Oh how I wish I'd found this thread before planting my laurel!
Brand new to all forms of gardening this being our first house. Possibly another victim of poor quality eBay plants, I purchased clearance pot grown cherry laurels at 5-6ft for £20 a plant, all of the other options were sold out which seems to be a common theme due to covid induced gardening!
I've got a couple with 6 ft tall stems with growth on the top but nothing halfway up, from reading this thread I need to cut the tops off these to encourage the bottoms to bush out. Can I do this immediately or should i give them a week or two to recover from any shock of being transplanted? They were planted into compost filled holes, with bonemeal and after plant sprinkled on top.There's four plants in the above row for reference, the right hand one looks pretty bushy but the two middle ones definitely not. Is my only option to chop all the growth off the top of the middle ones? Or shall I remove some of the stems but leave half of them full height for now?
Not to worry @brownbred8. Hack them back, water them thoroughly [a bucket for each one] and remove as much of the other nearby plants/weeds to give them a chance. Keep the watering up - a big canful every couple of days for each one. I've no idea what 'after plant' is? Laurels need very little. The bonemeal would have been enough, but it'll be fine. I should have asked - did you soak them before planting too? Pot bound plants are often very dry, and the roots need teasing out too.
20 quid each. Yikes!
It's a place where beautiful isn't enough of a word....
I live in west central Scotland - not where that photo is...
Not to worry @brownbred8. Hack them back, water them thoroughly [a bucket for each one] and remove as much of the other nearby plants/weeds to give them a chance. Keep the watering up - a big canful every couple of days for each one. I've no idea what 'after plant' is? Laurels need very little. The bonemeal would have been enough, but it'll be fine. I should have asked - did you soak them before planting too? Pot bound plants are often very dry, and the roots need teasing out too.
20 quid each. Yikes!
Soaked and filled the holes with water, compost and bonemeal stirred up, didn't tease any roots out though. Read a few brief planting guides none of which mentioned it, this thread has far more useful info on it than the hedging and gardening websites that are first on a search!
It seems garden centres and nurseries that are operating online have all jacked prices up to take advantage of the surge in lockdown gardening, the only plants I could find anywhere in stock were similar prices so I thought it was the going rate 😢
I've read the bulk of the posts so far so think I've got a good idea what to do, on the leggier plants I might try cutting the chunky main stem down as that's never going to be anything other than a tree, some of the skinnier ones could wait until the next prune possibly? I don't want to leave it with no leaves on whatsoever if possible.
Apologies for adding to the questions I see the past few pages is mostly unhealthy plants and leaves, hopefully mine won't suffer the same fate.
Shame shame you bought them that size, 2.6”to 3’ would have been better. Never mind you have so let’s try with what you have.
if they were mine I would cut then right down to about 8” from the ground, they will shoot out from the bottom and make a thick hedge, unless you planned on growing them as lollipop type. sounds harsh, but they’re not good as they are and if you just cut the tops, they still won’t grow out of the lower trunks.
if you should plant anything else, it’s not a good idea to put the bone meal down the planting hole, the roots will just stay in that small vicinity, what you need is for the roots to look for their own nutrition and spread out and down to find it. Your ground looks good and I wouldn’t bother.
Water is the key, especially in this weather, a bucket full each, if you just give a little amount the roots will come to the top to find it, that’s not good, the roots need to go deep.
I bought mine from eBay, bare roots, very cheap and brilliant little plants although I found out later I could have gone to the site direct and got them a bit cheaper.
Gardening on the wild, windy west side of Dartmoor.
Shame shame you bought them that size, 2.6”to 3’ would have been better. Never mind you have so let’s try with what you have.
if they were mine I would cut then right down to about 8” from the ground, they will shoot out from the bottom and make a thick hedge, unless you planned on growing them as lollipop type. sounds harsh, but they’re not good as they are and if you just cut the tops, they still won’t grow out of the lower trunks.
if you should plant anything else, it’s not a good idea to put the bone meal down the planting hole, the roots will just stay in that small vicinity, what you need is for the roots to look for their own nutrition and spread out and down to find it. Your ground looks good and I wouldn’t bother.
