Like many neighbours and, I guess, more widely, a large Cordyline in the
garden didn't like the winter. By late March, most of it leaves had
gone, the rest were brown and it looked very dead.

By chance, we visited Cambridge Botanic Gardens - their Cordylines had
suffered a similar fate but, they had either been left or the truncks
cut back to about a metre height. So, on the basis that Cambridge
Botanic Gardens probably knew what they were doing, we cut our's back
and left them.

There are now seven new shoots around the base.

Larry

"Larry Stoter" wrote ...

Like many neighbours and, I guess, more widely, a large Cordyline in the
garden didn't like the winter. By late March, most of it leaves had
gone, the rest were brown and it looked very dead.

By chance, we visited Cambridge Botanic Gardens - their Cordylines had
suffered a similar fate but, they had either been left or the truncks
cut back to about a metre height. So, on the basis that Cambridge
Botanic Gardens probably knew what they were doing, we cut our's back
and left them.

There are now seven new shoots around the base.

Both ours have put out new shoots from trunk and branches, even the one with
little damage that is flowering well as usual.

--
Regards
Bob Hobden
W.of London. UK

In article , Bob Hobden
writes
Both ours have put out new shoots from trunk and branches, even the one
with little damage that is flowering well as usual.


I sued the frost damage to convince two people to hoik out their
Phormiums. Horrible things and a devil of a job to uproot!

They never seem to look good with partly dead or yellowing leaves and
stuff even when not blitzed by frost!.
Now where am i going to source an Amelanchier 'obelisk' having promised
them I'd find one to replace the Phormiums!

Janet
--
Janet Tweedy
Dalmatian Telegraph
http://www.lancedal.demon.co.uk

"Janet Tweedy" wrote ..
, Bob Hobden writes
Both ours have put out new shoots from trunk and branches, even the one
with little damage that is flowering well as usual.


I sued the frost damage to convince two people to hoik out their
Phormiums. Horrible things and a devil of a job to uproot!

They never seem to look good with partly dead or yellowing leaves and
stuff even when not blitzed by frost!.
Now where am i going to source an Amelanchier 'obelisk' having promised
them I'd find one to replace the Phormiums!


The RHS plantfinder... http://apps.rhs.org.uk/rhsplantfinder/ shows 15
suppliers.

put in ... Amelanchier alnifolia Obelisk (don't use any inverted commas).

--
Regards
Bob Hobden
W.of London. UK

Sacha wrote:

Ours is doing the same and we haven't cut the dead tops out yet. *It's
got several trunks and is hooting from the top of all of them and the
side of one of them. *I hate the darned things but I know others love
them!

Not fond of the ordinary green australis myself and we didn't get it
cold enough for the bay to be rid of them :-( I do like Cordylines,
well quite a few of them, but the australis forms (even the coloured
leaf types) leave me cold. It's probably because they are so common
here. However, I do have a supposed hybrid that has extremely wide
leaves that arch out and down, as do the branches, creating a very
tropical effect. I still refer to it as an australis form, but the
flowers, habit and colour of the fruits are wrong for it to be that
species proper. The main plant is in a neighbour's garden, but they
decided to remove a couple of trunks that were arching over the main
path. I relieved them of a trunk, cut it into 30cms lengths and part
buried them in deep pots of perlite. They took a while to root and a
good 6 months before new shoots developed, but they're on the move and
starting to grow quite quickly.

I've also got a nice, trunked C. indivisa, which develops the widest
leaves of any Cordyline - up to 30cms wide on old plants and they are
olive green with silver undersides plus a very prominent orange yellow
centre rib. It's the sexiest of all Cordylines and slowly develops
into an unbelievably handsome tree. Then in a large pot on the steps,
there's C. 'Festival Burgundy' that has slender, 1.5m long, very
glossy, blackish-red leaves arising from a subterranean trunk so it
forms a fountain of foliage not much more than hip high. Tall flower
spikes carry hundreds of pale mauve flowers, which are a welcome
bonus. It is none to hardy so it needs a lot of protection away from
the south coast.

Another favourite that I have growing up into the lower branches of an
evergreen tree is C. stricta. This has branching trunks carrying
rosettes of fairly short glossy green leaves that are tinged purple.
The clusters of lavender coloured flowers in mid summer are especially
attractive. It is supposedly tender-ish and more often seen as a
house-plant, but managed to survive this past winter without too much
damage.

On 09/07/2011 22:02, Larry Stoter wrote:
Like many neighbours and, I guess, more widely, a large Cordyline in the
garden didn't like the winter. By late March, most of it leaves had
gone, the rest were brown and it looked very dead.

By chance, we visited Cambridge Botanic Gardens - their Cordylines had
suffered a similar fate but, they had either been left or the truncks
cut back to about a metre height. So, on the basis that Cambridge
Botanic Gardens probably knew what they were doing, we cut our's back
and left them.

There are now seven new shoots around the base.

Yes. They do, but be sure to protect the new growth next winter. Mine
took a bad hit two years ago and the early December frosts and -10C
average temperatures in North Yorks last year saw them off completely.

Regards,
Martin Brown

In article , Bob Hobden
writes
The RHS plantfinder... http://apps.rhs.org.uk/rhsplantfinder/ shows
15 suppliers.

put in ... Amelanchier alnifolia Obelisk (don't use any inverted commas)


Oh I've done that Bob, first thing I tried but those nurseries who have
one, don't do mail order and those that do mail order don't have one!!

I tried Little Heath in Berkhamsted but John the owner said he could
only get very large ones - too big for even he to manage and to sell.
Apparently it came out at Chelsea a few years ago, was an astounding
success and everyone supplied them but it was on and still is on,
breeders rights so gradually stocks ran out and the only ones you can
now get, if at all, are those that have been grown on.

It's a very pretty tree has several season's of interests , spring
autumn and summer isn't too big and is fastigate but not in a rigor
mortis way.

I'll keep trying anyway!
--
Janet Tweedy
Dalmatian Telegraph
http://www.lancedal.demon.co.uk

That would happen whether you shortened it or not.
After a little while, thin them out to about 3 shoots, so that they can concentrate the energy into a limited number of shoots.

[quote=Janet Tweedy;929749]Now where am i going to source an Amelanchier 'obelisk' [quote]
I don't know if they are grafted to make them like that, but if some cuttings are any use to you, I don't live very far from you.

Though I'm not particularly proud of mine. The flowering period is very short, and unless you have moist conditions it tends to look a bit tatty from water-stress. I've had it about 7 years and this is the first year it has been heavily covered in berries, though if you want to grow A alnifolia for the berries then this is not a good variety, they aren't very special berries, there are other varieties that have been selected for fruit quality.

In article , echinosum
writes
Though I'm not particularly proud of mine. The flowering period is very
short, and unless you have moist conditions it tends to look a bit tatty
from water-stress. I've had it about 7 years and this is the first year
it has been heavily covered in berries, though if you want to grow A
alnifolia for the berries then this is not a good variety, they aren't
very special berries, there are other varieties that have been selected
for fruit quality.


The ones i have seen, don't look grafted - and they are all a wonderful
colour and much admired in the spring and autumn, It is to go at the end
of the driveway by an entrance so i didn't want to put anything too wide
spreading there and not massively tall either.

Don't know about their need for water, two of them are planted in
gardens on the slopes of the Chilterns almost solid chalk underneath but
don't look as if they are suffering too much.

Janet
--
Janet Tweedy
Dalmatian Telegraph
http://www.lancedal.demon.co.uk