You can trim laurel at almost any time - although it's best to avoid doing it if there's severe frost in the forecast. Having said that, a healthy laurel will bounce back anyway, so it isn't usually a major problem, and the dead bits can be trimmed off later. I'd probably take about 6 to 12 inches off those smaller ones. Your shorter ones haven't been in very long. I know that might sound odd, but a year for any shrub or tree is quite a short time. It takes many months for them to establish and start thriving. If they're under an oak, they'll not get a huge amount of moisture through summer, but will get plenty from now until spring, so they'll gradually grow away as they get properly rooted in. How well they'll do after that is difficult to judge without knowing more and seeing the site. In wet areas, they'll be fine. In drier parts of the country they might always struggle. The other thing you can do to help them if it's a drier site is to mulch them. That just means adding a layer of organic matter to the surrounding area - compost, rotted manure, leaf mould etc. It's particularly beneficial in drier sites. Holds moisture in for dry spells [spring is a particularly good time to apply] and it also helps the soil structure, and therefore the growing medium in general. Great for clay soil. It's best to do it when the soil is damp, so if the leaves are off the oak, you can do it now.
If you're able to take photos just now, and want to add them here, keep them smaller - around 1MB or less. The site is pretty hopeless with photo sizes and has been for a while, but that sizing keeps them the right way up and they'll load more easily too.
It's a place where beautiful isn't enough of a word....
I live in west central Scotland - not where that photo is...
Laurels grow easily from cuttings. If you're cutting your plants back, just push 1 foot to 18 inch cuttings quite deeply into the soil and leave until new growth is obvious. Cut just below a node, qv. But you don't have to be too accurate.
Clay is not the best for cuttings, but worth a try. Improve the drainage locally with sand or grit if that is easy.
Do it soon. You can repeat later. Google: "laurel from cuttings UK". The 'UK' is important as you can be offered a lot of USA advice.
Blimey, that Root gel stuff is expensive! Would probably be cheaper to buy some tiny new Laurels from eBay and grow them, vs buying that root gel to try to grow from cuttings...
Thanks @Fairygirl - I actually used to dump all my grass clippings at the bottom of the front lawn before planting the Laurels, so they're pretty much all sat in that, with some fresh soil and covered with bark mulch. Whilst the ground out the front got very dry in the summer, (to the point where huge cracks in the lawn opened up) the Laurels also enjoyed the shade of the Oak tree, so it's swings and roundabouts I guess...
I'll try to grab photos over the weekend in the daylight.
You don’t need gel for cuttings. They’ll strike pretty well without. Take plenty more cuttings than you’ll need then if only 50% grow you’ll still have plenty. If they all grow you can offer them on Freecycle if you don’t need them yourself. 😊
Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.
OK, I managed to grab a photo of the front garden from my Ring doorbell. Sure, you can barely see the Laurels themselves, but at least you have an idea of where they're located. This is the front garden, none of the Laurels died out here - you can just about see them in a row under the Oak tree. (The Oak tree itself is in a hedge, but most of the hedge dies back in winter, and they've just built a new estate in the field the other side - hence planting the Laurels for year-round privacy. So you have hedge, then a gulley/ditch, then the lawn - the Laurels are sat at the end of the lawn, just next to the ditch. So hedge one side of the ditch, and Laurels the other. (I'll get better photos over the weekend.)
Yes - a few close ups will help if you can manage them. The oak is big, but if the soil is decent, the shade will help during hot spells, as you say I forgot to mention bark as a mulch - it's excellent for any hedging plant. I'd agree with @Dovefromabove, many of these things aren't needed for shrubby cuttings ,and if you do them - yes, take plenty. It comes down to timing and conditions as to how well they strike, which is why I mentioned time of year, but it's been very mild in many areas, so it's worth a shot if you want to try. The RHS is always worth referring to for info, which is why I gave you that link, but location and climate are the vital factors for any cuttings, or indeed - planting and care in general Let us know how you get on anyway, if you can't do the pix
It's a place where beautiful isn't enough of a word....
I live in west central Scotland - not where that photo is...
Yeah, I'll definitely grab some photos. The Laurels front and rear are surrounded by bark mulch, so that's good. And I still deposit grass clippings behind them, but obviously it would be unsightly to plop grass cuttings on top of the bark!
Yeah, the Oak is big and a lovely tree. Thankfully it was protected when they built our estate around 6 - 7 years ago, as was the hedge row that it's sat in the middle of. It does drop a ton of leaves though, which is always a mess to clear up! This year it shed a lot of leaves quite early - again I think due to the extreme heat this summer.
Managed to find and resize a photo of one of the Laurels that I moved from the back garden to the front in order to try to save it. I think this one might be the one that survived after the move, but you can see the state it got into out the back... (You can also see the bark/grass cuttings situation and the trench between the hedge and Laurels.) Photo below is after it was moved to the front.
