Conifer Hedges: when they gotta go, they gotta go!

I received a question the other day: is it possible to do a "substantial trim" on this hedge:

 

Well, the obvious answer is "Sorry, no," because, well, just look at it.

I can't identify the species of conifer from the photo, but I can see that it's not Yew (Taxus baccata) which will recover from almost any degree of slaughter - and thanks, to Ana, for reminding me to point that out!! (waves to Ana).

Instead, it's the classic roadside "conifer hedging" which is usually Leylandii, well known for not "greening up" when cut back hard - and they have certainly cut the end of it back, hard!

They have not long moved in, and have inherited this very overgrown, heavy, conifer hedge, which has obviously been there for quite some time, and has been allowed to get a bit out of hand. You can tell by the thickness of the trunks, in that bare brown end, that's it's a mature hedge, and the older they are, the less easy they are to pull back into a good shape....

 

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Wisteria: How can 10 feet (3m) make such a difference?

I have a Client who wanted to grow Wisteria up the back wall of their house, but they'd had the patio relaid, right up to the wall.

This is the sort of thing they were hoping to achieve:

 

... but how could they get the plants started, with no beds or border?

My suggestion was to ask the builders to lift a couple of slabs by the house, to make small beds for them: and, because my Clients were what I call "Senior Folks", we decided to plant two Wisterias, one either side of the Patio doors, to reduce the length of time it would take them to cover the walls.

I asked them to buy the plants in early spring, to be sure that they were already of flowering size, because Wisteria plants can take six or seven years to reach maturity, which is why we don't bother growing them from seed, despite their prolific seed pod production

 The builders duly arrived, with their stone cutting equipment, and made two beds: and they were quite literally the smallest beds you have ever seen! OK, technically, I had meant for them to remove an entire slab, not just to cut a slot.... but heyho, we do the best with what we have, so I manfully dug out the builder rubble, sand, concrete etc as deep as I could manage, we filled the holes with good topsoil, and planted two Wisteria, one each in what we refer to as the Pocket Beds. Because they are so small....

 

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How to lure the right birds into your garden

 Bird feeders have been in the news a lot this year, with the RSPB firstly telling us to stop feeding them, in order to stop the spread of disease: then being lambasted for continuing to sell bird food on their website: then changing their advice to say that we should not feed them during the summer: then retracting their advice, then re-stating it - it's no wonder we are all confused.

Originally, they said to stop feeding birds until October, and that birds did not need us to give them food through the summer. Then they said to only use hanging feeders, and not the flat platform-type feeders, like my famous (well, famous in South Oxfordshire, at any rate) squirrel-proof bird house:

 

But it wasn't clear if they meant that we were "allowed" to use hanging feeders through summer, or not until autumn. And I put that in quotes, because whatever they say, it is only advice, it's not law.

Well, here we are, very nearly in October, so it's time to think about starting to feed them again: but having taken a break from putting out food, it's a good time to have a think about what we feed, and why.

We all love the idea of having birds in our gardens, but it's not always as easy as it seems:...

 

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Yuckity Yuck - Yucca! Or: How to Tame a Wild One...

 Not my favourite plant... as a gardener, I have strong dislikes (which I try to keep secret from my Clients, for the obvious reason, although most of them can tell that I'm not keen on Euphorbia, by the way I always "happen to mention" that their sap is very toxic and is released not only when cutting them:

 

... but also when merely brushing past them, the slightest damage to a leaf and the sap appears, so they are not really safe to have in a garden which may contain children, pets, innocent visitors, passers-by, stray molecules of air, etc......), most of which are for plants which injure me.

Actually, I think ALL of my professional dislikes are for plants which injure me.... rampant invaders such as Bindweed, Couch Grass and Ground Elder, the Terrible Trio, do at least keep me in paid occupation, but Berberis, Mahonia and Pyracantha (unless I am allowed to prune it as much as I want to...) all get the narrowed eyes and the "I wonder if that bed would look better without that [insert name of stabby scratchy spiky plant] just there?" comment.

 Yucca comes pretty high up that list, along with Pampas Grass - whose scientific name, Cortaderia, apparently means "sword" in Spanish, I rest my case - and the gigantic (and evil) Agave, whose tips are so spiny that a single encounter can leave you with blood running down your forehead. (Catherine, this means you. Get rid of that Agave, or I will not be working in that corner of your garden ever again...) 

 

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Box Moth Caterpillar: there is hope!

 I've written about this devastating little pest several times recently: to remind you, it's not the same as Box Blight, the fungal disease which has killed off a huge number of Box plants, and which typically starts by killing off whole patches of the plants:

 

...and once it starts, it is very difficult to stop, not least because the plants, or parts of plants, which have been killed, are dead. They don't recover.

However, this problem is not a disease, it's a pesky critter, the caterpillars of the Box Moth - as the name suggests - which merely eats the leaves, so there is hope for recovery.

To remind you, the Box Moth Caterpillar Disaster is a man-made one...

 

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