Water is the key, especially in this weather, a bucket full each, if you just give a little amount the roots will come to the top to find it, that’s not good, the roots need to go deep.
I bought mine from eBay, bare roots, very cheap and brilliant little plants although I found out later I could have gone to the site direct and got them a bit cheaper.
I suppose unless you want a laurel tree specifically there's no advantage to buying a taller plant, and you certainly shouldn't pay extra for the privilege as I've discovered 😢
The two at the ends are quite bushy it looks like they've been pruned regularly, so I'm happy with them, just the ones in the middle that have been allowed to grow tall unchecked, guessing they've been neglected at the back somewhere then fished out when muggins here bought the last remaining ones 😆 The tall spindly one has multiple stems all 5-6ft tall. I've cut one or two down to 8" tall but left the others near their original height, in the interest of preserving some kind of screen while shoots are developing from the lower ones I might leave them tall while the bottom establishes, then cut them to match the new growth next season perhaps?
An expensive lesson to not bother with clearance plants, at half the price of premium ones I at least assumed they'd be half salvageable, not a 6ft length of timber with some leaves on top that's never going to be anything like a hedge at its height!
It's all a learning curve, but smaller plants always establish more readily. They'll live Don't worry about chopping them at different times either - they're pretty hard to kill, and you can prune and trim at almost any time to keep them going in the right direction. I've often told the story here about a house near me. It borders the main road, corner site, and the back garden is really small, but the side part is better. When it was being sold - at least a decade ago - the owners planted a laurel hedge. Good idea - makes it more private etc, and creates a bigger 'back' garden. However, they planted a long row of tall, skinny laurels [6 footers] to match it up with the hefty, dense, established one bordering the main road. It still looks dreadful, while the original one is still huge and healthy...
It's a place where beautiful isn't enough of a word....
I live in west central Scotland - not where that photo is...
It's all a learning curve, but smaller plants always establish more readily. They'll live Don't worry about chopping them at different times either - they're pretty hard to kill, and you can prune and trim at almost any time to keep them going in the right direction. I've often told the story here about a house near me. It borders the main road, corner site, and the back garden is really small, but the side part is better. When it was being sold - at least a decade ago - the owners planted a laurel hedge. Good idea - makes it more private etc, and creates a bigger 'back' garden. However, they planted a long row of tall, skinny laurels [6 footers] to match it up with the hefty, dense, established one bordering the main road. It still looks dreadful, while the original one is still huge and healthy...
So by the sounds of it I need to end up with a range of trimmed stems at different heights (starting far lower than the current 6 foot!) To encourage leaf growth at all heights not just at the top.
The shoots I've cut off I've stuck in the ground in some of the gaps, not expecting them to take really but seems a better use than compost. I'll update as and when I make any progress 😊
Was doing some moving plants in garden tonight and noticed one of my laurels ,I have 2 at front near gate was badly looking full of holes etc it look ok from distance but mess when up closed I think I got carried away and kept chopping all mess away 🙈🙈 not sure if it’s diseased or not I hope I’ve not prune it to hard And it dies also it’s now less than half size as other one should I chop that down to or leave it alone
I'm hoping you could help me please. I got directed to this thread which looks incredibly helpful already.
I'm in a very similar situation to OP. I got 2metre high bay laurel
planted at the end of March. The only advice I was given was to keep
them watered.
However, the leaves started to yellow and brown
pretty quickly. Now a lot of leaves are droopy looking and those leaves
look very dry, even though they are still green in colour.
I had got a seaweed fertiliser put around them over a week ago. Then I have got fish blood and bones fertiliser yesterday and sprinkled around the plants. I have also been watering twice a day.
I don't know anything about pruning. But it seems to be the solution mentioned here. Is it the same case for me? Where do I begin? I don't want to completely destroy them. And I'm annoyed after paying a lot of money to a nursery for them.
What more can I do to save them? I'm getting very worried.
Posts
Brand new to all forms of gardening this being our first house. Possibly another victim of poor quality eBay plants, I purchased clearance pot grown cherry laurels at 5-6ft for £20 a plant, all of the other options were sold out which seems to be a common theme due to covid induced gardening!
