As bad, in its way, as having to move house. It is a great advantage to take the long view and not have to move gardens too frequently. My hermaphrodite form was sent to me as seed by a correspondent living in the US, he having obtained his original stock from Sunningdale Nurseries over here in Berkshire: the stock made a double crossing. If not, then do it from seed, but it does take five or six years to get plants mature enough to fruit. If you have the stock, propagation by division is the most satisfactory method. The two grow on the north side of an open-sided loggia, and winter sunshine reaches under the tiled roof and lights up our happy couple to electrifying effect.Įach stem of the butcher's broom lives productively for two or three years, but it is best to thin them out on a regular basis, removing old stems right down to ground level, as you would a herbaceous plant. My colony grows only 50cm or less high, and I cheer up the solemnity of the plant by planting an evergreen fern, Polypodium interjectum 'Cornubiense' near it, which retains a bright green colouring throughout the winter (like the ruscus, it is mildly colonising). If rooting only a few cuttings, you can use a flowerpot or small flat ( Figure 134 ). A greenhouse is not necessary for successful propagation by cuttings. It enjoys deeply shaded conditions, and around this time of year a new crop of berries ripens and lasts for more than 12 months, so that there is an overlap between last year's crop and this. Propagation by cuttings involves rooting a severed piece of the parent plant or, in some cases, producing new plants from severed pieces of tissue (leaf cuttings). There is a lot going for butcher's broom (so called because butchers used to sweep their chopping boards clean with a bundle of its branches). However, there is a hermaphrodite form, which completely gets over the problem. The whole point of this plant so far as gardeners are concerned is the glamorous scarlet berries that females bear if there is a male pollinator at hand, which there often isn't. Males and females grow in separate colonies. Factors that may affect seed production in Scotch broom include predation by insects, site conditions, plant size, climatic conditions (i.e.
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