's experience of the system was slightly different. 

Ah, happy days!

("Not.")

The inspection: well, the whole point of Plant Passports (hereinafter referred to as PPs) is to stop the transmission of diseases/bugs across the country: and, if that fails, to at least be able to track where the outbreak started, and how far it got.

So you are looking at things like:

- your plant hygiene: do you use new, fresh, bagged bought-in ie sterile compost, for the plants you are selling, or are you using your own back-garden, full of weeds/bugs stuff? Common sense here: if you expect to sell to the public, you need to use good quality, clean, potting materials.

Likewise, do you use new plastic pots, or are you recycling grubby old ones with mud clinging to them? 

Are your tools clean-looking, or are they thickly coated with sap and dirt?

- your record keeping: do you have clear simple records of where your bought-in plants came from, a way to store and record the PPs they arrived with, and a way to keep track of them as they move through your nursery/garden/potting shed before they are sold on.

- your labelling: do you create clear labels, which come up to the required standard? Do they contain all the necessary information? Are all your plants labelled as per the specification on the APHA site?

- your record keeping again - do you have a system in place to keep track of which plants went where, so that if there is every an outbreak of anything at your nursery, you can demonstrate that you know where every plant from that batch went to?

It's all quite basic stuff, really: hygiene is essential when dealing with plants, and record keeping is a very basic requirement for anyone running a business. Just think about what you would do, if you worked for APHA and some awful new disease suddenly appeared: how you would you track it back to the source, and how would you track all the possible infections. Think back to the early days of Covid....

So that's my interpretation of what is likely to be on the inspection list: but as I said at the beginning, the real answer is to contact your local APHA inspector, and ask them. Remember, they are not trying to fail you, they WANT you to pass, and to be registered.

Oh, and one final thing:  I also imagine that the inspector would be looking for signs of disease and bugs in your stock: but frankly, if you can't spot diseased and bug-infested plants, then you shouldn't be selling plants in the first place!

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How to: mend an old metal watering can.

Now, I have many quirks, as those of you who have met me, will already know.

In my own defence, I would say that most of them are very sensible: always bending the loose ends of wire plant ties inwards, for example, to avoid stabbage, is - I think - something which everyone should do.

And leaving the watering can full, is again, something which I think all professional gardeners should do.

After all, a bucket can be used for many things, so you might well need it empty and dry: but a watering can is only ever going to be used for moving water from one place to another, and if it's not the red "poison" one, then it's going to move water from the water butt to some plant or other.

Therefore, always leave water in the watering can. You never know when you will suddenly remember, five minutes before leaving time, that you didn't water something, and it's really frustrating to have to stand there, waiting for a slow gravity-fed water butt tap to fill the can.

This means that "my" watering cans are always left ready-filled, or, if the Client is senior, then I only half-fill it, because sometimes they can't manage a heavy, full can.

Why am I telling you this? Because one day, I went to water something in, and the watering can was empty.

 Empty!

Shock! Horror! The Client never, ever, waters the plants (no disrespect meant, the Client in question is currently too ill to get out in the garden much), so who on earth used the water?

 I filled it, gazing suspiciously around for unexpectedly-watered plants.

I picked it up, walked off to the far border, thinking smugly "Hey, I'm getting stronger, this watering can doesn't weigh much at all!" only to find, on arrival, that it was empty.

Here is the beast in question, it's one of those old-fashioned metal ones, the sort which inevitably have a "bowed" bottom, meaning that it never stands up to attention nicely, but bobbles around, if you put it down on the patio or the path.

(I've made a dished place for it to stand, under the water butt... I'm so sad...)

To the usual tune: 

"There's a hole in my watering-can, dear Lisa, dear Lisa..."

 

 A closer look revealed the problem: the bottom was coming unstuck from the top. 

This was probably a natural result of its age, and wasn't helped by the bowed-out bottom.

I'm not quite sure what causes this sort of bulging bottom, on a metal can - as they must spend the vast majority of their lives standing on the ground?

I mean, I can understand the theory of "water is heavy", it's not as though they spend hours hanging up by their handles, full of water, is it? Most of the time,watering cans sit around empty (except in "my" gardens, see above), or with water in them, but sitting down firmly on the ground.

So how does this sort of bulge start?

Anyway, moving on... as this is the only watering can in the garden, and as it is otherwise a nice one, I thought I'd see if it could be mended. Cursory internet research focussed on welding or soldering: hmm, neither of those are among my skill-sets. 

