I'm looking at planting up a fairly large area (say 5m x 12m) with minimum
care shrubs.

I quite fancy planting some Elaeagnus x ebbingei, having read the ecstatic
writeup at http://www.scs.leeds.ac.uk/pfaf/elaeagns.html, but how invasive
is it?

Any other suggestions? Must be shrubs, not trees - primary aim is ground
cover, though fruit and flowers would be nice. Soil is mildly acid and
rich part of the ground tends to flooding in the winter.


Victoria Clare
--
gardening on a north-facing hill
in South-East Cornwall
--

On Mon, 24 Nov 2003 15:33:51 +0000, Victoria Clare
wrote:

I'm looking at planting up a fairly large area (say 5m x 12m) with minimum
care shrubs.

I quite fancy planting some Elaeagnus x ebbingei, having read the ecstatic
writeup at http://www.scs.leeds.ac.uk/pfaf/elaeagns.html, but how invasive
is it?

Mine must be about ten years old and is about ten feet high. Would be
higher but I top it from time to time. I had a second, which was blown
out of the ground (we're very exposed to full-force SW gales). It's a
very well behaved shrub IME, with no tendency to invade anything. I
was quite surprised to see the question as it suggests someone has had
a different experience.




--
Chris

E-mail: christopher[dot]hogg[at]virgin[dot]net

The message
from Victoria Clare contains these words:

I'm looking at planting up a fairly large area (say 5m x 12m) with minimum
care shrubs.

I quite fancy planting some Elaeagnus x ebbingei, having read the ecstatic
writeup at http://www.scs.leeds.ac.uk/pfaf/elaeagns.html, but how invasive
is it?

YMMV, but eleagnus ebbingei isn't invasive at all here in Scotland.
Ebbingii is the taller one with evergreen dark green or variegated
leaves; you might be getting mixed up with e.commutata which is smaller,
and has elegant deciduous silver leaves. E.commutata does sucker but
never enough to be a nuisance IME; I also found individual plants aren't
very longlived in a wet climate so was glad to have a supply of new
ones.

Back to e.ebbingei; when I go over to the mainland, there's a scruffy
working area between the port and the train platform which is bordered
by rusty fences, backed by an rough unkempt hedge of eleagnus ebbingei.
The beautiful soft scent of its winter flowers fills the air all around
atm, but they are very tiny and concealed under the plainjane foliage.
It always makes me smile to see travellers' heads turning this way and
that trying to work out where on earth the heavenly whiff is coming
from.

Janet. (Isle of Arran).