Orto di Casa Cecconi – Page 5 – My first allotment, and then one thing leading to another…

Friday, 6 February 2015

Rose pruning

After my rather demoralising experience with the rambling rose, I was looking forward our rose pruning masterclass today.

Different types of roses need different pruning regimes to ensure good flowering, and we had a go with the four different types below. In general, when rose pruning, one aims at creating an open centred shrub to ensure air circulation, in particular as rose are prone to fungal diseases such as powdery mildew (Podosphaera pannosa), blackspot (Diplocarpon rosae) and rust (Phragmidium tuberculatum). Also, as always in pruning, one aims to remove all dead, diseased and damaged material, to operate with clean and sharp tools, and to clean up around the plants so that debris and leaf litter does not harbour pest and diseases.

Hybrid teas

The roses with one flower per stem, flowering best on new wood, these can be cut back the hardest to
ensure new strong growth. They may repeat flower in flushes, usually three per year.

Stems are cut down to secateur’s length from soil level (which generally means 4 to 6 buds from the ground), at a suitable outward facing bud (although if no bud are visible sometimes a cut is made anyway at a suitable height in the hope of a bud emerging later on. This might lead to dieback).

The frame of the plant is generally formed by 4-5 healthy stems, so older wood may be removed right to the ground. Any weaker shoots are pruned back to 2-4 buds, to try and strengthen them.

Floribundas

Like hybrid teas, floribundas arepeat-flower on new wood. They flower in clusters, and continuously throughout the summer.

They are pruned back in a similar way to hybrid teas, but the framework of the plant is kept higher up from the ground, about 2 secateur’s length, or 6-8 buds from the ground. Also, more stems are retained: six to eight.

Standard roses

The aim was to keep a lollipop shape, round rather than flat at the top, to create which one starts working the stems on the sides, shortening them to two or three buds from last year’s growth, then gradually moving towards the top.

The same rules apply as if the stems were growing in the ground, but they are not cut back as hard so more stems are left, as hard pruning may encourage suckers in the rootstock that provides the stem. Equally though one has to make sure they do not get too top heavy and snap or fall over.

Before After

Modern shrubs

Old shrub roses, like species roses, are best left to themselves, as they flower on older wood, and they only need occasional renovating by cutting the oldest wood back to the ground.

Modern shrubs or English roses, however, depending on their vigour, can be cut back about one third to half, in a domed shape to obtain a fullly-furnished flowering plant. As always, a portion of older wood needs to be removed from the ground, to keep the plant open centred and to generate a constant supply of new wood.

Reading rose labels

If you come and visit RHS Garden Wisley and find yoursefl wondering how to identify the roses you are looking at: it’s all on the label!

Rose label at RHS Garden Wisley

The first line (top left) tells you the year of accessioning into the collection
The second line (top left) and third line (centre) are the family and genus, which are the same for all roses of course
The fourth line (centre) is the trading name of the rose
The fifth line (centre, in inverted commas) is the breeder’s name of the rose, with the first 3 letters being the breeder’s code.
The sixth line (bottom left) tells you what type of rose it is: HT stands for hybrid tea, F for floribunda, S for shrub and so on
Monday, 2 February 2015

More progress in the Cottage Garden

The new path was edged!

Woodchips ready for spreading

Back from the weekend I found another surprise: my wonderful colleague on duty had edged the new path with wooden boards ready to take woodchips… which my fellow trainee in the arboretum got for me as quick as a flash.

Another of my plants, Aronia ‘Viking’ was ready to come out of the reception area and there were plenty of leaves from the several Carpinus outside the area to clear up… so you can guess how I spent my last two days in the area…

Leaf mould cage

Actually, I started with the leaves, going back one step… In the Cottage Garden there is a lovely leafmould cage, in which leaves had been moulding away for a few years. As I had plenty of leaves to put in, I thought I would get some of the excellent crumbly conditioner at the bottom of the cage to topdress my plants.

