Get your coat on.

Good for you, lollimac, you won't regret it:yess::D

 

Hi Andrew, sending it to you is the easy part, just pm me your address and I will post them to you. I say "them" as I don't think the success ratio of striking evergreen cuttings is high and therefore one cutting will probably not be enough.

I've looked in my propagation books and they don't talk about cuttings when talking about Hollies.............they talk about seeds, and they need stratifying. However, in my RHS book it says "Sow seeds in containers in a cold frame in Autumn. Germination may take 2 or 3 years. Take semi ripe cuttings in late Summer or early Autumn" So keeping with the cuttings theme, would you like me to find some semi ripe cuttings now and you can try striking them??

 

Hi Andrew, I see the Hedgehog Holly reasonably often in Plant Nurseries around here, and you can get them via the Net. Well, the offer to send you some semi ripe cuttings is an open offer with no time limit on it. So if you want to try in Late Summer, August say, then just give me a Heads Up and I'll post some to you.:D

 

Thank you for the kind comments, Steve. As I said it was posted just to remind us that even in a Winter bare garden there's always something going on. and as a note to realise that soon Spring will be here.:D

Do you know Steve, I'm not so sure that the "Power House" of the garden is the Compost Heap, Cold Frames, or Green House with regard to my own particular style of gardening. When I was growing vegetables, years ago, in what is now the large walk around central border and was thinking in, I suppose, Allotment gardening style the compost heap, cold frames and Green House probably were the "Power House". But now it's Cottage Style with the borders crammed shoulder to shoulder with herbaceous plants, underneath which is more than one layer of bulbs of all kinds in a very loose "planned" way I've got a feeling the garden is the "Power House".

I say that because the borders self seed with so many different plants, or the herbaceous plants need to be divided and put in new sites, the bulbs build up clumps that need splitting and replanting. So the garden itself provides a lot of new seedlings, plants and bulbs to fill out even more of the borders. Plus, when the plants foilage dies down they provide a surprising amount humus for the borders.

My Compost Heap, as you've seen, is getting a bit high and does provide me with good dressings for the border. But I also use close to 800 litres, if not more, of used commercial compost from by my pots and other containers every year to dress the borders. So to me the Compost Heap is somewhere "convenient" to put my shredded prunings, house decomposable produce, etc. It's a useful source of humus and compost but not the prime source.

My Green House is a "cold" one and never heated so apart from some Irises in pots over Wintering in it that's it. It doesn't come into it's own until late February when I start sowing, even then most sowing's are done and brought on in the Cool Room until they ready for hardening off. I do grow various Tomatoes, Chillies, Peppers, Cucumbers and perhaps Winter Salads but it is secondary to the actual garden!

Cold frames I do have and use to a certain extent, but probably not to their full extent. I have double shelve benches lining the East Gable end of the house and there's usually up to a hundred or more of pots and trays containing cuttings, seeds from the border, bulblets and scales from lilies which over Winter there. Seems to work!

Perhaps thinking the Compost Heap, Green House, and Cold Frames are not the "Power Houses" of the garden, but that the garden itself is, :D is topsy turvy, illogical, nonsensical. but it's how I think with regard to my kind of chaotic style of gardening.:D