Gardening
Planting evergreens
Penis Wood
Unlike deciduous plants
evergreens do not have a pronounced dormant period — their activities are only slowed down at low temperatures and When daylight hours are shorter. But for our practical purpose we Should remember that their foliage Is always transpiring to some extent, and that unless their roots are able to take up and translocate Moisture to replace water losses the leaves will flag and in extreme cases plants will die. It is important therefore to transplant them When the ground is warm, so that the roots can quickly go into action by establishing a living partnership with the surrounding soil. October and April are the best Months, and of these 1 prefer October for hardy evergreens. Roots NI make some development and oe better able to stand up to the droughts of spring—and no matter 'OW wet and disconsolate a summer may prove to be there is always a dangerous period of drought when the wind blows Pialevolently between NE and NW in March and May, and can knock all the stuffing and too often all the life out of plants put in in March or April whose root systems are not yet established. This
applies to really hardy evergreen hedging plants like yews, Portuguese laurels, and box and to a number of other very useful shrub or mixed-border plants: mahonias, skimmias, osmaraeas. Arbutus too, a tree native to Ireland and, curiously, tolerant of calcareous soils, although a member of the Ericaceae, a family which includes calcifuges like rhododendrons, which latter plants if they are lifted with a good ball of soil can be transplanted at any time of the year. They should be planted 'high' that is, with only half the rootball sunk below ground level, the other half standing above, and the surrounding soil mounded up.
When confronted with a deciduous tree 8 or 9ft high one stands back and takes the operation seriously, that is, by digging a hole 2 to 3ft in diameter and 2ft deep, putting in a layer of coarse stone for drainage, a layer of reversed turves, a spreading of farmyard manure and filling the hole with good topsoil. The same sort of preparation ought to be given to evergreens because although they are always small when they come from the nursery,' many of them, pines, ilexes, cedars, will in the end grow up to be as large as their deciduous brothers.
Camellias are also calcifuges and most have to have an acid soil of from pH 5 to 6. The plants themselves are as hardy, as the common laurel; it is only the flower buds which are vulnerable to early winter frost (they say that if camellia buds survive until Christmas they will endure hard frosts later) but the flowers themselves in March or April can always be spoiled by biting winds and frosts.
I would prefer to put in Mediterranean plants like cistus, lavender, rosemary and rue in spring, because they are all of them just doubtfully hardy in very wet or hard winters in this country. They may endure moderate frosts, but sodden soil and damps are things they have not been used to in their Mediterranean homeland. I would plant them in poorish soil and keep a rather pawky eye on watering in the first year, until the roots have taken hold and then leave them fairly dry.
Previous page
