Where would gardening be without amateurs? Sackville-West, Johnson, Lloyd, Jekyll?
Too many professional lack a spirit of enquiry and rule-breaking. They just follow the "rules", old wives' tales, and can be hide-bound dullards. Everything I do in the garden is guided by others, by books, by other gardens and by my own scientific enquiry and experimentation.
Any advice I might give will have been hard won.
location: Surrey Hills, England, ex-woodland acidic sand. "Have nothing in your garden that you don't know to be useful, or believe to be beautiful."
@bédé … I simply do not understand why you attempt to validate your own experience by disparaging the experience and/or education of others and being insulting.
It just makes you look ridiculous.
Perhaps you should draw a line under this … accept that other people’s knowledge, however acquired, may be just as valid as your own, and move on.
You have posted queries on other threads. … Folk have responded …
😊
Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.
I like to stimulate reaction, that might be considered stirring. but it is done with the best intentions.
The idea really is to stimulate debate and thereby getting info/advice from many different people. Some you may agree with, others you may not but the more views the better - particularly from different areas of the UK when garden related. Simply looking for a "reaction" often results in unpleasantness and best avoided. As @D@Dovefromabove says, you have posted on other threads and no problems. Can take a while to get the hang of things but I'm sure you will
I am pleased to learn of the success of some posters with bays.
I think most trained bay trees come from Belgium. They have a harsher climate than even Norfolk so they should be hardy. Some may come from the "big plant" boys in Italy. They might not be so hardy.
My first two mop head bay trees died of frost when temporarily back in Belgium. My next two were bought from a grower outside Ghent. One got severely mauled by frost in Surrey. The top had to be cut back hard, and the trunk is still missing a third of its bark.
I have noticed, and discussed with a gardener, some with similar damage at Holker Hall in Cumbria. Some years ago at Hidcote, I came across some Potugese Laurel mopheads witha legend that said that the bays died of frost.
All my self-seeded one come from seeds of a neighbour's tree that is at least 50 years old and has probably never been pruned. It is female; I would guess that commercial trees are male ( have an easier life, grow faster, dandies, no child-rearing efforts ...), So it probably got where it is by it's own means and will be rock-hardy.
Some of my self-seeded bay tees are in pots, most are around the garden as columns, mopheads, May Balls, hedging, or just plain weeds. They are all rock-hardy.
It certainly worth being a bit careful with their hardiness.
location: Surrey Hills, England, ex-woodland acidic sand. "Have nothing in your garden that you don't know to be useful, or believe to be beautiful."
I think the trained standard bays are more vulnerable to hard frost than more naturally-shaped bushes. The outer growth on a bush gives the inner parts some protection so they're more likely to regrow from the base/inside branches, whereas the bare trunk of a standard is a lot more exposed. Also a standard is more likely to be growing in a container, and any new growth from the base when it's trying to recover can be seen as unwanted and chopped off.
Doncaster, South Yorkshire. Soil type: sandy, well-drained
Jenny, with any sucker on any plant, try to pull them off at source as soon as they appear. Chopping them off is not a long term solution.
Shoots from below ground level are a good thing to regenerate any bushy shrub that isn't grafted. I only remove them (by digging down a bit and pulling) if they're from rootstock on a grafted plant and therefore different from the main plant, or if they're spreading too far from the parent.
In this case I was talking about trained standard lollipop trees which are often in a pot and it isn't that easy to get down to the roots to pull them off, so I think most people would cut them in that situation. But I'm sure your knowledge and experience is much greater than mine. I've only been gardening for about 35 years and there's always something new to learn from other people's experiences in different situations and conditions, and there's very rarely one right way. Access to all that wealth of experience on this forum is a fantastic thing.
Doncaster, South Yorkshire. Soil type: sandy, well-drained
Posts
I'm pretty robust, so can take it.
Where would gardening be without amateurs? Sackville-West, Johnson, Lloyd, Jekyll?
Too many professional lack a spirit of enquiry and rule-breaking. They just follow the "rules", old wives' tales, and can be hide-bound dullards. Everything I do in the garden is guided by others, by books, by other gardens and by my own scientific enquiry and experimentation.
Any advice I might give will have been hard won.
"Have nothing in your garden that you don't know to be useful, or believe to be beautiful."
I like to stimulate reaction, that might be considered stirring. but it is done with the best intentions.
"Have nothing in your garden that you don't know to be useful, or believe to be beautiful."
😊
Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.
Simply looking for a "reaction" often results in unpleasantness and best avoided.
As @D@Dovefromabove says, you have posted on other threads and no problems. Can take a while to get the hang of things but I'm sure you will
I am pleased to learn of the success of some posters with bays.
I think most trained bay trees come from Belgium. They have a harsher climate than even Norfolk so they should be hardy. Some may come from the "big plant" boys in Italy. They might not be so hardy.
My first two mop head bay trees died of frost when temporarily back in Belgium. My next two were bought from a grower outside Ghent. One got severely mauled by frost in Surrey. The top had to be cut back hard, and the trunk is still missing a third of its bark.
I have noticed, and discussed with a gardener, some with similar damage at Holker Hall in Cumbria. Some years ago at Hidcote, I came across some Potugese Laurel mopheads witha legend that said that the bays died of frost.
All my self-seeded one come from seeds of a neighbour's tree that is at least 50 years old and has probably never been pruned. It is female; I would guess that commercial trees are male ( have an easier life, grow faster, dandies, no child-rearing efforts ...), So it probably got where it is by it's own means and will be rock-hardy.
Some of my self-seeded bay tees are in pots, most are around the garden as columns, mopheads, May Balls, hedging, or just plain weeds. They are all rock-hardy.
It certainly worth being a bit careful with their hardiness.
"Have nothing in your garden that you don't know to be useful, or believe to be beautiful."
"Have nothing in your garden that you don't know to be useful, or believe to be beautiful."
"Have nothing in your garden that you don't know to be useful, or believe to be beautiful."