What to do with an old bay tree?

The tall bay tree

One the joys(?) of taking on a mature garden is deciding what to do with well-established trees and shrubs.

My garden is home to a bay tree. It was probably around 4 metres high when I arrived, neatly trimmed into a pyramid. Three years later, after minimal interference, it's heading towards 5 metres and the diameter, at the base, has almost doubled.

So what should I do with this lovely but now huge tree? According to the RHS website, the tree, Laurus nobilis, still has some way to go before achieving its maximum height of 9 metres, so I need to do something before it gets much taller.

For lots of reasons, action is needed. At its widest point, the base, the tree takes up too much space, almost blocking the footpath that runs beside it. And after this year's moderate success with potatoes, I'm also considering extending the vegetable patch and the tree is in the prime location for that.

How hard should I prune the bay tree?

My current thoughts are to give the tree a hard prune, significantly reducing its width, and perhaps lopping something off the top.

Advice on hard pruning is mixed. The RHS website says that bay trees can be cut back firmly, but they are slow to recover and the process should be spread over two or three years. GardenSeeker.com states that mature bay trees can be cut back as hard as required. The writer talks of cutting back untended trees that have reached 10 metres height and an 8 metre spread.

I want to achieve a smaller shrub that's still interesting to look at, being in direct line of sight from the kitchen window. But it needs to take up a lot less space on the ground, giving me more room for growing vegetables.

Uses of bay leaves

Another reason for keeping the bay, other than its evergreen interest, is for its leaves. I admit to not having used any yet, although I have supplied plenty to a family member keen on cooking.

I want the plants in my garden to be productive as well as attractive, so I intended to make more use of bay leaves in future. They're a useful ingredient, both fresh and dried, and the BBC website has a useful list of recipes that include bay leaves.

I must look at how to start using my bay leaves in the meals prepared in the Wyke Garden kitchen. But before then - where are my shears?

Recipe for red currant jelly

I have a single red currant bush in the garden. When I moved in, four years ago, there were two, but one seemed to give up within a couple of seasons. The other, however, is still going strong.

It cropped wonderfully last year and while this summer's haul isn't quite as impressive, there are plenty of fruit with which to make red currant jelly.

This is the third summer that I've made jelly and I think it's my most successful batch so far.

My red currant jelly recipe

Red currant jelly is really easy to make, as it's just berries and sugar boiled up together. All the recipe's I've seem recommend a one to one ratio between fruit and sugar, so 1kg of berries should be boiled up with 1kg of sugar.

This year I was a little short of sugar, so my 1kg bag was matched with around 1.2kg of berries. From the initial samples, it tastes great - not too sweet.

The berries (including stalks) are tipped into a big pan and boiled up slowly, mixing in the sugar. This is based on a Delia Smith recipe, which says boiled the fruit for 10 minutes before adding the sugar, then boil again for 8 minutes.

My approach is more flexible - I just boiled up the fruit (slowly), adding sugar as I go. I stir it quite a lot, because the fruit seem to take a time to break down. I want the juice from every berry to be added to the liquid.

Straining the liquid

This is the tricky part. In my first year I followed my mother's recommendation and put the mix into a muslin cloth, which was suspended over a bowl overnight and then reboiled the following day. This seemed quite long-winded and Delia's approach is much faster.

She says that the mix can be strained through a nylon sieve and gauze, with the liquid then decanted into jars. I use muslin in a colander, which sits atop a bowl. The liquid drips through very slowly. Is there a faster way, I wonder?

If you don't mind slightly cloudy jelly, you can squeeze the bag to release more liquid.

The entire process is very sticky, as the jelly doesn't seem to want to stay in the appropriate containers. But it's now complete for this year.

May planting

It's been a busy month of planting in the garden.

Inspired by the budding of the plum tree, I've decided to cultivate a small orchard in the garden. So in addition to my aged cooking apple tree (variety unknown) and the new Victoria plum, I now have a crab apple.

The tree was a gift and is a Malus 'Wisley crab'. The label describes it as "a small tree with dark purple foliage and carmine flowers followed by large dark red apples. Height and spread 4-5m."

Purple foliage and red apples - that sounds interesting. I look forward to seeing how the tree develops. The variety is one of several mentioned in this article from The Telegraph (2005).

Looking forward to a grape harvest

Another plant I've been after for a while is a vine. I planted one in Hampshire nine years ago and within three years it had covered a pergola and was producing large bunches of edible fruit. Unfortunately, I did not make a note of the variety - something I have since learned to do.

Since moving to Dorset four years ago I've had an ambition to grow a similar vine, and finally I've decided where to put it. So this month I've bought and planted a dessert and winemaking grapevine called Rondo.

The description is "a hardy grape vine, producing masses of red grapes if grown on a sunny site. Sweet dessert grapes are obtained if trained on wires against a wall. Will grow in any soil except waterlogged conditions. Deciduous."

Clematis

Clematis Barbara Jackman

Another plant I grew in Hampshire, with limited success, was Clematis. Unlike the vine, I brought a couple with me and planted them in the garden, but they did not survive.

Now I've bought two more, Clematis Barbara Jackman and Clematis Rouge Cardinal. Both have large flowers. The challenge for me is to following the pruning instructions, something I never bothered with in Hampshire.

Rose

The other significant plant purchase this month has been a second rose, to balance the pink climber growing up the eastern side of the rose arch. Its new cousin, on the western side, is a Pink Perpetue, which should be a deeper shade.

One potato, two potato... ten seed potatoes!

Seed potatoes

This is the year of the potato. At least, it could well be in my garden.

I've been given ten seed potatoes and some simple instructions as to how to plant them. So on the Easter weekend, in late April, I cleared a patch of soil and buried my gifts.

But the process of growing my own potatoes didn't start there. Three weeks earlier I laid out the seed potatoes on a sunny, south-facing windowsill, to encourage them to begin growing. Which they duly did, producing weirdly blobs and knobs of what were, I assume, the beginnings of a root system.

Planting the potatoes was quite straightforward. I dug two short trenches, about 15cm deep, and laid the potatoes into them with the newly-emerging roots facing downwards. I left a gap of around 15cm between each potato and around 25cm between the two trenches.

Then I covered over the seeds with soil and left them to it. I'm assured that with minimal further intervention I'll be harvesting my first potatoes in late summer or early autumn. That's something to look forward to, I think.

Victoria plum finally bursts into blossom

Victoria plum blossom

Three years ago, in March 2011, I bought a Victoria plum tree from B&Q, for £9.98. It was a minor celebration of having my own garden on the sunny south coast.

Within weeks of being planted a single blossom appeared. From that lonely flower came the single, swelling pod of green which became a plum. It ripened and finally I picked it and ate it, savouring each mouthful. My Victoria plum tree has a 100% success rate - every flower had converted into fruit.

For the next two years the tree maintained that 100% success rate. Unfortunately, this achievement came as a result of producing no new blossom in either the spring of 2013 or 2013. The solitary plum from 2011 was the only fruit it had produced and I started to consider replacing the tree.

But this year, 2014, the tree has decided to burst into life. March brought a flush of white flowers, along with nervous anticipation - would any be pollinated? It may have been a mild winter, but there did not seem a lot of insect activity while the flowers were on display.

It's taken three years for the plum tree to come into flower. Will this autumn bring a plum harvest?