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Cherry laurel, Prunus laurocerasus - Shrub
A much nicer looking plant, bushy, quick growing but not in the same bully-boy league as Lleylandii, and with the bonus of spring flowers and the ability to regenerate itself when cut back hard into brown wood. An evergreen shrub with large glossy, dark green leaves. It makes an excellent hedging plant, and can cope with deep shade under trees as well as full sun. Sometimes there are cherry red berries. Will grow into a loose tree if allowed to go unpruned. As well as being used for hedges, make a good windbreak for an exposed corner if planted alone, or a good dark green backdrop to more ornamental plants. Height and spread: 10m x 10m (30ft x 30ft) A smaller variety "Otto luyken" is available that grows only to about 1m x 1.5m (3ft x 5ft), good for the more restricted situation.
Uses - Specimen / Hedging / mixed border
Q. I have a large west facing garden to the side of my Suffolk Cottage, bounding against a road. In April this year I planted a Laurel hedge along this boundary, I hope to eventually have a dense informal hedge around 6-8 feet high. The Laurels were 4ft high when planted and they have grown strongly over the summer, they are now around 5-6ft but are starting to look a little leggy. How do I go about cutting the hedge with the aim to achieve a dense high hedge? I very much hope you can help with this question as I have hunted high and low on the WW web and found very little advice. A. If left to their own devices with lots of space, laurels will grow into a bushy tree / tall shrub about 20ft + high. It seems that this is what yours are in the process of doing, particularly as you say they have grown strongly. To get them to bush out, particularly low down, you need to prune quite hard. Cut them back at the top to prevent the development of a strong leader which will encourage a tree-like form. It's difficult to guess without seeing them, but I'd take about a foot off. Laurels respond well if rather slowly to being cut back hard. If there are any branches low down, then cut them back close to the trunk - even though this seems the wrong thing to do. The plant will respond by breaking several buds where there were originally only one or two, so helping cover up the lower part of the stem. The best time to do this is late spring after they have flowered, don't expect to see much coverage for about a year, but it will come. If you're a bit unsure about this drastic action, just do a couple in the middle of the hedge (i.e. with one either side, and then the rest when you're confident it works (!)). Prune laurels with secateurs and loppers, hedge shears cut the large leaves causing die-off at the leaf edge which looks a mess. Q. I'd really appreciate any info you might have re a dieback problem I'm having with my laurel hedge. About 2 months ago a three feet wide section of the hedge appeared frost-damaged - we had 2 or 3 very sharp drops in temp at night during the previous week. The hedge had been well cut back c3 years ago due to building work but was flourishing with lots of lush new growth - I thought its thinning perhaps had made it susceptible to frost damage. This 3 feet section however has now extended to almost 6 feet wide & appears to be spreading. My neighbour & I are very concerned & would appreciate any advice on how we might save it. The laurel is c.12 feet high/50 feet long & I think was planted when the houses were built in 1920s - the leaves are fine and small and a light green colour, not dark. The dieback appears to start from the bottom up with leaves wilting, then brown spots, then entire leaf brown and stems browning. Is there a disease that affects laurel? or could the roots be water-logged (nurseries here have been recently selling off plants due to the extraordinary wet weather we have had!) A friend has also suggested cats & their 'ablutions' (another neighbour has two new cats). A. If those cats can kill off a 12ft high by 6ft wide 80 year old laurel, I'm glad they're in Northern Ireland and not over here! Seriously though I think we can disregard the cats as a factor. It's difficult to tell without seeing the hedge directly. With such a large old plant, I think the most likely cause will be a fungal disease triggered by several factors that have acted together to weaken the plant. Age, water logging, physical damage - letting fungal spores in - may all have a part to play. The first thing I would do would be to delve into the hedge and determine how many plants the die-back is affecting, is it just one or is it moving to others? Look carefully at the plants, leaves, stems, trunk for any clues, I presume there aren't any pests or you'd have mentioned them? Are there signs of fungal disease any where? especially low down near the ground, is the bark damaged? Is there anything peculiar about where the damaged plant/s are growing? Are the branches the dead leaves are attached to dying too? Snap one or two and see if there are signs of life. If they are dead then cut back into a live part. If they are still alive, things are looking better. To be honest things don't sound too great and it may be a question of containment if the problem can't be dealt with directly, stopping it from spreading to the next plants on in the hedge. If the problem is containable and stoppable then the good news is that laurels usually recover well from some hard pruning. Q. What is the best time to plant a laurel hedge? A. The best time to plant any kind of shrubs / trees / hedging is in the early autumn. September to November. That way there's still enough of the growing season left for the plants to get established before it gets cold. It's not going to be so hot or dry that the plants get stressed or need lots of looking after and come the spring they're all ready and raring to go as they are established already. The down side is that you don't really see much growth for about 6 months. Spring, Feb to about May is also good. If plants are containerised however they can be planted at any time of the year as long as they're looked after, but autumn is optimal. Q. We have a well established laurel hedge, either side of a huge Lleylandii tree - the total hedge is 12ft high, 4ft thick and about 40 yards long. This year 10/15 yards have started to develop a leaf curl with light brown (powdery) spots on the back of the leaf. Would spraying with a bordeaux mixture cure this disease? Any advice you can offer would be appreciated A. It