Crumbly leaf mould

Leaf mould was described in a book I was
reading recently as “the prince of soil improvers*” and hornbeam (together with oak and beech) makes top-quality** mould. Leaf mould is not rich in nutrients; however, it improves the organic matter content of soil (essential with our sandy soil) and helps retain moisture.

So I emptied the cage from the bottom and filled it back at the top.

Then it was the turn of planting the Aronia. Also known as chokeberry, the plant is great for winter colour and has edible berries that come in red, purple or black (depending on the species); the taste of said berries is more or less palatable (with some only suitable for cooking) and it apparently improves after frost. Chokeberries are allegedly rich in antioxidants and they are gaining popularity as a “super food” (although I never get too excited on a single fruit/veg as miraculous; I believe a balanced diet of fresh, local and non-chemically treated plants and some free-range meat and dairy, from animals fed as nature intended, is best).

Starting on the path

Finally, it was the turn of filling in the path with woodchips (and topping up the old path too), a task made lighter by the precious help of a colleague and a volunteer.

The new path was inaugurated by our lovely regular visitors Brenda and Gordon, who have been taking an active interest on the progress of my area.

The finished path

I had never edged a path before, let alone a winding one, so I found it really interesting to discover how it is done: a series of parallel cuts into the boards makes them flexible to bending, a technique also used for training spindle trees. The boards are then fixed into place by nailing to posts driven into the ground. Et voila’.

Parallel cuts make the wood bendy Fixing to posts

References:
* M. Wilson, RHS New Gardening, Mitchell Beazley, 2007
** RHS Wisley Experts, Gardeners’ Advice, Dorling Kindersley, 2004
Thursday, 22 January 2015

The potager in the Cottage Garden

Back from my extended Christmas leave I found a batch of plants waiting for me in the Garden’s reception area (that is where plants accepted into the garden are checked and monitored for pest and diseases).

It was the Lonicera nitida for the hedging in my Cottage Garden, donated to the RHS by the lovely folks at nursery best4hedging in support to my potager project (that I mentioned before).

I have chosen L. nitida for the Cottage Garden as an alternative to box, as the popularity of such plant and its extensive planting across the country has meant that it has become an easy target for pests and diseases, the two most recent and devastating ones being box blight (caused by fungi Cylindrocladium buxicola and Pseudonectria buxi) and the box tree caterpillar (Cydalima perspectalis). L. nitida is rather dainty with its small light green foliage, but it’s vigorous in growth so it is used for hedge and topiary, and it will likely do well in our poor sandy soil, even if it will require clipping back at least 3 times a year; it should feel proportionate for the area in which it is planted.

Wilson’s honeysuckle, as it is commonly known, comes also in a cultivar called ‘Baggesen’s Gold’ with yellow leaves, that was awarded an AGM, but as green leaves would be more appropriate to the location, I have chosen to plant the species.

Given that this plant is relatively free of pests and diseases, I was able to retrieve it from the reception area earlier than I would if it had been Buxus, as monitoring for plants with known problems needs to be carried out for longer*. So today I was able to carry out my planting.

I was a bit nervous, as my design was a bit unusual for a potager. I was going to fill a square bed that is already delimited by clay rope edging and decided not to plant along the perimeter, but to create a circle in the middle (around an existing apple tree) and “spokes” from the circle to the square’s corners. As the paths into the Cottage Garden approach the square bed from the corners, I thought planting along the perimeter would look like a wall in the face of the visitors, while lines from the corners to the centre would lead the eye on.

The Cottage Garden area before (looking North)

The Cottage Garden consists of a more formal half (including the square
bed) and a more informal area. By choosing to make a potager with a neat, geometrically shaped hedge, I have emphasized its formality.

Draft of plan and elevation: geometric and soft “informal” design

An alternative design I had discussed with a specialist colleague (who sketched it for me) would have been to soften the formal geometric hard landscaping of this half of the Cottage Garden, linking it to the informal area, by using a less structured type of hedging (i.e. Alchemilla mollis) planted in circles.

Plants laid out

Having made my choice on paper, I was still a bit uneasy about how it might look in practice, so I laid the plants down first thing to have a look at the design in situ. What I saw was encouraging.

