The leaves of my 10 year old bay tree are very brown. I fear that it will never recover from the cold winter we have just add. I wonder if other people have got the same worry.
@MartineB I was wondering if your bay tree grows in a pot or in the ground. Also how tall did it get after 10 years? I recently planted a small bay tree in my garden and am curious how fast they grow.
I prune and bin industrial quantities of bay and rosemary leaves . Maybe we need a leaf share thread.
I also get lots of seedlings from a neighbour's large, unpruned female tree. I pull out and bin, but if plenty of root survives, I pot and train. I share or gift wherever possible: young mopheads, short mop heads, cones and what I call "Bay Balls" (get it?).
In 10 years you could have a recogisable 5ft mophead. My techique for measuring is: I put my foot on the pot top, and start the lower branches at knee height. I was 1m 95 but am shrinking.
It was a hard year for bays, but I m still a big fan. I am not "disappointed" nor "worried". Somewhere around 2010 was a worse year; the frost got at the stem.
I have today posted an uncommon bay problem. I chose the rubrique "problem solving".
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."
A friend of mine had a huge (unpruned) bay bush which was killed right back to the ground in the cold winter of (I think) 2009-10. When I went round in the spring to help remove it we found new growth coming from ground level right in the centre so we just cut all the dead stuff back. Within a few of years it was bigger than ever.
A standard form with an exposed stem would be more vulnerable but even if the top is dead it could still grow back from ground level. A potted one, more vulnerable still because the whole rootball could freeze.
Doncaster, South Yorkshire. Soil type: sandy, well-drained
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If you think it’s totally dead, can you show us a photo?
Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.
I recently planted a small bay tree in my garden and am curious how fast they grow.
In 10 years you could have a recogisable 5ft mophead. My techique for measuring is: I put my foot on the pot top, and start the lower branches at knee height. I was 1m 95 but am shrinking.
It was a hard year for bays, but I m still a big fan. I am not "disappointed" nor "worried". Somewhere around 2010 was a worse year; the frost got at the stem.
I have today posted an uncommon bay problem. I chose the rubrique "problem solving".
"Have nothing in your garden that you don't know to be useful, or believe to be beautiful."
I live in west central Scotland - not where that photo is...