I asked my gardening colleagues for advice, and my friend Robert, who runs the Oxford Garden Project, suggested using silicon sealant, to just fill the gap: he said that it probably wasn't worth the effort to try to hammer it back together (ie to make the gap smaller) as that might loosen the rest of the bottom panel.

So that's what I did.

I took the watering can  home, left it in my covered porch for a couple of days, until it was bone dry inside and out, then I got the silicone sealant gun, and went to work.

Getting it down the inside of the body was quite interesting, and make me yearn for another pair of hands to hold the darned thing steady, but eventually I succeeded, and had squirted a thick bead of the sealant into the gap from the inside.

I then propped it up on the bench, and squirted another bead of the sealant into the gap from the outside. I could see the sealant squidging through from inside to outside, so I had high hopes of making a good seal.

Three days later, I tested it.

Perfect! Water stayed inside, no water sneaking out. Wet within, dry without. Perfect.

Here it is - left - and you can see the white sealant.

I don't expect it to last forever, but it's going to be easy enough to peel it out and replace it, if or when it starts to leak again.

And so far, it's been nearly a year, and it's still holding water!

 

 

 

 

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Hydrangeas: Pruning them in March - not yet!

The days are getting longer, the daffodils are flowering, all sorts of plants are budding, leafing, and generally there is a feeling in the air that it might be time for me to get back in shorts, oh happy day!

You might even see that your Hydrangeas are budding nicely: - left -  and you might be thinking that it's time to give them their spring prune.

But fie! Not yet! It's too early!

I used to work for a lovely lady with vast amounts of Hydrangeas in her garden, and she was terribly strict about never allowing me to prune any of them before May.

Yes, May. 

"Not until all chance of a late frost is gone," she would admonish me. Every year.

Alas, she's gone to that great Compost Heap in the sky now, but I still think of her in spring, when I am faced with ratty-looking Hydrangeas, and Clients who want me to cut them down.

As a compromise, I do allow myself to trim off the dead flowers from last year, because although the accepted wisdom is that they provide a sheltering micro-climate, keeping the frosts away from the new buds: well, I find that by the end of winter I'm sick and tired of looking at them, so off they come.

But I don't shorten the shoots to "the first pair of fat buds" as is so often recommended. Not yet, anyway.

Instead, I might shorten a few of the shoots, if they are ridiculously longer than the majority. And I'll go through and nip out any distinctly dead shoots, which are generally easy to spot because they are a pale, light grey and - more to the point - they have failed to produce any signs of buds, when all around are doing so.

This intermediate prune tidies up the plant, and removing dead wood is always a good thing: but it leaves a lot of growth in place, just in case we have that fabled late frost.

What happens, you might be wondering, if you ignore this advice, and prune your Hydrangeas now, in mid March?

Well, if you are lucky, nothing: but if you are unlucky and we have a late frost...

...as we did last year, in 2021, this photo being taken on the 12th of April.....

... then you are likely to end with something like this, taken the following week...

As you can see, it looks as though someone has run a flame thrower over the plant.

Lots of crinkly, wilted, ruined, foliage.

Of course, the plant survives: because I had only nipped off the dead brown flowers, and had resisted the urge to prune down to those nice fat buds, there were plenty of nice, fat buds (okay, by mid-April they were "good strong leaves" rather than "nice fat buds" but you get the idea) at lower levels, which were undamaged by the frost.

And, of course, I resisted the urge to trim off all the damaged material, as this was only the middle of April, and there may have been more frosts to come. So we had to put up with it looking like this for just another couple of weeks, until we were safely into May, and until the Hawthorn blossoms were out.

There is a lot of sense in that old saying, "cast ne'er a clout, till the May be out."  "May" in this case being, as you probably know, not the month of May, but the plant Hawthorn.

Sorry, what was that? You didn't know? Well, the Hawthorn, that familiar hedging tree/bush/shrub, is known colloquially as "May".  And it flowers quite late in spring, well after the Blackthorn (the one which produces Sloes, later in the year) which is pretty much the first hedgerow tree to flower in spring.

So the idea is that you don't "cast a clout", ie remove a layer of winter clothing, until the Hawthorn is "out", ie in flower.

The clever part is that Hawthorn flowering time is related to temperature, not to day length: so it doesn't flower on the same day each year, it flowers only when things have warmed up a bit. 

All of which means that it is not a good idea to prune your Hydrangeas just yet: removing the dead flowers for cosmetic improvement is ok, but don't cut the stems down at all, until we are nearing May!

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How to smarten up your garden in ten minutes:

Honestly, I have said this before, and I will no doubt say it again, but edging your beds and borders is the single quickest, easiest way to make your garden look smart.