Design implemented with string and canes

So, fresh from my training in implementing complex designs, I started measuring and delimiting the area with canes and string. As the apple tree was slightly off centre (it had to be planted with a sling from a truck, as it was full size), with my canes and string I found it easy to adjust the design, by making the circle a little bit smaller.

Planting finished

Then I proceeded with planting the Lonicera in two rows, either side of the string, spacing the plants about 20 cm.

Lonicera leading the eye on from the path

I was definitely pleased with the results, but wanted to remove all the props before starting to enthuse. A good rake to the soil… and yes, I am really pleased. Two colleagues, a volunteer and a couple of visitors have already fed back they liked it!

The feeling is to have come a long way from the first time I worked in my area back in October, clearing the spent meadow from under the apple tree in the square bed!

The Cottage Garden area after (looking South)

But of course this is just the start: we now have to grow the veg and fruit to fill the newly created divisions in the bed. They are four, by the way, to accomodate a four-year rotation: Solanaceae and Cucurbitaceae, followed by Alliaceae and Papillionaceae, then Brassicaceae and Asteraceae and finishing with Apiaceae and Chenopodiaceae. The circle around the apple tree will be mulched and will give the tree roots some space to develop undisturbed.

* a note on P&D: if checking on purchased plants, keep in mind that potted plants (as opposed to bare roots, could also harbour some in the soil!

Monday, 12 January 2015

Conifers

Conifers. For most of my life I have not considered them much individually: I loved their scent in the air on bright chilly nights when I lived in the mountains in Italy. Then I spent some time among labelled specimens at Kew, and a few things caught my attention:

the fresh, aromatic scent they give out in hot weather too,
the beauty of Larix laricina‘s cones (which could easily compete with the prettiest of roses),
that if you look closely, and know what to look out for, they are different, and some are surprisingly beautiful.

At the time, encouraged (not little) by a Plant ID deadline looming, and with the help of two lovely colleagues, I started looking more closely to conifers, and I was able to recognise Cedrus atlantica, I picked a favourite in Pseudotsuga menziesii, with its pinepple scented dark green, flat needles, started to be obsessed by the difference between Thuja and Chamaecyparis which I couldn’t quite pin down for a while, and almost wrote a whole blog entry on the intriguing seeds of Cephalotaxus. And I started taking pictures of conifers in woods, still with uncertain identification skills.

Now I have another opportunity to have a go at identifying conifers, as we are having a dedicated Plant ID. Today we even enjoyed a walk in the pinetum with two conifer experts.

Apart from having the opportunity to look at the various specimens and have their habits and garden merits explained, we got a very useful quick guide to tell apart the genus Abies and Picea (the “Christmas trees”). I also found instructions online to tell them apart from pines, genus Pinus.

ABIES	PICEA	PINUS
single needles softer, flat, do not roll between fingers needles attached on “suckers”, smooth branches cones crumble then fall smooth bark, often grayish, then furrowed have rather regimented tiers	single needles sharply pointed, 4-sided, roll between fingers needles with woody stalks (remain when shedded, rough branches) cones fall whole, thinner scales bark rough, then furrowed and scaly	needles in clusters of 2, 3, 5 thicker scales cones young bark smooth, then flaky, reddish-brown

We were told how to identify CEDRUS too (also in the family Pinaceae), which carry their leaves in whorls around the stems, looking like tufts, and similarly to Abies their cones never make it to the ground intact. Cedars come in three main species: C. libani, with level branches, C. deodara, with descending branches, and C. atlantica, with ascending branches.

Besides family Pinaceae (to which the three genuses above belong, and which also covers Larix, Pseudolarix, Tsuga and Pseudotsuga) conifers also include family Cupressaceae (with Cupressus, Juniperus, Thuja, Metasequoia, Taxodium, Cryptomeria, Cunninghamia, Cephalotaxus etc), Taxaceae, Podocarpaceae, Araucariaceae and, interestingly, a family I had never heard of Sciadopityaceae, that only contains species Sciadopitys verticillata.