I've got a couple with 6 ft tall stems with growth on the top but nothing halfway up, from reading this thread I need to cut the tops off these to encourage the bottoms to bush out. Can I do this immediately or should i give them a week or two to recover from any shock of being transplanted? They were planted into compost filled holes, with bonemeal and after plant sprinkled on top.
Hack them back, water them thoroughly [a bucket for each one] and remove as much of the other nearby plants/weeds to give them a chance. Keep the watering up - a big canful every couple of days for each one.
I've no idea what 'after plant' is? Laurels need very little. The bonemeal would have been enough, but it'll be fine.
I should have asked - did you soak them before planting too? Pot bound plants are often very dry, and the roots need teasing out too.
20 quid each. Yikes!
I live in west central Scotland - not where that photo is...
It seems garden centres and nurseries that are operating online have all jacked prices up to take advantage of the surge in lockdown gardening, the only plants I could find anywhere in stock were similar prices so I thought it was the going rate 😢
I've read the bulk of the posts so far so think I've got a good idea what to do, on the leggier plants I might try cutting the chunky main stem down as that's never going to be anything other than a tree, some of the skinnier ones could wait until the next prune possibly? I don't want to leave it with no leaves on whatsoever if possible.
Apologies for adding to the questions I see the past few pages is mostly unhealthy plants and leaves, hopefully mine won't suffer the same fate.
if they were mine I would cut then right down to about 8” from the ground, they will shoot out from the bottom and make a thick hedge, unless you planned on growing them as lollipop type.
sounds harsh, but they’re not good as they are and if you just cut the tops, they still won’t grow out of the lower trunks.
if you should plant anything else, it’s not a good idea to put the bone meal down the planting hole, the roots will just stay in that small vicinity, what you need is for the roots to look for their own nutrition and spread out and down to find it. Your ground looks good and I wouldn’t bother.
Water is the key, especially in this weather, a bucket full each, if you just give a little amount the roots will come to the top to find it, that’s not good, the roots need to go deep.
I bought mine from eBay, bare roots, very cheap and brilliant little plants although I found out later I could have gone to the site direct and got them a bit cheaper.
The two at the ends are quite bushy it looks like they've been pruned regularly, so I'm happy with them, just the ones in the middle that have been allowed to grow tall unchecked, guessing they've been neglected at the back somewhere then fished out when muggins here bought the last remaining ones 😆
The tall spindly one has multiple stems all 5-6ft tall. I've cut one or two down to 8" tall but left the others near their original height, in the interest of preserving some kind of screen while shoots are developing from the lower ones I might leave them tall while the bottom establishes, then cut them to match the new growth next season perhaps?
An expensive lesson to not bother with clearance plants, at half the price of premium ones I at least assumed they'd be half salvageable, not a 6ft length of timber with some leaves on top that's never going to be anything like a hedge at its height!
They'll live
Don't worry about chopping them at different times either - they're pretty hard to kill, and you can prune and trim at almost any time to keep them going in the right direction.
I've often told the story here about a house near me. It borders the main road, corner site, and the back garden is really small, but the side part is better. When it was being sold - at least a decade ago - the owners planted a laurel hedge. Good idea - makes it more private etc, and creates a bigger 'back' garden.
However, they planted a long row of tall, skinny laurels [6 footers] to match it up with the hefty, dense, established one bordering the main road.
It still looks dreadful, while the original one is still huge and healthy...
I live in west central Scotland - not where that photo is...
The shoots I've cut off I've stuck in the ground in some of the gaps, not expecting them to take really but seems a better use than compost. I'll update as and when I make any progress 😊
and noticed one of my laurels ,I have 2 at front near gate was badly looking full of holes etc it look ok from distance but mess when up closed
I think I got carried away and kept chopping all mess away 🙈🙈
not sure if it’s diseased or not
I hope I’ve not prune it to hard And it dies
also it’s now less than half size as other one
should I chop that down to or leave it alone
However, the leaves started to yellow and brown pretty quickly. Now a lot of leaves are droopy looking and those leaves look very dry, even though they are still green in colour.
What more can I do to save them? I'm getting very worried.
Thanks,