Here's a nice example: it's a big bed, which is looking a bit sad and bedraggled after the winter.

Things are just starting to show green again - that's a mass of Helenium at the back - but by and large, it is not really a sight to warm the heart. (With apologies to the owners, who are, unlike this bed, indeed a sight to warm the heart - lovely people!)

So out come the edgers, and round I go, clipping the edge. I did the little island bed as well, while I was at it.

Lo! And behold!

Doesn't that look better?

Not only does it make the entire garden look smarter, but when the grass starts to grow, which it will be doing shortly, it will be much easier for the mower to cut neatly right up to the beds, with none of that panicky edge-of-the-world stuff, where one wheel of the mower suddenly disappears down into the bed, leaving a horrible scalped patch for months on end.

Instead, they can whizz round at top speed, safe in the knowledge that they can see where they are going.

And it only took a few minutes to do!

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"Gold collection" Hellebores: nope! Not worth the money!

I've written in the past about the dreaded Gold Collection Hellebores: dreaded because they usually die within a year or two of being planted.

And they are very expensive, so I dread my Clients buying them: I just know that they are in for a disappointment, which leaves me in an awkward position: I don't really want to dash their hopes, and insult their buying choices, by telling them "Uh oh, picked a dud there!" as soon as the plant arrives.

But it seems a bit unfair to let them rave on about the beauty of these Hellebores, when I know that said beauty is only going to be fleeting.

So my compromise is to exclaim "What a beauty!" on first seeing it, then draw them into conversation and tactfully mention that these plants have, in the past, proved to be less than fully hardy, so it might be an idea not to buy any more of them, until we have seen how they respond to the Client's garden. 

Because you never know, one day, I'll have a Client whose garden provides the EXACT microclimate that these plants require to flourish.

One day. 

In case you're not familiar with these plants, check out the other article mentioned above: and in the meantime, here's one which I planted last year.  

On arrival it was lush, gorgeous: masses of dark red flowers, and it looked wonderful, for several weeks.

But after a cold night at the end of March....

(left) ... this is what it looked like.

It never did recover properly, and was sad and droopy for the rest of the spring.

The Client looked at me, and pulled that rueful face. "I see what you mean," she said. "Not fully hardy, then."

"Never mind," I reassured her, "It may well be back next year, good as ever."

Well, it was back - but I don't think I'd call this "as good as ever", would you?

 

Hmmmm.

That looks like about three flowering stems, maybe four.

Not exactly the lush, lovely thing it once was.

In my opinion, these Hellebores are bred and kept in polytunnels, prior to sale: so they just can't cope with the English winter.

And, also in my opinion, they are not worth the money.

 

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How to bring some class to your garden

Answer: add some statuary.

It never fails, to raise the tone of the garden.

 

Statuary can be whimsical, like this Orange cat:

Not my personal favourite, because I am not particularly impressed with the expression on his face.

But he looks nice, sitting in the long grass, enjoying the sunshine.

Or it can be more contemporary, like this glass on metal sculpture:

This one needs the occasional wash and scrub with hot soapy water, which really improves it.

The artist chose to make the outside of the glass section frosted, rather than clear, so it doesn't shine rainbows across the garden... it's still nice, though.

If you think that "contemporary" is a bit stark, then it can be surrounded by herbaceous perennials, to soften it: here we have an ultra-modern hard stone and metal piece, nicely softened by Acanthus spinosa on this side, and Euphorbia on the other.

(Don't ask me which Euphorbia, they are all "horrible" in my opinion, and deserve to be ripped out of gardens and burned wherever they are found.)

(Just my opinion.)

 

 

Then we have the more "casual" sort of statuary - this one is what I believe is called "found art" because it's made out of stuff that someone "found" lying around.

I used to call it the Brick Stack of Damocles.

Then we move on to more "natural" statues - in both senses of the word, because this one is made of wood, and it is of the female form.

It was known as the Pear Lady, because it was made out of pear wood.

By the time I took this photo, she had started to deteriorate, poor thing, and had already lost her head.

You can see how big she was, even headless, by looking at my fork, stuck in the ground to her left.

So wooden statues, despite yearly oiling, anti-woodworm treatment, more oiling, varnishing, you name it, we tried it: despite all of that, they eventually rot down to nothing. 

 

 

 

She obviously took an artist a long time to create, but sometimes nature takes a hand, and - going back to the "found art" - a piece of art just presents itself.

 

 

 

 

Such as this rather Rodin-like torso, which appeared out of the blue, while dismembering a conifer...

Rodin, with a touch of Dali, perhaps.

Classy, eh?!