Conifers belong to group of plants gymnosperms, meaning naked
seed, as they do not develop inside an ovary, but are exposed (i.e. on
the scales of pinecones).

So, at the end of the walk, what were my favourite conifers?

Thujopsis dolabrata, Cupressaceae, for its stunning underleaf, where the stomatal bands form a branching pattern.

Abies koreana, Pinaceae, for its squat, square-tipped and stiff needles, without mentioning the blue cones, when they come out!

Thursday, 11 December 2014

Spindles
Mature spindles

A row of young spindles

A kinky leader;
on the side, a vertical branch

Spindlebushes. A kinky leader at the top, not a permanent one; a layer of branches, slightly above the
horizontal at the bottom (not the very bottom, about 75 cm), with a gap in the middle.

This shape is widely used in commercial growing of apples and pears, having been perfected by the Dutch in the 50s-70s. It is the shape a seedling starts off in life, and was originally conceived in the middle ages in France – that’s how we were introduced to it today, third day of training.

I’m not a fan of restricted forms of tree (which became popular once we stopped having grazing animals in orchards), as I quite like to see trees in their full glorious shape. But there are sound horticultural and business reasons to choose this shape (although the latest shape is double leaders, to reduce pruning time/costs), which usually requires (semi-)dwarfing rootstock. For apples MM106 does not die easily and crops well in early yrs, but then becomes overvigorous, so M9 may be better.

As the shape is light, fruit is easy to pick and you don’t need a ladder to prune it; the low-angled branches lead to earlier cropping (it has to do with the flow of sap, and with the sunshine reaching the fruits), and you can plant the trees closer so you get more cropping per area (rowscan be as close as 4 m even though we have trees planted at 4.5 m in the orchard, to allow for easier walking of the visitors and tractor space).

Formative pruning

A spindle starts off as a feathered maiden, whose framework of branches are aligned as a diagonal cross to the others down the row. Bending is done in the spring, as branches may break, stiffer as they are in the cold, and they do not set into position until they start growing anyway.

To keep the branches down – for a maximum of 6 weeks – one can use hop screws, or W clips, or even cute little bright-coloured (for maximum visibility) weights on the branches (the drawback of these being that the branches wave about).

A branch weight

Hop screw and W clip demonstration

The central leader, which is meant to be kinky to keep the vigour in check, is usually pruned to 10 cm above the uppermost feather, which is rather counterintuitive; sideshoots are tipped to 3 buds down if too vigorous or weak.

Regulatory and renovation pruning

Pruning of the spindles goes by the general principles, with these additions:
- you need a bare area between the leader and the “skirt” (my term) of branches, to let air and light in; keepp only spurs and short branches on the main stem
- the “skirt” needs to be rather flat: you don’t want a peak in it by cutting a branch going up so that then it goes down
- spurs grow on 2nd year old wood and older; you need to keep some of the new wood otherwise you won’t have enough fruit in 2 years’ time; much of the new wood grows upright: pears will fruit on vertical shoots, but they are generally cut or bent anyway
- if you don’t get enough new growth, or nothing is suitably placed, you still need to get some replacement wood. To do this, you use a special slanted cut, D shaped: a “Dutch cut”. Instead of cutting flush to the branch, you cut at a slant, leaving enough room on the side that you want a new branch for shoot hopefully to come out from the base. You never do Dutch cuts at the tip of a branch, or on the upperside of a branch; only in the middle and on the side
A Dutch cut

Shoot on a successful Dutch cut
- if new growth is suitably placed to be trained as replacement, you may tuck it in under another branch to remember the branch needs tying down in the spring.
- in some places, they tie up as well as down, but not here
- the leader needs replacing every so often (when too heavy and old) so keep in mind you need a replacement for it as well. But if it is too vigorous, it’s best left and cut back in June rather than in the winter; remember: summer pruning restrict grows, winter pruning stimulates growth
- by the principle above, sometimes strong verticals are pruned out on vigorous spindles in late July/August
Another day of wondering and mild frustration from not being able to quite pin down the essence of all the principles… even more so because, as I have realised after being assigned to a row of spindles today, next to someone that had worked with them before, that you have to be able to predict the future shape of the tree, and plan ahead how to get it, while I have never seen a spindle grow before! I have to be patient.

