Ruislip & Eastcote & Northwood Gazette
CUT AND RUN
When a plant is past its best it’s time to move on
WHILE the soil is still warm it’s a great time to put new plants in the ground, or dig up others to move them about.
So take a good look at your garden and if changes are needed, act now. However, sometimes the best improvements can be made by removing plants rather than adding more.
I’ve been adding to my garden for the past five years. It’s been non-stop development, but over the last few weeks I’ve been looking at the structure, the bare bones of the garden.
On
one perimeter there is a mediumsized goat willow, Salix caprea. This is a common enough plant but I did enjoy the beautiful shape of its crown. However it’s adding little else to the garden. Every spring the ground beneath was carpeted in greyish catkins and its leaves appear to have some sort of disfiguring virus.
I’ve spent the year looking at it, appreciating the job it was doing in terms of creating privacy and background, but all the time wondering whether it should be for the chop.
Garden-wise this is a big decision but sometimes you have to make bold choices.
Most of us have fairly limited spaces and when I consider the beautiful plants we can grow, to have a large plant that you are unsure about seems a waste of space.
Ask yourself – do I really like it? Is it doing an important job?
So I got out the handsaw, took off one of the lower branches, and saw straight away the space opening up and the light flooding in.
I continued over the weekend, sawing it limb by limb, and gradually a whole new section of blue sky opened above.
Plants around it will finally have room to breathe and there’s a whole new border area which can be planted up with some choice specimens.
It does leave me with a gap at the perimeter where I will need something evergreen for privacy, but I don’t want anything that will block out all that light again.
The space is fairly near to the house so I’d like something quite special. I’m thinking about Eucryphia, a wonderful evergreen tree from the southern hemisphere which is smothered in large white blossoms towards the end of summer, which makes it unusual and garden-worthy.
Eucryphias grow quite tall so aren’t suitable for most small gardens, but the likes of ‘Rostrevor’ are fairly columnar in shape so will be more slimline than the willow. Another option could be an elegant bamboo, one that will clump gently and not
send out runners across the garden.
So I’m thinking about Tibetan native, Thamnocalamus ‘Kew Beauty’ which has subtle blue-grey canes, delicate leaves, and grows to a height of around 13ft, so won’t impose upon its neighbours.
Before all that though, my next job will be the removal of all the branches and leaves from the Salix caprea.
As mentioned, the leaves look rather unhealthy so I’m reluctant to compost these.
So I’ll store them and some of the twigs for some seasonal bonfires for Halloween at the end of the month.