Wednesday, October 24, 2012

National Conifer Week 2012






Take your eye off of them for just a season and specialist equipment might be needed.


I answered a classified ad on a local buy and sell website this week.  The ad was in the FREE section, and the person was looking for someone with a chainsaw to take away some trees.  It was worded as ‘FREE FIREWOOD’, which sounded good to me as we have a fire to keep going and my mother in law has two wood burning stoves to feed throughout the winter, so the more wood we can get the better.  As the garden was very local I took no time in getting there, with freebies it’s the early bird...

I needn’t have rushed though as the wood in question was on loads of multi stemmed conifers, still uncut and reaching 30-40 feet into the air.  I only have a small chainsaw and don’t have a trailer let alone a towbar on the car, so felt totally inadequate for the job.  I like to keep things tidy so even if I wasn’t getting paid I would still like to leave the place tidier than when I found it, so would feel compelled to take away all of the greenery, and there was plenty of it! I would have needed about twenty skips to clear the soft branches that would be no good for burning, even before I got to the trunks.  I asked the woman how the garden came to be so overgrown and she told me that she had planted all of the conifers (about 30 of them) in her garden and took her eye off them for a few years. This was the result.  The lady took me to a place where a hidden arbour was, totally covered by conifers, her patio, again swamped by them. I can only guess the damage they have done to the walls and driveway.  

This might be a bit of an extreme but I do know of a lot of people who are haunted by leylandii cutting every year, take your eye off them for a season and you have a mammoth clearing task on your hands. 
Garden retailers are not giving up though and still see the conifer as a must have for pots and containers at least, even if we are not prepared to let them lose in the garden.

Growing Conifers in the garden
To boost conifer sales, retailers have been getting involved in the National Conifer Week. The objective of this event, organised by the British Conifer Group (BCG) and supported by the Horticultural Trades Association (HTA), is to provide support for retailers to encourage their customers to see the many benefits of growing conifers in the garden.
Nearly a third of us have a conifer in the garden according to a recent survey.  It’s be interesting to see the amount of people who wished they never planted them in the garden in the first place as some types can grow up to 3 feet each growing season.

New Varieties to the market:
Even if conifers are advertised as being ‘dwarf’, keep a close eye on them!
Chamaecyparis lawsoniana ‘Pearly Swirls’,
Juniperus squamata ‘Hulsdonk Yellow’
and Juniperus squamata ‘Tropical Blue’.
These three offer vibrant colour to a garden in blues, greens, golds, greys and bronzes to brighten up those autumn and winter months.

Here are a few old favourites, ideal for the small garden
• Taxus baccata ‘Standishii’,
• Chamaecyparis obtusa ‘Nana Gracilis’
• Picea glauca ‘J.W. Daisy’s White’
• Picea pungens ‘Globosa’
• Chamaecyparis lawsoniana ‘Minima Aurea’.

Irish Stockist
Future Forests based in County Cork have a wide choice of both potted and bare rooted conifers. Bare rooted conifers will be in stock from November.
  • 3'x3'      Cryptomeria jap. 'Tilford Gold' . Dwarf bush, bronzed in winter
  • 8'x3'      Thuja occ 'Brabant'. Neat cone, bronze in winter
  • 5'x3'      Chamaecyparis laws. 'Yvonne'. Yellow /gold, cone shaped
  • 2'x2'      Chamaecyparis obtusa Nana Gracilis. Very dwarf, green shell shaped foliage
  • 8'x6'      Korean Fir (Abies koreana). Good shape and doesn't get too tall                              
      Purple cones on even a young tree
  • 5'x3'      Juniper communis Common Juniper. Strong bush, prickly, berries for gin                                              Native, likes lime
  • 3'x3'      Juniper squa. 'Holger'. New shoots tipped creamy yellow
If you can’t find what you are looking for locally then Future Forests is also offering any 5 Junipers in 9cm for 15 euro.

New Book
The RHS has recently published a giant, two-volume Encyclopedia of Conifers, co-authored by Derek Spicer, which covers all of the world’s 615 conifer species plus 8,000 cultivars. An ideal book for the conifer collector, the encyclopedia features over 5,000 fantastic photos and provides an essential reference tool.

Be Warned
As part of the ‘Plan it, Plant it this Autumn' campaign, conifers can offer a way to add something new and interesting to the garden at has become a quieter time in the trade. Being hardy, easy to care for and long-lasting, conifers are the ideal choice for the marginal gardener looking for a low maintenance but high impact plant.
Be warned though, what looks cute and unobtrusive now could reach 40’ in height and have a spread of more than 25 feet!


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