Bourses

Bourses, a French term for bags. It refers to shoots that grow elongated and swell up at the base of a flower cluster. They occur, depending largely on cultivars, on both apples and pears and are no particular issue, except for the fact that they may be prone to canker, in which case they need to be cut out.

Bourses affected by canker
Monday, 8 December 2014

Apple pruning season
Sizeable canker on an apple tree

It’s apple pruning season, and you know why? Because the fruits have gone (so no knocking about) and the leaves are down so you can see the shape of the tree more clearly! Otherwise, apples are pretty tolerant of pruning at any time between leaf fall and bud burst, although you want to avoid rainy periods to prevent the spread of canker-causing fungus Neonectria galligena which compromises and eventually girdles a branch.

Bark infected by rotting apple

Incidentally, canker is also triggered by infection to the bark that rotting apples left on the tree do, so any discoloured areas need pruning off if found!

But the pruning training today started with a visit to our
nursery, where we propagate our own trees and grow clonal rootstock by stooling, which is then grown on for one more year before it’s grafted (whip and tongue, in the spring) or budded (in the summer, then cut back the following spring).

Rootstocks

Apples do not come true from seed, so apple trees are born as grafted cuttings or budded buds on a range of rootstocks that ensure
- restricted growth (for smaller gardens, and smaller spaces and to make fruit more accessible for picking)
- earlier fruiting (presumably because the energy of the plant doesn’t go into vegetative growth, being restricted)
- some disease resistance (as rootstocks may be tougher than cultivars, which are chosen for flavour and looks of the fruits)
The simples description of rootstocks I found on Reads Nursery website, but there are other useful ones, like the Aeron Vale Allotment Society’s. Rootstocks take the name of the research stations where they were first studied (M for East Malling, MM for the East Malling/Merton partnership) and a number, which bear no relations to the size of the tree. The most common being:
- M25 full size, generally used for standard trees (cider apples)
- MM106 semi-vigorous, we use it for bush trees in the orchard (where it replaced M7, which was more winter hardy but suckered profusely)
- M9/M26 (for containers) dwarfing
- M27 the most dwarfing
Pears have different rootstocks to apples, in the UK this being quince (Cydonia oblonga) such as semi-vigorous “Quince A” or dwarfing “Quince C”; because not all pear varieties are compatible with pears, they may be on an interstock too (quince rootstock/pear cultivar as interstock/pear cultivar as scion). For bigger trees there is a “Pyrodwarf” stock which is Pyrus and as such does not need interstock. Apple rootstock can be used for pears too, with an interstock of cultivar ‘Winter Banana’, which is compatible (I noticed it in the orchard as it is very prone to burr knots… which, by the way, are the initial of aerial roots, and can be planted).

A burr knot

Section of a burr knott Malus ‘Winter Banana’
trunk covered in burr knots

Depending on which rootstock you choose, you can train your tree – by pruning it- in different ways: for apples, with M27 you can have stepovers, M9 is for spindles (more on this later) and cordons, from M26 you can train as espaliers… For pears, you will have “Quince C” for spindles, “Quince A” for bush and so on…

Formative pruning

Pruning is essential from the beginning in the life of a tree: initially, as formative pruning (for the first three years) it needs to be ruthless, to provide a strong framework of fruiting branches in the desired shape.

A maiden whip is a new tree, that, having been grafted, at one year old has not sideshoots. If a maiden tree has sideshoots, it is called a feathered maiden.

All pruning starts with a maiden. You prune it at about 75 cm for a bush, 1.5 m for a half standard, 2 m for a standard tree. The exact height depends where suitable buds are situated on the specific tree.

With an unfeathered maiden, you cut at the suitable height, making sure there are at least 4 buds below the cut, from which 3-5 branches will develop for your framework. You may want to nick under the uppermost bud so it does not grow too vertical and vigorous (more here, unless, of course, you are going for a shape that requires a central leader).

