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Starting some new Bay trees
Latest post from MARKSVEGPLOT – a blog about food and gardening in England”
When we moved into this property of ours, in 1991, we brought a potted Bay tree from our previous house, and I planted it in one of the borders. It has grown into a huge bush / tree, and we use leaves from it very frequently in our cooking – particularly for flavouring stock and casseroles. Soon after we moved here I took some cuttings from this tree and I have grown them into a pair of standard-trained ornamental trees, clipped into a rough “lollipop” shape.
The two standards will not last for ever though, and since Bay trees grow very slowly I decided in 2013 to start another pair, so I took two more cuttings. Unfortunately only one of them “took”. Here it is in June 2014.
By October 2015 it looked like this:
And you can see it again here in a photo taken just a few days ago.
Just recently I noticed that the big “Granddaddy” Bay tree had put up a few basal suckers. These are the best material for taking cuttings, so I thought I would demonstrate here the procedure I use for this.
Here are the suckers coming up out of the soil at the base of the mature tree:
There were 3 of them, but I decided I would only cut 2.
They both had a very pronounced curve.
I cut off a couple of inches of the base to straighten them, but not too much, because the part of the cutting that was underground is the bit most likely to root. Then I dipped each cutting in some Hormone Rooting Powder, which will (allegedly) help it to produce roots.
Then I stuck each one in a pot of moist garden soil to which I had added a about 10% gravel, which will assist with drainage.
These pots are now sitting on a potting-bench in the garage, near the window, where it is warmer than being outside (by a long way!), but still relatively cool. There is now nothing much else I can do apart from wait and see whether they “take”. It will be several weeks before I know, but if/when I see some new leaves forming at their tips I will know that I have been successful. And in about 10 years time I may have two more standard Bay trees!
P.S. Thanks to everyone who offered advice about the care of Fig and Olive trees. Much appreciated!
To read more articles like this, on Gardening and Gastronomy, please visit * http://marksvegplot.blogspot.com/ *
Source: http://marksvegplot.blogspot.com/2016/01/starting-some-new-bay-trees.html
