Johnoz's Outbox

Hello maple
I agree with you, it is a very pretty plant. It's primarily a water marginal, but will grow anywhere, at least it will in my garden! If I was starting from scratch, rather than inherit the plant, I would plant it in a container, so as you keep it moist and not let it get totally dessicated. Preferably on a stand of some kind, to avoid having the roots coming out of the drainage hole and sneaking in to the gaps between your paving or into the flower beds! And don't let it get near your pond. Most nurseries and garden centers sell it as a marginal and don't give a health warning on how invasive it it, which is a bit naughty of them.
Good luck with it

By the way, would you like a root of it?

John Osborn

My wife and I discovered the beauty of tulips when we bought some at a French market in Derby in 2003 (ish). Since then we have added a couple of dozen each year, but this planting really puts ours to shame.

Superb!!

One of my favorite plants. We have one near the house growing over an ancient cherry tree and rose arch. The scent in spring when it flowers is fabulous.

Hello Lisa
Thanks for the comments. And I'll encourage you, get out there and get those monsters out. I can remember people like Fred Sowerbutts, Clay Jones and Percy Thrower telling us what wonderful plants Leylandi are for hedging. Maybe they are, if they are kept within bounds. Trouble is you just turn your back for a year and they're off like a Saturn 5 rocket.
With regard to the rhododendrons, we have 3. The one in the photo of the Leylandi skeletons, which is a beautiful large flowered pink variety of unknown provenance. One is a very pale pink with smaller flowers. The third has large white flowers and has velvety brown covering on the underside of the leaves, (I know I should remember what it's called but I'm afraid it's the age of the brain). I inherited them all with the garden and none have name tags so I have no idea what variety they are. In spite of having an acid soil I do monitor what is happening with the soil round my acid lovers and give the soil a treatment with sequestered iron or similar if it reaches pH 7.
And also I'd go with Maple's suggestion of having a rhododendron in a container planted in ericaceous compost. They are as hardy as steel so you could use a big container that you would not have to move inside in winter. Or even build a brick raised bed type container (say 2 feet high) against the wall where the conifers are, dig out the soil and fill it with a good acidic growing medium. You could even put a seat on top of the small wall.
Best wishes
John

Peter
Thanks for the encouragement. I would not even contemplate double digging as a regular form of physical exercise. It took me about 3 weeks to dig the lot. Thanks not only to the compacted nature of the soil but also to the huge network of Leylandi roots. I was amazed how far they went. In a future blog I'll illustrate how far they go when I tell you all what they did to the pond. Digging the first meter next to the Leylandi I used the felling axe (to cut the roots) as much as I used the spade.
I think it pays dividends to double dig in situations like I inherited or where you want a deep topsoil to grow good root crops. Although double digging breaks up compacted soils and can be used to break any subsoil pans that may be present, it could be that being too enthusiastic when digging could actually damage the soil structure. I tend not to dig deep once a bed is going (either with veg or herbacious), just what is necessary to remove the nasty weeds (dock, dandelion or nettle - that kind of thing). Otherwise I just mulch and let the worms do the digging. I have one of those tools with the short spiral tines and just use it to stir up the top inch or two to keep the ephemeral weeds down. It also breaks up any surface crust so that any rain can soak in straight away - not a problem we had last summer!
Best Regards
John

Sorry for any confusion I'm causing but I've just discovered (I hope) how this site is organised and I'm trying to sort my bit out. Then I'll start my blog.
This is a photo of the row of Leylandi we 'inherited' with our house and shows how we pruned it. The full story will be in the blog.

I too compost paper and cardboard in my vegetable waste. I have 2 bins, each about 1 meter cubed, and whilst one is being filled the other is "fermenting". I use the compost produced mainly as a mulch but this year I sieved some and mixed it with a proprietary peatless compost and made some wonderful potting compost for my tomatoes and fuchsia's. Our council uses the 2 bin system for rubbish collection, the black bin for domestic rubbish and the brown bin for garden waste. Paper, plastic, glass bottles and cans are collected separately. I add only brown cardboard to the heap, the rest I leave for the council. The only garden vegetable waste I put in the brown bin is the roots of the pernicious weeds (dandelion, dock, twitch etc) the rest is composted. Woody waste I run through the shredder / chipper, the wood chips add valuable dry material to the mushy green stuff, as does the card and paper. Leaves at this time of year go on the leaf heap to rot down to make leaf mould. It's a great way of getting rid of confidential waste paper.
My compost is, like Holly's, rich and smells sweet and is stuffed full of worms, luvly jubbly!