A few general questions......

Hi,

This is my first year in my first house with its first garden, so i have a few questions if anyone can be of help?

1 - The garden is dug over and ready to tyrf, what would be the latest i should have it turfed? A friend in the business is doing it and he's asked if we can wait a couple of weeks before he does it - i'm just a little concerned its getting on in the year for turfing, or have we got plenty of time yet?

2 - I have an Acer palmatum which is in a pot. I bought it last early summer time and it is in the same pot. I'm undecided as to whether i plant it out in the garden or buy it a larger pot? I'm a little reluctant to plant it out cos the tree has sentimental value and i would like to take it with me when i move house - is it ok to pot up into a larger pot? If so, what size pot? At what time of year do i re-pot? I know i need to use aicidic compost, but do i add any kind of feed to it?

3 - Related to the same tree as in No.2, some of the longer brances have no leaves/buds forming towards the ends of the branches. The rest of the tree is doing very well. Do i cut back these branches with no leaves/buds? If so, I presume I cut them back to healthy leaves, just behind the nodes?

4 - I have many plants potted up (brought them with me from previous house where i had loads of potted plants), however, some plants really need to go out in the garden as they are looking pot-bound. Can i just pot them in to bigger pots for now until i have my turf down and know where my borders will be? Or should i just leave them in their current pots until i can plant out in several weeks (once turf is down). Some of the pot bound plants include geraniums, rudbehekia (sp) and campanula, just dont want them to die!

many thanks

 

Hi busybee - in relation to your questions :-

1) I have no idea as I don't have any lawn.

2) Yes there is no problem in keeping an Acer palmatum in a pot. I have seen old and relatively big ones in large pots with a price tag of £500 on them. The only problem is that you must remember to water and feed them. They will be entirely reliant on you, as opposed to one in the ground that you can forget about.

I would suggest a pot that is 1 to 2 inches bigger all round. I like to over pot things as they seem to produce larger plants for me, but others may disagree. But don't make the pot too much bigger. I am sure there are tree experts that could say when you can repot it. But I would be inclined to say you can do it now. In the process of taking a plant out of a pot and putting it into a bigger one, or into the ground, you really aren't disturbing the roots at all. Digging one up out of the ground would be a different matter.

3) Yes - I would agree. However I would wait a bit just to make sure that the dead bits are really dead. With mine they turn light brown and just look totally different from the live stems. After a while they really stand out.

4) You can keep most plants in a pot for a very long period of time. I have seen pictures of trees in 500 litre pots - now thats big. But you must feed and water them and the pot must be big enough. So I would put as many as you can into a larger pot and they should be happy. There should be no problems with Geraniums, Rudbeckia or Campanula. I have several Geraniums in pots, including two good sized plants in 35 litre pots.

Your biggest problem may be getting enough big pots without spending a lot of money. On a purely tempory basis (perhaps 2 months) I have kept plants in supermarket bags. Just make sure all the roots are covered and there are drainage holes.

 

Thank you peter, i think you often reply to my questions and i appreciate it!

In light of what you have said, i think i will keep the acer in a pot on the patio. The branches are still alive but the problem is that the buds that had been produced have not actually produced any leaves - i suspect the frost has killed them off as it is the outer parts of some of the branches that are affected. Should i cut them back to where the leaves are or wait to see if it goes on to produce buds nexxt year? I guess if they really are dead then they will end up going light brown/white, in which case i'll know for sure that they are dead.

I have some spare pots that can take the plants i mentioned so i may pot them up into bigger pots this weekend as they are quite desperate for the space. I can then go on to put them in my borders in several weeks time.

Lastly, what do i feed my acer with? Do i put a slow release pellet type feed in when i re-pot or do i use liquid feed when watering? Any suggestions as to which brand i use?

 

Thanks for your comments busybee. I have been helped enormously by other people on forums like this, so the least I can do is to pass on a little of what I have read.

I would leave the Acer for a bit, until it is really obvious which bits are dead. That should only be a month or two. I suspect that if a terminal bud has been killed then the stem will die back to the next set of buds/leaves - but that may take a bit of time.

My Acer is in the border, so I have never fed it. But anything in a pot I feed with Miraclegrow, which is about the cheapest per unit of nutrient. Just follow the instructions, and feed say once a fortnight. Later in the year I use Phostrogen, which has more Potassium (K) in it, which is good for flowers and fruits. But as an Acer doesn't have these I would continue with Miraclegrow for that. Phostrogen is essentially the same as the tomatoe feeds - but about one third of the price per unit of nutrient.

When people keep plants in a pot for several years, the advice is normally not to use pure compost, but to use a fair amount of garden soil. The reason is twofold. 1) garden soil contains all sorts of minerals and trace elements which are helpful, and 2) compost is organic, and like all organic things it will rot down over a period of time. When it rots it becomes finer and finer until it starts to interfere with the drainage. Garden soil is largely inorganic rock particles and these don't rot down.

 

Thats great, thank you for your help. I will maybe ask in the tree section as to when i should re-pot my tree.

Thanks again!