Pruning an unfeathered maiden for bush tree, year 1, a video

With a feather maiden, it’s like you were a year ahead of an unfeathered maiden, as you already have branches. You cut off all lower shoots, leaving 4-5 well placed branches at the required height, then cutting the leader above the uppermost of those. Because those branches would end in flower buds, but you still need to create the framework, you tip them: if long, you prune back all the way to 1/3 to a desirably placed, outward or upward bud to promote strong growth. This is also what you would do in the second year of an unfeathered maiden
(except the leader part, because you have removed that already in the
first year)

Pruning for bush tree, feathered maiden year 1/unfeathered maiden year 2, a video

The next year (third for an unfeathered maiden, second for a feathered one) you cut back the framework branches about 1/3 to 1/2, to a suitable outward facing bud.

Pruning for bush tree, feathered maiden year 2/unfeathered maiden year 3, a video
Slightly different procedures apply to spindle bushes, in which you want a kinky leader (to slow growth) and a flat layer of branches. Different procedures apply for trained trees (cordons, stepovers, espaliers). The principles are however the same.

In the orchard, we found some example of newly planted trees, at this latest stage, which show how variable the framework may look and that every tree need individual consideration.

A nice goblet shape Tree with very upright growth,
needs opening up further

Regulatory and renovation pruning

Subsequently, you get into a regime of regulatory pruning: removing
dead, damaged and diseased wood, crossing branches, and you control the
height and spread of a plant, allowing air through (to prevent disease)
and sunshine (to ripen the fruits).

What one is after is regular crops of good fruits of a good size: the level of fruiting can be helped to
be more constant over time (otherwise some cultivars tend to go
biennial, recovering one year from the effort of producing plenty of
fruit the previous one by not fruiting much). But remember: fruit is the best growth regulator! Too much pruning and
bud not set, and all the energy goes into vegetative growth: 20-25% is the maximum you should take out!

We do not do spur pruning any more (cutting back new year’s growth to a bud, or a branch to a spur – with some exceptions): cutting back whole branches and whole limbs is the current best practice. The reason why every so often one needs to take out a full limb is that fruit
bearing wood needs renovating, and when some branches get too old and uproductive, they need to go and be replaced by suitable new ones.

Botanical pruning as I have known it is normally quite an arduous job as you have to keep in mind the natural shape of the plant and prune it accordingly. Restoration pruning of a community orchard responded to very similar principles. But regulatory pruning in a working orchard, semi commercial, I found rather confusing today. The principles to keep in mind are several.

First, the shape of the tree. But, then, also its height, for the pickers, and its width, so that tractors have a clear path to do the fertilising and spraying. Then it’s the weight of the fruit, and the amount (see spur thinning).

Some of the trees, especially the ones that have been pruned hard and are predisposed to this behaviour, may respond by throwing out plenty of new shoots, that go to crowd the canopy, and especially the centre of the tree, favouring the spread of mildew.

A mildew-y branch tip

Althought the temptation is to cut them all out, the same rule as the rest of the wood apply: never take more than 1/3! Taking the weak and the strong, and going for the mid-way, is the best approach.

Mildew bursting a bud

And of course one needs to take all of the
mildew-y branches, to avoid the spread of fungus in the spring, on dry days. Mildew makes branches look silvery in the sunshine (more difficult to spot in the rain) with blackened tips and buds. As some apple cultivars have naturally downy new growth, one has to make sure the buds are dead and blackened too.

If branches point down, they tend to be removed, as you tend to get less sugar in the fruit in such conditions.

It was exhausting to try and remember and apply all the principles at once. And the feeling of not quite getting the essence of it mildly depressing. But there will be plenty of time for me to practice over the winter: this will be our main activity, with over 1500 trees!

Spur thinning

Apples come with three main fruiting habits:
- most apples are “spur bearers”: they produce fruit buds on two-year-old wood and older; on the latter, fruit buds for on special short, branched stems called spurs
- a handful of apples are “tip bearers”: they flower and fruit on the tips of previous year’s shoots. These are long branches, so the appearance of the tree is more untidy and sparse
- some trees are “partial tip bearers”, so they have some spurs too
Typical spurs: short branched stems

Pruning is largely the same for all types of trees, but on tip bearers you have to make sure you don’t go to hard on first year wood, which is what will bear flowers and fruits.