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How to move an old rose - update

A while ago, I wrote about digging up and moving an old, well-established rose.

This was a rose which was scheduled for demolition, to make way for a vegetable patch, and rather than just heaving it out and throwing it away,  I took the opportunity to use it as a learning experience for my Trainee, and we dug it up and moved it.

A couple of people have asked for an update!

Here it is on the day we moved it, which was February of 2020.

Not a lot of it left, considering that it used to be wrapped around a collection of 6' tall obelisks!

If you haven't read the other post, I should tell you that there was quite a lot of upper growth on it, after several years of me patiently training it to loop gently around the supports.

And we cut off all but two stems, and those were reduced to these short stems, as you can see.

By May of 2020, three months after being moved, it was recovering nicely, as you can see.

It produced quite a lot of foliage, and all we did was to water it every week without fail, and we did give it some liquid feed once or twice, just as general encouragement.

By June, it had even produced a couple of flower buds!

We were so proud....

By August, it had put out some good new shoots, and we were training them along the wires, because we wanted it to go horizontally.

Well, here's the update from June 2021 - success!

As you can see, the rose is now going along several of the wires, so it is starting to cover the wall, as planned.

And best of all, it's flowering beautifully!

The key points, as per the original post, are to prepare the place it's going to, before you dig it up: reduce the top growth down to a bare, harsh, minimum: and once you've moved it, watering is vitally important, even if it rains.

That goes double if you plant it close to a wall, as we did, because of the rain-shadow effect.

So don't let anyone tell you that roses can't be moved, because they can!

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Plant Ties: How Definitely NOT to do it!

Today we're looking at plant ties again: something which comes up over and over, with Trainees and Students, so it's clearly worth revisiting, from time to time.

Which, actually, is one of the key points of Plant Ties: you do indeed have to revisit them, regularly!

So what's the problem?

If you apply a plant tie wrongly or badly, it can seriously damage the plant. And that is bad. Eventually, a bad plant tie will kill the plant. 

Firstly, let's run over some of those "key points" about using plant ties. These are my rules:

1) Always tie the tie to the fixing point first.

2) Then tie in the plant, allowing space for it to expand.

3) Go back and check it at least a couple of times a year, and adjust if necessary.

I might even add a fourth one: Use a "nice" tie, something soft that won't damage the bark of the plant, not harsh wire.

Here's an example of a Good Tie:

This is a wall-trained Fig, so it's a plant which is vigorous, fast-growing, and which has rather soft bark. 

As you can see, there is a sturdy staple in the wall:  the plant tie itself is one of those ones that looks like something a hairdresser would use, ie soft foam, with an internal wire core/

They are great for holding their position, and you don't have to knot them, you just twist the ends together.

This means they are easy to un-twist and adjust.

The example to the left is clearly one which I did myself. It's easy to recognise my style! 

Firstly, look at the staple: the wire tie has been put through the staple then twisted a couple of times. This is key point number 1) - tie the tie to the fixing point first. As this is a "bendy" tie, you don't actually knot it, you just put a couple of twists in it. This holds the tie in position, prevents it from swivelling round, and prevents it from wearing itself out by friction against the staple, nail, vine eye, trellis, or other fixing point.

Key Point 2) is to leave room for the plant to expand. You can see in that photo that there is a nice triangle of open air between the stem and the staple - the plant has expanded, but has not yet met the limit of expansion.

If you don't do this:  if you push your string, rope, velcro, baler twine, metal-core foam tie or whatever through the staple and then tie the plant to the support, you are forcing the plant to rub up against the support, which will lead to damage. 

There is a balance to be found when doing this: if you tie the plant in too tightly, it won't have room to expand, but if you tie it in too loosely, then it will jiggle about, rub itself against the tie and against the support, and will damage itself. 

And in this case, I know it's one of mine because the two loose ends of the wire are bent back towards the wall, to avoid them stabbing the gardener in the hand, or in the eye. I think this is super-important, and I always insist that anyone who works alongside me, does it like this. I hate that callous phrase "better than a poke in the eye with a sharp stick" because I've had to endure eye surgery, and I wouldn't wish that on anyone!

So, ends of wire ties are always, always, bent back safely so that they point in towards the wall. 

Now, you might be wondering why I insist on Rule 3: check and adjust.

Here's why:

Ugh, how horrible is that?

This is a tie on another part of the same Fig which clearly has not been checked regularly.

The stem has outgrown the space within the tie, as you can see by the muffin-top bulge.

And the tie itself is starting to degrade: you can see the wire, shiny silver, showing through on the part which is facing us.

So this tie is going to need replacing, at some point.

