Sometimes as gardeners, we place all the emphasis on plants. However, a few well positioned ornaments and focal points can heighten the interest and drama within a garden.
14.07.2023 - 23:01 / irishtimes.com
Q: I have a magnolia tree since 2018. There was a few flowers on it when I got it, but it hasn’t flowered since. It is also late to produce leaves every year – mid-May. What can I do to encourage flowers please? MM, Co Tipperary
A: These slow-growing flowering shrubs or small trees are one of the glories of spring and can be found growing in many of the country’s finest gardens. But as is almost always the case in gardening, a happy, healthy specimen is inevitably a result of the right plant in the right place, and they can be challenging to grow well. This is especially true in colder midland gardens, where their foliage and flowers are more vulnerable to late harsh spring frosts and cold winds that singe the emerging leaves and buds.
Along with a sheltered spot in full sun or light shade, most (but not all) types of magnolia also need a fertile, humus-rich, damp but free-draining, neutral or slightly acidic, soil to flourish.
[ Your gardening questions answered: What should I do with my brown hebe? ]
I say not all, because Magnolia grandiflora and M. delavayi are among the few species that are more tolerant of a dry alkaline soil, while varieties of Magnolia sieboldii and Magnolia wilsonii will tolerate a damp alkaline soil. But most tolerant of an alkaline soil is the lovely star magnolia or Magnolia stellata, a compact, relatively resilient, deciduous species suitable for small gardens with large, white, starry flowers that appear on the plant’s bare stems in mid-spring.
Although it still appreciates a sheltered spot, its long lasting, graceful blooms are also more resistant to frost damage than those of the larger, tulip-flowered species of magnolia, making it a better choice for gardens in colder parts of the
Sometimes as gardeners, we place all the emphasis on plants. However, a few well positioned ornaments and focal points can heighten the interest and drama within a garden.
Autumn may seem a strange time to start a gardening business but it is the time to focus on what you want to do. Get all your ducks (or seedlings) in a row and ensure you have the detail sorted and with that I include enough cash to see you through and chosen customer groups. How to Start Your Own Gardening Business An Insider Guide to Setting Yourself Up as a Professional Gardener is a useful tutorial if you want to set up a gardening business. I recommend you consider your aspirations and limitations carefully and either set up a ‘Life Style business’ or consider becoming a qualified, professional career gardener.
As gardeners mature they enter a purple patch in their life and potentially in the garden. Some of the best plants with purple or coppery coloured leaves take several years to mature like the notional gardener. Amongst the favourites must be the copper beech and the many Acers with reddish leaves.
Virtually no flies on your car windscreen, sterile fields with no hedgerows and a multi-million pound insecticide industry not much heaven for insects. The hope for bugs, flies and little creatures may rest in your garden.
There is no reason why you should settle down for an empty, boring backyard when there is so much that can inspire you. Check out our post on how Your Backyard Can Be the Best Hang Out Place with these DIYs!
A: As much as wild ivy provides a very important habitat for birds and insects, and the arboreal form (the older, shrubby growth which produces flowers), and is a really valuable source of nectar, it can also be problematic in established gardens where it can damage built structures as well as some established, older trees such as your apple tree. With the latter, very heavy ivy growth can eventually cause death by overburdening the tree’s leafy canopy, which in turn can result in (a) broken branches, leading to an increased risk of disease and (b) destabilising of the tree’s root system, increasing the risk of it falling in a storm. Very heavy ivy growth in the canopy of a fruit tree can also reduce the amount of light needed for healthy growth, interfere with blossom set and slow down ripening of the fruit.
A writer for a popular gardening magazine reached out to me recently and asked what my favorite garden tools for homeowners and small hobby farmers were. Of course, this is an impossible question to answer in just one blog post, so I have compiled my favorite weed management tools for you.
It is Spring! And I am so excited to get back into the landscape to clean and update my landscape beds. But, oddly, as excited as I am, I realize this month also consists of a lot of “hurry up and wait” due to our unpredictable weather.
Are you looking at plants in your garden and wondering why they aren’t flowering?
Q: Can you tell me what this insect is? It’s feasting on my dahlia leaves. I don’t use insecticides in the garden so can handpick and squash them if I have to. If they’re not going to do too much harm I’m happy to leave them alone. DK, Co Waterford
Don’t be horribly alarmed; I didn’t fail to notice an entire branch emanating from the ground-level root zone. This is a high-grafted tree–a weeper made from combining roots and a trunk of one variety with the desired flowering and fruiting head of another–so the branch came from just below the union where top meets trunk, sneaky thing that it is.I don’t have the heart to prune off the errant branch until some bird or another comes to enjoy those little golden gems, but then I promise: I will. I do know how to prune, I do. I just sometimes don’t know how to pay attention, apparently.
Andrew, who is now assistant director of the Chicago Botanic Garden, is past president of Magnolia Society International’s board of directors, and remains a member of the society’s board. In his tenure over 20 years as curator at Scott Arboretum of Swarthmore College in Pennsylvania, Andrew built the magnolia collection from about 50 to more than 200 cultivars. That’s a lot of magnolias.Now Andrew Bunting is author of a book on the queen of flowering trees, called “The Plant Lover’s Guide to Magnolias,” just out from Timber Press as part of an ongoing series on various distinctive genera of plants.We talked magnolias on my public-radio show and podcast. Read along while you listen in to the April 25, 2016 edition of the podcast using the player below (or at this link)–and even learn how to train a magnolia or any w