Grow your own way with skill and patience

Afew days ago a picture dropped into my inbox. It was of a street in London lined with bottlebrush plants which had been grown as standards. One of my friends had spotted it and been sufficiently impressed to capture it with his camera.

I was impressed too. You don’t often see bottlebrushes being grown in Scotland, and never to my knowledge as standards, but if I gardened along the Ayrshire coast, or in another favoured spot such as Galloway, I’d give it a go.

Funnily enough it was in South Ayrshire that I recently came across another standard new to me. At Glenapp Castle near Ballantrae, head gardener Annmaree Mitchell is just about to replace the standard Hydrangea paniculatas that have long grown there with fresh plants. Like bottlebrushes, these make wonderful lollipop trees, with panicles of flowers that explode outwards like fireworks.

In fact any plant that develops a woody stem can be trained as a standard, all it takes is a little skill and a lot of patience to turn a rose, fuchsia, rosemary or bay into a tree. The first step is to select a plant with a strong central stem and then to remove the other stems around it. The lead stem should be stripped of side-shoots, leaving a rosette of foliage at the top.

This foliage should be nipped out regularly to encourage bushy growth, while the stem should be tied loosely to a stake and the plant turned every day to ensure that the stem grows straight.

And apart from feeding, watering, clipping and repotting when necessary, that’s all that it takes.

It could be years before you have a substantial standard, but if you can wait it out you’ll

have saved yourself the price of buying something similar from a garden centre.

One of my favourite standard trees is the weeping pear, Pyrus salicifolia ‘Pendula’, which only needs regular trimming to maintain its classic lollipop shape. The silver foliage is very similar to that of an olive tree, but unlike the olive, this pear tree is completely hardy.

This is a small, slow-growing tree so is suitable for most gardens.

Of course you don’t need to trim it at all. Left to its own devices it produces weeping branches that sweep the ground.

This summer I’ve let my box grow wild because I’m entranced by its fresh, young foliage. Eventually I’ll crack and take the clippers to it, subduing it into cones and balls, but for the moment I’m enjoying its shaggy appearance.

Meanwhile I’m busy compiling lists of other things worth trying as standards and I reckon I might be able to do something eye-catching with buddleia. Lavatera might be worth a shot too, but this is notoriously short-lived so it might well succumb before it has a chance to develop a good lollipop shape.