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On with my garden inventory - after close inspection I find that I have a
Laurel tree - a whopper. Google tells me that it is a great source of Bay
leaves (which sounds a bit silly - Laurel trees have bay leaves - but I
concluded that Bay was probably a Laurel subspecies. My inital irritation at
having spent fortunes on bay leaves for my stews and curries in the past,
subsided when I inpected the leaves on the tree and found they were far
bigger and fatter - and maybe even greener than the ones I use for cooking.

It sounds like you have laurel - you'd know from the smell of it if it
were bay. Bay (surprisingly) smells of bay-leaves, and laurel a bit like
bitter almonds, due to the prussic acid content.

So, if you wish to avoid cyanide poisoning, don't use laurel as a
flavouring...

Is this something to do with the age of the tree (it is at least 12 years
old, and probably much older) - do I need to take a cutting and grow a
smaller bush to be able to harvest the smaller finer leaves ? - Or is my Bay
tree really just a laurel.

No. The leaves of a year-old bay are similar in size to a mature tree.

My neighbour tells me she has used the leaves for cooking - from a small
sapling that grew on her side of the fence. My wife said that she would
probably be wearing the leaves next week (she gets confused between Laurel
which you can wear as a crown and Fig leaves - which serve a very different
purpose) - but again I digress .... :-)

Ah, the 'laurels' were in fact, bay. Figleaves as you say, are not
usually worn in pubic by emperors and victors...

The real reason I got so interested in the Laurel is that my two
Honeysuckles at the top end of the garden are looking very very sad - the
leaves are all curly and dusty and the flowers wilted - watering has not
helped - and one of them is almost devoid of leaves. They are shaded by the
Laurel - and it has grown right over the top of them this year - I am
tempted to lop a few branches off it anyway - but could this have caused it
?

I wouldn't have thought so. It's much more likely that the laurel has
impoverished and dried the soil.

My local garden cente chap said it was worth giving them a dose of Bonemeal
(with blood !!) - so I have done that. I also gave them a good sprinkling
with some feed - mainly Nitrogen - but 20ml to 2 gallons of water seems very
mean ? Am I on the right track here ?

No. 10 ml per gallon is about right. The blood provides some too, and
the bonemeal releases phosphates and other nutrients over a number of
years.

--
Rusty
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