The Yucca plant can be an evergreen shrub, a small tree and some more tender varieties can be houseplants. With so many options available, you can choose between the dense or the loose rosettes of sword-shaped leaves, often variegated and bell-shaped flowers. The larger forms will lose a lot of the leaves at the lower part of the trunk with time, which means as your Yucca plant matures it exposes the trunk, much like a…
The New Zealand flax is a great evergreen shrub that can add a lot of shape and decoration to your garden. It’s a lovely plant that gives you architectural shape and colour all year round. It does get quite large and this is why regular pruning is important to maintain its shape and remove spent flowers and damaged foliage. However, if you let it get too big for the space provided it will start to…
The Phormium mealybug is a pest that originates from New Zealand and is able to thrive in the UK outside, even in the winter, which is unusual because all other types of mealybugs you will usually find in greenhouses because they need a warm temperature, but not the Phormium mealybug. Most mealybugs are a problem because they remove the sap from your plant, this can affect their growth rate and then they excrete excess sugar…
If you have a Cornus, commonly known as Dogwood, and it’s growing successfully and you now want to plant more of them in your garden, you can always propagate them by taking hardwood cuttings. Hardwood cuttings get their name because they are taken from the hard wood of the plant later in the season. When should you take Cornus cuttings? Hardwood cuttings are taken later in the season, usually in autumn but you can take…
Dogwood is a very popular ornamental tree that is known for its elegant foliage and bright red fruit. You also get the Cornus varieties such as Cornus alba and Cornus sanguinea that are grown for their brightly coloured winter stems and need to be pruned back hard in spring. Cornus is very strong but one downside to this shrub is the host of diseases that can infest a Dogwood tree and cause some serious problems,…
Dogwoods are known for having colourful stems all winter long and they require very little maintenance. If you want to enjoy vibrant colours throughout the winter you need to make sure you prune your tree properly, which means giving them a hard prune at the right time of year. When should you prune them? First off, you need to make sure you prune them at the right time of the year. This is either at…
Hebes are evergreen shrubs that do quite well in the UK given their hardiness, their low maintenance requirements because they require minimal pruning. They prefer being in full sun all year round but can tolerate semi-shade if that is all you have, just note that in semi-shaded areas they might not flower as prolifically as they would in a full sun position. They’re very flexible in that you can grow them in the ground and…
Phormiums are very strong plants, perfect for windswept gardens and coastal areas. These are no tender houseplants and they can easily tolerate -5°C easily, even -10°C if you take some precautionary measures, such as putting a good layer of mulch around the base of plants in winter. Many people in the UK learned this the hard way in 2013 when a very cold winter killed many Phormiums in gardens throughout the UK and Ireland, however,…
It’s the time in your life to buy a petrol chainsaw – and you’re excited. Maybe you’ve decided that the old trees in the corner of your garden really need to go. Maybe you just want a decent chainsaw for logging, this is actually what I mainly use my chainsaw for these days. You’re now ready to invest in the ultimate chainsaw, the truth is, if you want power and speed, a petrol chainsaw is…
The flowering Dogwood is known for its beautiful bracts that appear around the late spring to early summer. However, the most popular Dogwoods, the Cornus alba, Cornus sericea and Cornus sanguinea are actually grown for their stunning and brightly coloured stems, often yellow, red and even a firey orange depending on the variety have, and they make one of the most stunning winter displays you will ever see. Finally, there is the lesser-known ‘Cornelian Cherry’, also known as…