And a photo I found of the back garden (and the reason that I want a screen of Laurels!)
Thankfully the awful neighbours we had have now moved and the garden has been cleared of rubbish, but I wanted to get something sorted before somebody new moves in.
In the below photo you can see two green pots with sunflowers in, which is where 3 Laurels used to be. I moved the 3 to the front garden and one survived. Well, I assume the other two died as they lost all their leaves, but after reading on here today I wonder if they had actually still been alive despite being bare... too late now though.
The fourth Laurel can also be seen in the below photo. Since installing the taller Laurels the one below also got moved to the front, and once I got it out there I realised that it had actually grown better than any of the laurels at the front, which is odd considering the three next to it had all done much worse.
You can also see my "grafted dwarf pine" in the corner... or at least that's what we were told by the gardener that planted it. Not much of a dwarf now, as it's the tallest thing in the back garden...!
A mature oak is a beautiful thing, and I can see it well enough in your pic to tell that it's a lovely specimen. You can make leaf mould with the leaves - that's quite easy to do if you have room. You can either make basic mesh bins to put them in , or you can use black binbags with holes in them. As long as they don't get too dried out, they'll break down into a very valuable organic mulch. It takes a couple of year though. The ground in your pic does look quite dry, and the competition from the hawthorn hedge will mean it could have been a bit dry for the laurel to get going well. They're pretty easy once established, but they need a good start - especially in terms of moisture.
It's a place where beautiful isn't enough of a word....
I live in west central Scotland - not where that photo is...
Posts
Your shorter ones haven't been in very long. I know that might sound odd, but a year for any shrub or tree is quite a short time. It takes many months for them to establish and start thriving. If they're under an oak, they'll not get a huge amount of moisture through summer, but will get plenty from now until spring, so they'll gradually grow away as they get properly rooted in. How well they'll do after that is difficult to judge without knowing more and seeing the site. In wet areas, they'll be fine. In drier parts of the country they might always struggle.
The other thing you can do to help them if it's a drier site is to mulch them. That just means adding a layer of organic matter to the surrounding area - compost, rotted manure, leaf mould etc. It's particularly beneficial in drier sites. Holds moisture in for dry spells [spring is a particularly good time to apply] and it also helps the soil structure, and therefore the growing medium in general. Great for clay soil. It's best to do it when the soil is damp, so if the leaves are off the oak, you can do it now.
If you're able to take photos just now, and want to add them here, keep them smaller - around 1MB or less. The site is pretty hopeless with photo sizes and has been for a while, but that sizing keeps them the right way up and they'll load more easily too.
I live in west central Scotland - not where that photo is...
I'll try to grab photos over the weekend in the daylight.
yourself. 😊
Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.
I forgot to mention bark as a mulch - it's excellent for any hedging plant.
I'd agree with @Dovefromabove, many of these things aren't needed for shrubby cuttings ,and if you do them - yes, take plenty. It comes down to timing and conditions as to how well they strike, which is why I mentioned time of year, but it's been very mild in many areas, so it's worth a shot if you want to try.
The RHS is always worth referring to for info, which is why I gave you that link, but location and climate are the vital factors for any cuttings, or indeed - planting and care in general
Let us know how you get on anyway, if you can't do the pix
I live in west central Scotland - not where that photo is...
Yeah, the Oak is big and a lovely tree. Thankfully it was protected when they built our estate around 6 - 7 years ago, as was the hedge row that it's sat in the middle of. It does drop a ton of leaves though, which is always a mess to clear up! This year it shed a lot of leaves quite early - again I think due to the extreme heat this summer.
Thankfully the awful neighbours we had have now moved and the garden has been cleared of rubbish, but I wanted to get something sorted before somebody new moves in.
In the below photo you can see two green pots with sunflowers in, which is where 3 Laurels used to be. I moved the 3 to the front garden and one survived. Well, I assume the other two died as they lost all their leaves, but after reading on here today I wonder if they had actually still been alive despite being bare... too late now though.
The fourth Laurel can also be seen in the below photo. Since installing the taller Laurels the one below also got moved to the front, and once I got it out there I realised that it had actually grown better than any of the laurels at the front, which is odd considering the three next to it had all done much worse.
You can also see my "grafted dwarf pine" in the corner... or at least that's what we were told by the gardener that planted it. Not much of a dwarf now, as it's the tallest thing in the back garden...!
You can make leaf mould with the leaves - that's quite easy to do if you have room. You can either make basic mesh bins to put them in , or you can use black binbags with holes in them. As long as they don't get too dried out, they'll break down into a very valuable organic mulch. It takes a couple of year though.
The ground in your pic does look quite dry, and the competition from the hawthorn hedge will mean it could have been a bit dry for the laurel to get going well. They're pretty easy once established, but they need a good start - especially in terms of moisture.
I live in west central Scotland - not where that photo is...