You may remember our blue metal makeover, when Don transformed a large, ugly courtyard into a stylish entertaining area. The courtyard was cleaned up, agricultural pipes and blue metal were installed to drain excess water from the site, and the central area was filled with blue metal dust. The plantings included camellia hedges, liriopes, black mondo grass and an evergreen magnolia.
Visual drama and an architectural effect were achieved by planting super advanced conifers in front of the pillars along the walkway. We chose the Bhutan or Himalayan cypress (Cupressus torulosa) which is a reasonably fast growing and hardy evergreen tree. It does best in Perth, Adelaide, Melbourne, Hobart, Sydney, Brisbane and the mountains.
Instant gardens
The availability of super advanced plants has been a real breakthrough in the nursery industry, because you can virtually create instant gardens using big plants. The downside is that big plants take longer to establish than small plants and you may have problems with them down the track. For example, advanced plants may move in strong winds or blow over, because they have confined root systems. In fact, that is what happened to one of the conifers in our makeover. Don was able to support the tree by tying it to a post (if the post hadn’t been there, he would have used strong stakes). If the conifers had been put in as small plants and they had grown naturally to the same size, the roots would have spread and developed normally and there wouldn’t be a problem.
Tip: don’t tie trees too tight. Allowing for some movement forces the tree to develop strength around the base.
Further information
Semi-mature and mature trees are grown at specialist tree nurseries. They are available on order from your local nursery, but they are expensive. If you buy Bhutan cypress in 200mm (8″) pots for around $14.95, you’ll save money and avoid the problem described above.