Liquidambar
We had a sharp frost last night (down to below -3C) but it is warming up fast, and we could be in for some spring-like weather by the end of the week.
So I hard-pruned some of my shrubs. I pruned the wisteria back to hardly any buds, like it says on the RHS website. I pruned my rose Mischief, which is a hybrid tea and therefore wants pruning very ruthlessly, apparently. I don’t think I have ever pruned it before, apart from taking off dead bits, so this is a new experience for it. I pruned my three Cornus, but not as hard as I did last year because I thought it might be a bit much for them. I also pruned my spiraea. I had already trimmed it a bit, but the book said that summer-flowering spiraea want to be hacked back to very short stems, so I did that. Then I looked at the bay tree and decided that was a project for another day.
Yesterday I did some armchair gardening. I want a yellow variegated male holly to sit next to my euonymus europaeus Red Cascade and it’s not easy to get male hollies with yellow colouring on their leaves. I want a male one to improve the pollination of my female JC Van der Tol (which is hermaphrodite, but would probably enjoy some male company) and for any other female hollies I may decide to have. Also I think that it will be better as a backdrop and a contrast if it doesn’t have any berries.
So I looked on the RHS Plant Finder, and among other sites, I found this one: Chris Pattison Nursery. They have a few hollies to choose from, and in the description they helpfully say whether it is male or female, thus cutting down the amount of research I have to do to check. But that’s not all. They also have a stunning range of Liquidambars. Now I have wanted a Liquidambar ever since I saw one in Wisley about fifteen years ago, but Yvonne, my garden designer, said I couldn’t have one because it was too large. But there are varieties that only reach 2-3 m high! And if you prune them, you can even keep big varieties small and you still get the incredible colour. See Top 20 or so shrubs for a picture of a 20-year-old Liquidambar that has glorious colour and is still only relatively little.
So… I CAN HAVE A LIQUIDAMBAR! OK, so it may have to go in the front garden rather than the back, and unless I order it in the dormant season, I may have to go to Gloucestershire for it, but I can still have one. Yay!
I have been giving considerable thought to my planting arrangements and still can’t quite work out what to do. I have, however, come to the unfortunate conclusion that I have planted the buddleia in the wrong place. Hemmed in by a giant conifer, the magnolia and the fence, it will not get enough sunlight and it needs to go in a more open position. Instead, I need to plant an evergreen that doesn’t mind a bit of shade, and it’ll probably be Bay Tree Number 2 (the one my parents gave me, which is sitting in a pot). Where I will put the buddleia is an unsolved mystery but it definitely needs to move.