Free's Baby Steps

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Freeranger
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Re: Free's Baby Steps

Post by Freeranger »

I like the wire marker idea, Mo - think I might borrow that one, but might use it sideways to confine the catoneasta a bit and leave space for the others, whatever they are. There are two other spots where it grows, so that should be enough for the bees.
In one of those, it's planted on one side of a wall, but all of the branches and foiliage are on the far side, with just the branches visible on this side.
Incidentally, catoneasta wood is incredibly heavy and fine grained - bet it's great for burning.
Thanks for making me feel a bit better, LL. I know you're right, really. The hedge part was food for thought. I have a privet hedge that I don't think has ever been pruned in what must be about 10 years in this garden, given its previous and current sizes as we moved in and now. I was going to shape that in the next week or two, but now I'll check for nests and adjust my timings if I need to.
One of my evening jobs is to try and identify some of my plants. I have a beautiful one growing up the side of said wall-escaping catoneasta, that could be a rhodi, an azalea or a camelia. I've had a quick look in a gardening catalogue and they all look the same to me. Don't care really but it's a deep vivid red - a gorgeous colour. We might try propagating that one.
My last year weigela cuttings are alive (well 2 are, pretty rubbish hit rate, tbh), and I'e just planted out two of the trimmings from my first outing, now rooted. I have a hydrangeia (sp?) cutting in a pot, so all I have to do now is keep the alive until next year....
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Mo
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Re: Free's Baby Steps

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Freeranger wrote:I like the wire marker idea, Mo - think I might borrow that one, but might use it sideways to confine the catoneasta a bit.

Mine is a support as well as a marker.
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Freeranger
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Re: Free's Baby Steps

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I keep having to look these up because the names won't stick in my head, so I'm putting them here for reference.
I think the lovely red thing is a camelia on reflection. I also have (maybe) an abelia, escallonia, philadelphus (??), berberis, azalea, rhodi, 2 x potentilla, weigela. All quite bee friendly, I think, which I'm quite pleased about but not much of a seasonal spread of nectar or visual interest.
There's another one that I can't find a name for - gorse-like, orange flowers down the branch, dark green leaves, very prickly. Any ideas?
It's helpful to know what things are so I can look up how to care for them.
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Mo
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Re: Free's Baby Steps

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Freeranger wrote:There's another one that I can't find a name for - gorse-like, orange flowers down the branch, dark green leaves, very prickly. Any ideas?
It's helpful to know what things are so I can look up how to care for them.

My bereberis is orange. Is it a different variety to the one you know you've got? The birds like the berries - purply-blue stains on the drive in summer, but it keeps them off some of the soft fruit. It self-seeds like mad, pops up everywhere.
Is your philadelphus (mock orange) single or double. I've got a single - Belle Etoile. O love the smell. And I know its name because it was one of the earlier shrubs Jim planted. He ended up packing so many in that I lost track.
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Freeranger
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Re: Free's Baby Steps

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The one I definitely think is a berberis is rather like a purple privet. As to the other one, I just googled and it may be a berberis thunbergii. Very different. I wouldn't have thought they'd be the same species, but it looks like they are. Thanks for that, Mo.
I'm not sure about the others - to be honest, they mostly look very similar, but I think I'm right with them. I'll wait until they flower and check again. Potintillas are white. The orange blossom one is another I'm less confident about. It's a single white flower, and doesn't have much of a scent - it looks like the pictures, though.
As I'm on a budget, and also because of difficult conditions here, I'm propagating from existing stock to fill gaps, but I'd really like a bit more year-round activity, so I'll have to see what else I can scrounge.
Freeranger
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Re: Free's Baby Steps

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Disaster!!!!!! The handle of my long-handled pruners snapped this morning.
I've been using the normal short ones but it involves getting very much more up close and personal with the shrubs than I really want to. My thumb hurts too.
Found a honeysuckle under some long grass (as you do). Grabbed a handful of stems to start pruning out the dead wood and they crumbled in my hand, saving me the trouble. Safe to say, much better looking specimen now, but its been a bit traumatic for it, I fear.
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KarenE
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Re: Free's Baby Steps

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Honeysuckle is pretty hardy - I've got a couple in my garden, one of which I don't much like as it's an aphid magnet and takes over our patio so it gets hard pruned every year and still comes back - possibly just out of sheer spite
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Freeranger
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Re: Free's Baby Steps

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:-D
My catoneasta has started growing again too. I think it fancies world domination.
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Mo
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Re: Free's Baby Steps

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I have a Japonica (that used to be called quince) next to the front door. it tries to stop me getting out and pops up the other side of a concrete path
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lancashire lass
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Re: Free's Baby Steps

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Mo wrote:I have a Japonica (that used to be called quince) next to the front door. it tries to stop me getting out and pops up the other side of a concrete path


{rofwl} I have a mental picture of a siege and counter measures
Freeranger
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Re: Free's Baby Steps

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Well home again after looking after someone else's house. Thankfully her greenhouse survived, mostly intact, and my seedlings got a little boost. The peppers particularly enjoyed it. Her leafy things bolted, but I cut them back and it just looks as though we did a lot of healthy eating! Hindsight has just connected that to using the same water for them and the tomatoes - should have not used feed, especially in that heat.
I'd gone home after a few days and did a big wadge of work, and when I left it was all looking very much better and tidier. Got back to a garden about six inches higher, and looking a bit dispiritingly messy again. I guess I just keep going until all the bits join together.
Returned with a load of cuttings that made the journey back in jam jars in the cup holder, and now sat on the widow sill in the hope that they root. Have two plant pots as well with bits I divided off some rampant plants. Another friend is sorting cuttings to bring over. Getting them all well trained. Think I may have made the mistake of asking for thugs, but I really wanted instant cover. Will probably spend the rest of my life digging them up. Now to make spaces....
Freeranger
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Re: Free's Baby Steps

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Do you think it's normal that every time I visit someone's garden, I'm looking for the bits I can cut off and take away?
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Mo
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Re: Free's Baby Steps

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I suspect that many gardeners do, either stealthily or after asking permission.
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Freeranger
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Re: Free's Baby Steps

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Just got back home after two weeks away, and almost don't know where to start!
The grass is about two feet tall, and it looks like a right tip. The exception is my instant flower beds, where the underlying dock leaves have broken through the paper and mulch, and none of the wildflower seeds seem to have germinated. Little oases of nothing in what looks like a crop field. There seems to be a big shortage of flowers - nowhere near the number of wild ones there normally are, and the catoneasta is still in bud - virtually nothing on my pruned ones that I thought would have flowered heavily after the assault.
The exception is my untouched rhododendron, which is a mound of colour.. Some of my newly pinched plants have loved their new spots and have really taken off, which is gratifying. Everything I left in jars or pots in the bath have survived, and even done better than normal. Still no roots on most of the cuttings.
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lancashire lass
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Re: Free's Baby Steps

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Freeranger wrote:and the catoneasta is still in bud - virtually nothing on my pruned ones that I thought would have flowered heavily after the assault.
The exception is my untouched rhododendron, which is a mound of colour.


Heavy pruning usually does knock flowering back a year especially trees - for one, flowering takes a lot of energy from a plant that has to start growing again because all the leaf (and flower) buds for the year have been lopped off. So that energy and food resources goes into leaf growth instead. I have the same situation with the elders which to be fair, I expected - no flowers this year after a severe trim but lots of leafy matter and good healthy growth, whereas next year will (fingers crossed) be a mass of flowers.
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