Hi all,
I just found this site and have a few questions. I am new to gardening (having bought our house in Dorset only last year and never in my 47 years had a garden) but I would like to give it a go as I have a keen interest in cooking and would love to produce some of my own stuff.
I have got a Bay Tree that is about 5ft tall and now be thinking of re-planting it in to the front garden. I want it to grow bigger as I use bay leaves nearly daily and want the tree to mature before I start taking the leaves off on a regular base. Is there any specific time to do it (i.e. spring rather than autumn)?
Also something seems to be eating on it (pictures of the damage can be found here
http://www.flickr.com/photos/11090415@N02/
You also can see the pictures for my second question. My Blackcurrant bush seems to develop strange wrinkled leaves, some of them with holes in (again, it looks like something is feasting on it) but I can not see anything apparent.
Do any of you have got any ideas of what is going on?
And lastly I would like to take a clipping from my Bay Tree and start growing a new one with it. I have seen a couple of posts here that say roughly what to do but any chance of giving me a few more detailed hints like where to take the clippings from, what to look out for and how to grow the roots (i.e. do I just stick it in a pot with compost and hope for the best?
Any help would be appreciated
Thank you

In article ,
Smutje writes:
|
| I just found this site and have a few questions. I am new to gardening
| (having bought our house in Dorset only last year and never in my 47
| years had a garden) but I would like to give it a go as I have a keen
| interest in cooking and would love to produce some of my own stuff.

Bully for you! There are lots of regular posters who do just that;
yours truly among them.

I recommend looking at rec.gardens.edible for the edible herb FAQ
by Henrietta Kress. You may see my name in that :-)

| I have got a Bay Tree that is about 5ft tall and now be thinking of
| re-planting it in to the front garden. I want it to grow bigger as I
| use bay leaves nearly daily and want the tree to mature before I start
| taking the leaves off on a regular base. Is there any specific time to
| do it (i.e. spring rather than autumn)?

Any time in the winter, though I doubt that it will like transplanting.
Given reasonable conditions (including some sun), bay is not fussy, and
you need not worry about taking leaves off it. 5' is ample for any
plausible domestic kitchen, if you allow it to bush out.

And you can prune it back as hard as you like (I did mine this spring)
and it will reshoot. It is a good hedging plant.

| Also something seems to be eating on it (pictures of the damage can be
| found here
| http://tinyurl.com/25scov

Dunno, but I get a few of them, and the bay doesn't suffer much.

| And lastly I would like to take a clipping from my Bay Tree and start
| growing a new one with it. I have seen a couple of posts here that say
| roughly what to do but any chance of giving me a few more detailed
| hints like where to take the clippings from, what to look out for and
| how to grow the roots (i.e. do I just stick it in a pot with compost
| and hope for the best?

No. Get some sharp sand (cheaper from a builder), put some lawn moss
in the bottom of a 4-5" pot (or a single layer of old cloth, if you
have no moss), and fill the pot with sand. Pull off some shoots of
new (growth, with a small 'heel' of old wood, remove most of the leaves
(keeping the ones at the tip), stick them in, and keep it well watered
and out of the sun. Don't worry about a heel if your shoots don't have
one, as not all plants need them. And now is the time. If any of them
take, pot the rooted cuttings in compost next spring.

It is a good idea to prune the branches and THEN pull the shoots off,
as you don't want to damage the parent bush.

I am not very good at cuttings, but that is the technique. If you
succeed, and want a hedge, consider using bay.


Regards,
Nick Maclaren.

In article , Smutje.12e6d82
@gardenbanter.co.uk says...

