Sowing Yew and Holly seeds

I need some Yew and Holly plants - no rush (have an existing Hawthorn hedge that I want to replace with something smarter in some/many year's time).

I picked the berries off some Yew trees. My goodness it was hard work separating the seed from the sticky outer coat. There has to be an easier way?

(I haven't even tried the Holly seeds yet ...)

I'm tempted to put them in a liquidiser (not one that I ever want to use for food again)

 

I've got plenty of parent material, so I could do cuttings. My RHS Propagation book lists Yew under a section about cuttings which need to be taken early in the New Year after the parent plant has been subjected to some Frost, and to take cuttings from vigorously growing stems at the top of the plant. Preferably they should be rooted in a warm mist cabinet (which I don't have ... but maybe that's a Winter project to build?!) or a cold frame where they will need to spend the best part of a year before they can be lifted.

I'm sceptical that I will be any good on such a long propagation period - although obviously commercial growers achieve this. I haven't been able to find anything of much use on the internet - maybe I'm just using the wrong keywords in Google

But I do have loads of seed - hence I was considering that as a starting point.

 

I've grown yew from cuttings and its not difficult.

Just tear off some of this years growth with a heel.

Strip off a few if the lower leaflets and plant into a 50 50 mix of sand and peat, in a cold frame.
By April some should have roots, others might take a bit longer.

If you have plenty of material its not a problem to take a hundred or more cuttings and use the ones that root first.

Its faster than seed, but nothing is really that fast and if your in a hurry the best thing to do is buy plants from a nursery

Just a thought but thrushes like yew berries and tend to take them under certain shrubs where they eat the berry and leave the seed.
I've come across lots of yew seedlings this way.

 

Holly seems to grow from seed quite easily going by the number of holly seedlings that spring up in our garden every year. They are almost certainly dropped, after being eaten, by birds who get them fom a couple of mature trees in our garden. Passage through a digestive tract may help, but it's worth just crushing a few and shoving them in a corner of the garden.

 

"I've grown yew from cuttings and its not difficult."

That's really encouraging thanks. Taking several hundred cuttings and none of them taking would be a bit disheartening! but I'm happy to have a go.

"Holly seems to grow from seed quite easily"

I dug up nearly 20 little seedlings from under the trees a couple of weekends ago, and we haven't got any Holly trees nearby that I can think of ... so just need to train a flock of birds and save me a job!

I'll report back with how I get on.

 

Unless you're immortal the yew aren't gonna achieve much greatness in your lifetime

 

That's not been my experience Banana Man. I have had nearly a foot a year from the yew I have planted in the past. 10 years to get a hedge that is 6' tall, and thick enough that you can't see much / at all through the top would be my expectation.

That's with bought-in plants, so add a couple of years if starting from seed / cuttings.

I want to plant an evergreen hedge in front of an existing hornbeam boundary hedge. Not keen to pay for plants (need a awful lot!), already have the hornbeam hedge which I don't need to grub out, so not really bothered about timescale.

Having said that, the yew may struggle a bit planted back-to-back with the hornbeam, but I'm hoping that by cutting the hornbeam facing the yew hard back, and feeding and watering the Yew well, will mean that they do OK.

 

I always think the slow growth of yew is exaggerated, its true that when grown as a tree it will live for years, but as a hedging plant I dont think it can be beaten.

Its reasonably fast when young, cant be cut back as hard as you like if it gets out of hand, and is nice to trim.

Unlike holly which is a pain in the backside, especially if you sit on it.

 

Small typo there Pete I think?, I'm sure you meant to say "can be cut back as hard as you like if it gets out of hand" :thumb:

 

Yep your right, my one finger let me down

 

Do NOT prune it off!

 

I tried that once as well, but it hurt.

 

I was going to say check the base of any posts where birds sit & poo, but it looks like you got that one covered.

People used to think that yew trees were planted in churchyards to keep them away from grazing livestock & they were planted for making arrows in medieval times.

There was a guy who didn't buy that story & did lots of study of the ancient yews, very difficult to dendro as they tend to rot in the middle, he did manage to date some trees. They turned out to be thousands of years old. The churches were there because the trees were sacred groves long before Christianity.