The bark, as you can see, is badly damaged under where the tie was, which is going to create a permanent scar.

Luckily, it won't kill the plant:  this one has been caught in time,  the pressure has been released, and the tie has been re-tied with a bit of slack in it, and the ends tucked inwards, in my approved style, but it's now going to be checked frequently to see a) whether it's outgrown the tie, and b) whether the tie has degraded any further, in which case it will need to be replaced.

I have to say, I am finding that these spongy plastic-coated wire ties are not all they are cracked up to be, because they don't seem to last much longer than a season or two.

And finally, for today: we have this:

This limb was tied to the wire on the wall with more of the same wire, which has cut right into the plant, and then - to add insult to injury - it has broken off, so the branch is not only being strangled, but is also unsupported! 

In case you can't immediately see what the problem is, I've added a couple of arrows:

Here,  left, the downward-pointing arrow is indicating the broken curl of wire, at the back of the branch.

And the upward-pointing one indicates the line where the wire is now embedded in the stem.

You can see by the odd bits of green plastic that this tie used to be one of the plastic-covered wire ones, possibly similar to the ones used above.

But it has been in place for so long that the plastic has mostly disintegrated, which is a bit of a problem with those ties, as mentioned above.

In this case, there is not a lot we can do: to cut the wire tie would probably cause more damage to the bark, which has grown right over the wire, than would occur if we just left it.

Luckily, Fig is a very fast-growing plant, so there will be plenty of other branches to take the place of this one, and in fact in this particular case, I selected a likely candidate from amongst a crop of shoots lower down, and tied it lightly alongside this stem, with the intention of allowing it to grow up in the same position: then next year, I'll chop out this damaged shoot, and let the new one take its place.

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Wood chip mulch - see, told you bulbs would push through it!

Oh ye of little faith!

Recently, I wrote about the joys of wood chip mulch, a product with which I am now intimately familiar, as I now work alongside an arborist for part of the week, and these days I am finding wood chippings in my boots, in my hair, and down my non-existent cleavage.

When, oh when, is someone going to invent the bra strainer???

Moving on....

In the article mentioned above, I commented "Don't worry about bulbs, they will push right up through the mulch with no problem." and I received a question ("Hi, J!") asking if this was actually true.

Of course it's true! (*indignantly*) I wouldn't lie to you!!

Here - left - is a bunch of Daffodils, merrily pushing the wood chip aside for themselves.

One clump of many, I should say, and quite a deep mulch. 

I think that the key factor is that wood chip is "big pieces" so they don't pack down into a hard crust or shell - they stay loose, so that the leaves can push their way through with ease.

And just to show that it's not just the Daffodils which can do it, here - right - are a bunch of Arum lilies (Arum maculatum, also known as Jack in the Pulpit, Lords and Ladies, or Waggling Willies) which are soft and tender, also pushing their way up through the wood chip mulch.

With no problem at all.

So there you go, proof that bulbs can easily push their way up through a deep layer of wood chip mulch.

And the birds love it!

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The perils of chopping down an established hedge....

When considering chopping down a large, well-established Yew hedge, it is always a good idea to check what will be revealed by any such drastic action....

Here is a Before and After shot of my friend's garden. The two abutting Yew hedges were getting a bit big, both in height and in width, and the owner was tired of having to pay to have them clipped twice a year.

"They're overshadowing the bed" she said.

"Nothing will grow in that bed" she said. (Not, strictly speaking, true.)

"I'm tired of that dull old Yew," she said.

"It'll be much cheaper to have a nice fence, then I need only pay for it once." she said.

In vain, did I plead to keep the hedge. "Let's just chop it right back," I suggested: "We could push it back to the main trunks, that would take it back to the boundary line, and it will only take a few months to green up."

"But what will it look like, in the meantime?" she asked.

"Well, " I said, honestly: "It will be bare brown stems for a couple of months, then it will start to grow again, and by this time next year, you will be able to start running the hedgetrimmers over it again."

"But it will just grow back," she objected, "and in no time, I'll be back in this situation."

"Not for many years," I replied, "and not at all, if you keep cutting it back hard, each year, as it regrows."

(When I say "if you keep cutting it back hard" I do, of course, mean "if you tell whoever cuts your hedges to do a proper job, and not to just skim the outside inch or two off".)

But no, she was not persuaded, and out came the hedge, and in went a fence.

 Oh dear.

Suddenly, a private corner of the garden was no longer private.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And the moral of this tale, dear readers, is that it pays to push your way through a hedge before demolishing it, to see exactly what is on the other side, and how high their windows are....

 

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