On 22/07/2015 10:51 PM, Martin Brown wrote:
On 22/07/2015 09:55, Fran Farmer wrote:
On 22/07/2015 5:56 PM, Nick Maclaren wrote:
People unfamiliar with the conditions should look at the Climate FAQ
(www.u-r-g.co.uk/faqclimate.htm). Measuring the hardness of winters
by lowest temperature alone doesn't map well into plant hardiness,
and our short, cool summers are as much of a problem as the winters
to many plants (and especially fruit).

Janet might be able to grow Chinese gooseberry (Kiwi fruit), but
I suspect not, and doubt very much that it would fruit. It does

It might in a warm year. Not that they are worth the effort.

I'm not keen on eating them so I've never bothered to grow them.

in the south of the UK, and in a warm position (e.g. on a suitable
wall). Similarly, avocado might grow on the south coast or even
in the smokes (er, Middlesex), but the same applies.

Unless the OP plants their 12 inch avo, they will never know if the
plant will grow and fruit or if it will not.

The least bad chance is somewhere more or less frost free on the SW
coast but the summer will never be warm enough to get any fruit even if
the tree just about manages to stay alive (which I doubt).

Well unless Dave Pole was telling porkies, he said they will grow and
fruit in a good season in London. I always considered him to know his
stuff.

A lot of garden advice is "knowledge" that is simply recycled endlessly
without that "knowledge" ever being put to the test.


I have played around growing things unsuited to UK conditions outside. I
have cacti growing outdoors carefully chosen and large enough to survive
but growing is all that can be said for them they take bad frost damage
and are unsightly.A sheet of glass or plastic to keep the rain off and
very sharp drainage on a raised bed helps.

Yep. I grow cacti/succulenty things under a huge conifer in my potting
slum or in my sunroom, but I also have a range that grow outside right
throughout the garden and they dont's seem to suffer from the regular -6
temps (or at least I don't notice as by the end of winter, no British
gardener would bother to even take a second glance at my garden. I
don't have to worry about keeping their feet dry, rather the reverse. I
do have a Brit born friend who has an enormous range of cacti and he has
a tiny glass house where he has a few, but he also has a huge outdoor
area full of them. Some of them are enormous. I got the ones I grow
under the conifer from him but I now longer have any idea what their
names might be.

In a bad year I lose them and have lost an expensive tree fern I reckon
on a single night where I failed to anticipate a late frost and cover it.

That's sad. I hate late frosts and wouldn't attempt to grow tree ferns
here without good canopy cover to protect them.

I planted my mandarin tree when I went to visit a woman who had these 2
huge mandarin trees on either side of her front door. I said to her and
I KNEW they wouldn't grow where she lived. Her response is that every
single gardener who visited her told her the exact same thing and the
mandarins just kept on ignoring such advice.

I can grow citrus in pots outdoors in summer and under glass in winter.
They would be very unhappy planted outside in a cold foggy air and wet
waterlogged ground.

Have you tried planting them up on mounds? My lemon certainly doesn't
like the cold we get here but it's right next to the house so although
it sulks in the extreme cold, I now don't have to cover it in winter and
once the warmer conditions come and it gets a good feed, it recovers well.

The reason why I mentioned the mound planting is that the chap I knew
who planted grapes in the slit trench also had areas of water logged
ground and so he used to plant trees that hated water logging up on
mounds. It worked very well for him.

There are numerous techniques that can be used to get plants to grow
where they supposedly won't. Just one example I've seen is where grapes
were grown in 6 ft deep slit trenches with corrugated clear roofing
sheets on top of them. The grapes were growing well and had fruit and
the owner of those grapes had been told that he couldn't grow grapes in
his climate so he set out to prove he could do it. His worst problem
was kangaroos jumping on the roofing and falling through.

Grapes are easy under glass even in the UK. There are working vineyards
for winemaking now as far north as 54 degrees. Edith Sitwells Renishaw
Hall used to be the most northerly until comparatively recently.

http://www.renishaw-hall.co.uk/your-visit/vineyard.aspx

The record is (probably) still held by Mount Pleasant wines in Camforth
at 54.1N

http://www.ukvines.co.uk/vineyards/mount.htm

Since the OP asked for any advice, mine is to plant their 12 inch plant.
It may grow. It may even fruit. They won't know until they test it
out.

It will almost certainly die in the first winter. But no great loss.

NO, but at least they will know and they may prove that Dave Poole was
right and knew what he was talking about when he said that they could be
grown and would fruit in a good summer. No doubt it is a seedling so
the OP would probably be better off just buying areal Bacon or Zutano if
they could find a source for one, but they've lost nothing if they lose
a home grown seedling.

It
will only ever be a leggy stick with a few leaves on the end. I have
grown one in Frodsham Cheshire and planted it out with predictable
results. Nectarine with shelter was almost successful by comparison.

I have also grown under glass (heated greenhouse) and lost a jacaranda
tree and various other exotics. Some things are not as tender as people
would have you believe but most things that are frost hardy in a dry
cold continental winter are very difficult in a dismal wet UK one.

Try mounds for those plants that you think certain plants don't like
wet. And all winters reach the stage of being dismal IMO. It's at that
stage here now. I'm sick of Long Johns and cold and big fat coats that
restrict movement. Still, there are early spring signs so it won't be
too long now.