the times Saturday December 18 202118 Outside
Q We have a long garden
and I would like to plant
bamboo at the far end.
What kind would
provide me with useful
garden canes?
V SinghA Go for a species of
phyllostachys. They are
tall enough and fat
enough to be useful and
the clumps are not too
tight-growing, so you will
be able to extract your
canes without difficulty
as they mature. They
also include some of the
fanciest striped species,
although sadly the stripes
fade away once you cut
them. Remember, spring
planting is best for
bamboos and grasses.Q I want to paint the
front of my house, and
to get at the wall
properly I would need to
prune some large rose
bushes. I know I should
wait until February, but
would it matter?
S MintonA Take the risk. We might
get a truly exceptional
winter that kills the stems
even further back, so
there is nothing to
recover. Or we might
have an unusually mild
winter, which, together
with early pruning, would
encourage early soft
growth, and if that was
followed by a late hard
frost it would seriously
cut back the bushes. But
the odds are against it.Q I bought some purple
Salvia ‘Amistad’ and they
were fantastic right
through autumn. I know
they are tender so how
do I protect them?
DF BallardA It likes to sprout from
the base of last year’s
stems rather than from
underground, so you can
put a protective mulch
over the roots, although
you mustn’t smother the
stems or they will rot.
On the other hand, a little
20cm-diameter stockade
of twigs pushed into the
ground around the base,
with some dry fern fronds
lightly woven through
them, will keep off just
a little cold but let the air
through. Don’t cut the
stems back until well
into spring.
Send your questions
to stephen.anderton@
thetimes.co.ukQuestion
time
Maybe you can’t make up your mind
what to plant. Maybe you want orange.
Then you need another species again,
our native Cornus sanguinea, in
its forms ‘Midwinter Fire’ (dark green
with bronze young shoots) or ‘Winter
Beauty’ (paler foliage and less vigorous),
which will give you stems of orange and
yellow combined.
The sanguinea varieties don’t have
the strength of the preceding species, so
it’s kinder to cut them every other year,
meaning you don’t start every year
with a gap in your garden. On the other
hand, that annual bare space around a
coppiced shrub is always a place for
spring bulbs.
Really, the whole pruning regimen is
up to you. If you wanted you could cut
back your red-stemmed dogwoods only
to waist-high every year and get the
same great long colourful stems rising
up from there, to be seen behind other
shrubs. Pollard them, in fact. It’s a matter
of making them work for you.golden. It has a soft yellow leaf, not one
of those brassy aggressive yellows that
blends with nothing. And in autumn,
before its red stems are revealed, it turns
the palest lemon, which is a delight with
light pink Japanese anemones.
There are flamboyantly variegated
forms too, vigorous ‘Spaethii’ in gold
and ‘Elegantissima’ in white, which
produce their most dramatic foliage
when hard-pruned. Tradition has it,
though, that you mix golden-stemmed
dogwood with your red stems, and for
that you need to look to a different
red-stemmed species, Cornus sericea
(previously C. stolonifera) in its
yellow-stemmed form ‘Flaviramea’.
A highly vigorous moisture lover, it
takes just the same coppicing
treatment. Is it truly yellow? I think as
good as, if coppiced. At the base the
stems are olive green, at the top more
omelette. But seen beside that crimson
‘Sibirica’, reflected in water, they’re
yellow all right.I
t’s now, with the leaves fallen, that
you start to appreciate the value
of red-stemmed dogwoods. That
hatching of slender scarlet lines is
like nothing else you see in a
garden, and when the sun shines
and the winter winds blow they
absolutely lift the heart.
So how do you get these plants
looking their brightest and best? Well,
Cornus alba is unbelievably tough,
whether conditions are wet or dry, so
you don’t have to worry too much, as
long as the plants are not too utterly
starved or in the dark. What makes the
most difference is the variety you grow
and how you prune it.
Maybe you’ve seen old unpruned
bushes in shabby town gardens or
hospital car parks, rolling 3m mounds
with spindly twigs of an unremarkable
reddish-black. If you want to avoid
having that in your garden you need to
get stuck in and cut the whole plant
down every winter to 10-20cm, from
which it will make an explosion of
the most brightly coloured stems
accompanied by large foliage (you could
almost say you coppice it). Then you
need to cut these stems down again
next February/March, before bud break,
having enjoyed them through the
winter. The height of those annual
stems depends on soil fertility, rainfall,
the variety you’re growing and how
long the plant has been established, but
you can expect 1.5-2m.
Pruning this way means you’ll have
no flowers or berries, of course, but trust
me, you’re missing nothing, and the
autumn colour will be better.
Those young stems, incidentally,
make perfect hardwood cuttings if you
take 40cm finger-fat lengths in
October to December and push them
two thirds into the soil where you want
them to grow.
Now the exciting bit: which variety to
grow. If brilliant crimson bark is whatyou’re after, look for ‘Sibirica’, which is
the one you’ll see most commonly for
sale. It does look brilliant growing right
by the side of a pond, where its stems
can be reflected in the water. A cliché,
but who cares?
There are lots of other fine varieties,
but they tend to be chosen for qualities
other than sheer stem colour (although
their stems are still perfectly good), so
there’s a compromise to be made here.
Still, a compromise that’s well
worthwhile I’d say.
The variety ‘Kesselringii’ is becoming
ever more popular. It relies not on
people’s lust for red but on their
fascination with black, for its stems
really are a deep blackish, almost
brown purple; very alluring. If you
like the black bamboo Phyllostachys nigra
you ought to like this, and just like the
bamboo it needs to be placed where it
has a pale background so it doesn’t
“disappear” in the garden. My favourite
dogwood variety is ‘Aurea’, meaningThe best and brightest dogwoods
The fiery stems are
a winter highlight.
Stephen Anderton
on what to buy and
how to grow them
Cornus sanguinea ‘Midwinter Fire’Amelie alphabet ceramic plant
pot, £9.50, oliverbonas.comWatering can tree decoration,
£4, sassandbelle.comHabitat watering glass globe,
£10, argos.co.ukJardin plant mister, £18,
anthropologie.comRICHARD BLOOM/GAP PHOTOSGifts under £20! Five great stocking fillers for gardeners
Pollinator Beebom Seedbom,
£4.50, notonthehighstreet.comr £20! Five g