Hi all,
I just found this site and have a few questions. I am new to gardening
(having bought our house in Dorset only last year and never in my 47
years had a garden) but I would like to give it a go as I have a keen
interest in cooking and would love to produce some of my own stuff.
I have got a Bay Tree that is about 5ft tall and now be thinking of
re-planting it in to the front garden. I want it to grow bigger as I
use bay leaves nearly daily and want the tree to mature before I start
taking the leaves off on a regular base. Is there any specific time to
do it (i.e. spring rather than autumn)?
Also something seems to be eating on it (pictures of the damage can be
found here
http://tinyurl.com/25scov

Look for leaves stuck together with spiders web type threads and you will find
a green catapiller type thing which causes this type f damage on my bay tree. I
just find em and squish em but they probably don't do much harm unles you get a
major infestation.

You also can see the pictures for my second question. My Blackcurrant
bush seems to develop strange wrinkled leaves, some of them with holes
in (again, it looks like something is feasting on it) but I can not see
anything apparent.
Do any of you have got any ideas of what is going on?

I looks like the currant bush may have a virus. These are usually transmitted
by aphids. If you look carefully under the crumpled leaves you may see some of
the little blighters. The leaves will probably come again OK next year

And lastly I would like to take a clipping from my Bay Tree and start
growing a new one with it. I have seen a couple of posts here that say
roughly what to do but any chance of giving me a few more detailed
hints like where to take the clippings from, what to look out for and
how to grow the roots (i.e. do I just stick it in a pot with compost
and hope for the best?
Make some cutting compost by mixing 50% loam or fine potting compost with 50%
sharp sand. Find newly growing twigs on your bay that have 6 to 8 leaves and a
growing tip that has some new folded leaves on them. Tear them gently off the
main stem of the bay including a little bit of the bark of the main stem. Take
off all the leaves except the top pair and the growing tip. Put cutting
compost into a small pot (or you can use plastic cups from vending machines if
you make a hole in the bottom) You may want to dip the ends in rooting hormone
although many people do not bother. personlly I just spit on the ends as my
saliva has naturally occuring rooting hormone in it (as does about 20% of the
population). Push the cuttings in to the compost round the edge of the pot. You
can put 4 cuttings into plastic cup and correspondingly more into a larger
pot. I get about a 90% strike rate using this method.

Gill M

On Tue, 7 Aug 2007 18:25:02 +0100, Smutje wrote:
Hi all,
I just found this site

Well actually you are being redirected via gardenbanter to the usenet
newsgroup uk.rec.gardening,

I have got a Bay Tree that is about 5ft tall and now be thinking of
re-planting it in to the front garden. I want it to grow bigger as I
use bay leaves nearly daily and want the tree to mature before I start
taking the leaves off on a regular base.

Gosh! at 5ft I think it is already mature enough for most ( my!)
culinary activities !
Bay thrives on close cropping

Ive not transplanted one that size, smaller ones ( say 2ft
thereabouts) are ok,
Play safe, leave it where it is, crop it, and meanwhile strike some
cuttings, they are dead easy to do and you can thus avoid the silly
prices charged in the GCs.

I have various bay in my garden from 30ft down to 3ft ( I like bay
trees!) I crop the 3ft for the kitchen simply because it is closer to
the kitchen !

[The others are pruned (chainsawed) and thrown into the BBQ fires for
aroma]

Is there any specific time to
do it (i.e. spring rather than autumn)?

The older leaves have more flavour, for drying for storge take them in
the late summer/autumn, but at 5ft I think you will have enough to
pick from the shrub during the winter, it all depends upon how close
cropped ( ie. how dense) it has become.

Also something seems to be eating on it (pictures of the damage can be
found here

ran out of time, (dialup) to see a closeup and got lost in the
blackcurrants !
broadly - snip off the damaged leaves and use on the bbq.
The bay will thank you for it.

And lastly I would like to take a clipping from my Bay Tree and start
growing a new one with it.

Snip off a bits of bay from time to time during the year and push them
into the ground here and there ! Most will take if you have heavy red
clay upon limestone like mine, the books may differ !

I would like to thank all of you for your help. I guess the best way seems to be to take some clippings and grow a new tree at the front (also I do like the idea of having a hedge of bay).
Again thank you very much for your input and help.