cate james

Thanks everyone for your comments and suggestions - and your strong opinions on the weed membrane! 😝 I will take it all under consideration.

Hi Dumper, Thanks for the advice. Do you mean cut the shoots a bit later, say in March-April instead of late Feb? Also just to ask, do you think I should cut the shoots again in the Autumn and so prune twice a year? Cate

Hi Stere Thank you so much for taking a look. I am interested and pleased to know that you think the trees look OK and that their growth rate is normal. As the soil is covered by matting and thousands of slate chips (which I'd need to remove by hand) mulch would be tricky. So is there a liquid feed you would recommend? Thanks again, Cate

Hello there I am hoping for a bit of advice. I bought 3 pleached hornbeams for my tiny London garden 10 years ago. They seem happy and healthy except that the branches which grow horizontally have got no thicker at all since planting (nor the tree trunks). All the trees seem to do is produce masses of vertical shoots which head skywards (I cut these off every late winter/early spring). As a result the trees look quite spindly and I am concerned that when the bamboo frames rot away, they will not really have much strength or structure. Plus I love the architectural silhouettes of other peoples' pleached trees and would love this in my garden. The trees were brought from Italy and planted by a professional. There is weed-reducing matting on top of the soil and slate chips on top of that. During lockdown I removed all the slate and matting and put some compost down, but other than this I have done nothing but watering in dry weather. Any advice for getting those horizontal branches to thicken up would be much appreciated. Thank you, Cate (obvs not a gardener, just an appreciator :))