Yes, you can hack and chop to your heart's delight. The thing is, do you want your garden to look hacked and chopped? The Portuguese laurel will grow to about 40 feet high. That's its natural height and that's how it would look best. You can easily keep it to five feet if that's the height you need, but its not showing the plant off to its best and it's giving you a lot more work than you would be having to do with a plant that is naturally daintier.
Don't worry, it's all learning. We all go through the same things. I've been doing the same sort of thing for 50-odd years and I still surprise myself with my inappropriate choices
Your planting scheme will be OK short term but you have a lot of big plants for a small area there! The Portuguese laurel grows into a small tree and yews grow pretty quickly and are enormous when they are fully grown.
Enjoy them while they are babies but be ready to say goodbye to them in the not too distant future!
You can of course prune both - Yew makes a damn good hedge plant and Portugese Laural is also a compact hedge plant.
Thanks very much for your comments. I think that I will just have to wait and see then. Umpfh. I don't mind pruning plants as I have lots of box and a Loniceria Baggins Gold that I am shaping into a snail! I had the pieris in a pot in full sun and it got too big and so that's why I put it in the garden. My neighbours have lots of Llandii that they keep to about 6ft and always look like neat hedging but I would never plant that. Gosh, I wish I could live for 200 years and get it right: I envy C. Lambert in Highlander!
Thanks for all the good choices. The Abelia Grandiflora is looking like a great idea for trailing over the wall.
Haisie - i had four conifers in the front garden which wernt great so i had them chopped a week after we moved into the house last year. Planting up a border or garden is quite daunting as there is so much to choose from and sometimes the more you research the more you get confused. I think you have to just go for it sometimes and it turns out not right then re plant things elsewhere
Funnily enough i was looking at the Hydrangea in my parents garden this afternoon to see if i can take a cutting from it for the front garden
I like the changes the seasons bring so would recommend shrubs that offer variety throughout the year - eg. Daphne, Callicarpa, Hibiscus, Nandina all well behaved needing little attention. I would underplant with narcissus Tete a tete or Jetfire for spring colour and the some nerines for autumn.
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Yes, you can hack and chop to your heart's delight. The thing is, do you want your garden to look hacked and chopped? The Portuguese laurel will grow to about 40 feet high. That's its natural height and that's how it would look best. You can easily keep it to five feet if that's the height you need, but its not showing the plant off to its best and it's giving you a lot more work than you would be having to do with a plant that is naturally daintier.
Don't worry, it's all learning. We all go through the same things. I've been doing the same sort of thing for 50-odd years and I still surprise myself with my inappropriate choices
Haisie the Pieris won't like it if its too sunny. Makes the leaves bleach out.
Steebie I would go for things like Cistus Landanifer
Its evergreen and the flowers are the size of poppy flowers
Where the wall dips in the middle an Abelia Grandiflora. It arches and would look lovely draped over there. It is semi evergreen and flowers late
Can be pruned to keep it to size.
And last but not least Viburnum x burkwoodii. The smell is wonderful and wafts. You don't have to stick the flower up your nose!
Again can be pruned to size
Haha just noticed I seem to have a white theme going on there
Right so for something a different colour how about Rosemary Miss Jessops Upright
Obviously not all of these will fit in your 5 ft space. Just a selection of what I would choose to plant there.
You can of course prune both - Yew makes a damn good hedge plant and Portugese Laural is also a compact hedge plant.
Thanks very much for your comments. I think that I will just have to wait and see then. Umpfh. I don't mind pruning plants as I have lots of box and a Loniceria Baggins Gold that I am shaping into a snail! I had the pieris in a pot in full sun and it got too big and so that's why I put it in the garden. My neighbours have lots of Llandii that they keep to about 6ft and always look like neat hedging but I would never plant that. Gosh, I wish I could live for 200 years and get it right: I envy C. Lambert in Highlander!
Thanks for all the good choices. The Abelia Grandiflora is looking like a great idea for trailing over the wall.
Haisie - i had four conifers in the front garden which wernt great so i had them chopped a week after we moved into the house last year. Planting up a border or garden is quite daunting as there is so much to choose from and sometimes the more you research the more you get confused. I think you have to just go for it sometimes and it turns out not right then re plant things elsewhere
Funnily enough i was looking at the Hydrangea in my parents garden this afternoon to see if i can take a cutting from it for the front garden
just noticed the white theme.
I like the changes the seasons bring so would recommend shrubs that offer variety throughout the year - eg. Daphne, Callicarpa, Hibiscus, Nandina all well behaved needing little attention. I would underplant with narcissus Tete a tete or Jetfire for spring colour and the some nerines for autumn.