Spurs sometimes get congested, which affect the size and quality of the fruit. As a rule, there should be no more than 2 spurs every 10 cm or the gardener’s palm’s lenght. When there are too many spurs, spur thinning is in order. It is best to take out a whole spur then fiddle about with individual fruit buds on it.

Restoration pruning

When a tree/orchard has been left to its own devices for a while, and cropping has been impacted, one should not give up: it can still be brought back! I have done some restoration pruning before and we did not dwell on this much, but the main rule is: don’t do it all in one go…

Restoration needs to be spread over a few years, one suggested plan was:
- taking care of dead, diseased and crossing branches in the 1st year
- dealing with height in the 2nd year
- sorting the spacing of branches in the 3rd year.
Orchards are magical places…

Fast forward to the 4th of February 2015, a whole winter spent pruning apple bushes…

/Working in a group, each one trundling along our own row, I start tackling a rather impressive tree, no care in the world, having finally (yet not long ago) felt I have grasped the whole picture, when my colleagues stops me: “That’s the most difficult tree in the orchard, it needs removing only a few, large limbs, I’ll call Jim!”

So, all around the “Duck’s Bill”, us colleagues and the fruit expert, discuss which limbs must go and for which reasons, something I’ve always enjoyed doing at the Urban Orchard Project, but not done much here (there’s all those trees to go through!). I get my cuts and reasoning pretty much straight (I told you I grasped it…). I am allowed to get on with the pruning. I enjoy the physical effort greatly.

Here you go, I introduce you to the majestic Malus domestica “Duck’s Bill” and its prunings!

Malus domestica “Duck’s Bill”
Thursday, 4 December 2014

It’s Christmas time

Christmas is approaching fast, so all the trainees have been invited to help with decorating the glasshouse, while receiving some induction into the process of growing display poinsettias (Euphorbia pulcherrima) and Chrisanthemum spp.

Poinsettia Christmas tree

It turns out Christmas time starts in March for the display flower grower: that is when one needs to put in an order of your chosen cultivars, before they run out! They are propagated in May, poinsettias, and they come in by the end of June as 2 in plugs that need potting up on a heated bench (under some fleece for a week or so to speed establishment). Pinching straight afterwards to 5-6 pairs of leaves helps the plant bush up, and a very strict regime of watering 3 times a week follows. Poinsettias are short day flowering plants that would normally start changing colours in September: too early for Christmas. To delay the process, during August and September they are exposed to night-break lighting (with energy saving bulbs) at 10 PM and 2 AM, so the bracts only start changing colour at the end of October. There is a video going in the glasshouse, that demonstrates the whole process.

That’s how one gets such perfect looking plants for the Christmas tree, made of poinsettias on a special metal frame.

Standard poinsettia towering above the rest

At the end of the season, some of the poinsettias are saved for propagation, and some are grown on as standards. They go through a dormant season in which they do not like water much: it is an art to get the balance right so as to keep them alive!

Christmas chrysants

Chrisanthemums go through a very similar propagation process, starting in June when cuttings come in. This year the chosen cultivars are from the ‘Perfection’ collection, which is bred locally to Woking. Potted four per pot, they are grown to get a single flower per stem, so thinning is required: 5 times during the growing season! P&D are always a problem in the enclosed environment that greenhouses are, but chrysants are a particular concern because, on top of whitefly they suffer from white rust. Also, they are subjected to growth regulation treatment to get uniform height and to stiffen the stems that must bear such heavy flowers: perfect displays demand the adoption of rather extreme measures…

Anyway, we all helped decorate the various sections of the glasshouse, where kids activities for Christmas will be inspired by the Narnia world, and I specifically worked arranging the chrysants’ display.

The team was impressed how the look and feel of the place changed by the time we finished, and we definitely all left in a Christmas spirit!

Chrysants display taking shape