certainly sounds like a fungal disease, the rain of the past month has meant
that fungi have found it easy to take hold on many plants. I'd get a
proprietary fungicide and use that. You could use the Bordeaux mixture as
well, but I wouldn't use it on its own. Q. We have our garden enclosed by Laurel Hedges. Gradually one by one they are deteriorating i.e. leaves go yellow and brown and drop off. Why? on the stems one sees a 'Clear Gel' appearing to ease from the wood (the laurels are well established with 30mm diameter trunks). The gel appears along the lengths of the trunks and branches. Can you help please as holes are appearing everywhere and we are losing our lovely garden. A. It sounds very much like your laurels have a bacterial canker that particularly affects plants of the Genus Prunus to which laurels belong. If there are clearly defined areas of bark that are flattening and sinking inwards near the regions of oozing sap, that just about confirms it. Infected areas should be pruned out and burnt, though this should only be done during the summer months if possible. Spray with a copper based fungicide such as Bordeaux mixture or with copper oxychloride. Ideally this should be done in late summer, then early and mid autumn. If you start now, then leave about 2 weeks between sprayings. Q. Help with rampant laurel greatly appreciated. We recently have moved and are now occupying a property which includes a lovely, mature garden. However, a few shrubs and trees are very over-grown. I found your site by searching for laurel pruning, and whilst I see you have already posted some advice on bringing into line an eight foot laurel hedge, I hope you will advise me on how to tackle one which has reached 25 to 30 feet in height and 12 feet in depth! The hedge runs along 60 or so feet of the border between our property and our neighbour's and encroaches on both. I have spoken to the chap next door who is as keen as I to win back some room, but we both also agree that it would be desirable to leave a screen between the two properties. Some of the main trunks measure in excess of seven or eight inches in diameter. The hedge is planted two feet away from a four foot tall stone wall. How would you advise that I proceed? A. Sounds like you've
got a bit of a monster there! reply: Hello Paul, I will now proceed with more caution and confidence. Luckily for me, I sell bow saw blades!!! Thank you once again. Q. Nearly two years ago, I had a laurel hedge planted, it consists of about 30 plants and is now beautifully knitting and desperately in need of a bit of trimming. My question is, that many of the leaves are displaying holes, about the size of the top of a pencil. Could this be caterpillars, if not, what do you think it could be, and what would be a safe, preferably non-chemical way of treating it. A. Sounds like a malady
called "shot hole" are the hole edges clean and green - like they've just been
eaten? or is there an inconspicuous but distinct brown ring at the edge of the
hole? - if there is it's probably shot hole. There will also be brown spots
of dead tissue on the leaf. Patches of cells die and turn brown, then the brown
dead part drops out leaving the hole. If it's caterpillars, you should be able
to find some, possibly under the leaves if they're not conspicuous. Q. Planted new laurel plants last Spring. Local advice is to prune back so they bush out. We bought taller ones to get the height more quickly and so it seems a little silly! What is your advice for their first pruning? A. Yes prune back - but no more than 1/3rd of the length of any one shoot. Q. I have a huge laurel tree in my back garden. It is about 30ft! It has just been knocked down by the storm winds and needs to be removed as is dangerous. Is it ok to burn the wood and leaves? It has been suggested to me that the fumes from burning the leaves is poisonous. Is this correct? A. Poisonous - not really any more than usual bonfire fumes which are pretty bad anyway. Laurel leaves are full of oil and ignite fiercely, which is good in getting the fire going, but can be a bit surprising if you're not expecting it. Start off with a smallish fire and add extra branches to gauge how fast they will burn rather than throwing loads on at once. A better approach would be to shred and then compost as much as possible. Q. Every site I have looked at today says the fruit of the cherry laurel is poisonous, but my mother used to make a delicious jam from them. I have made it in recent years. It tastes like marzipan and black cherries (the same flavour that would be in apricot kernels, I guess, which I use also as bitter almonds). What are the dangers here? It is a most delicious jam and I have about 4 kg of the fruit sitting in my kitchen waiting to be made into this year's yoghurt and scone topping! The leaf in the pictures looks a bit finer than the leaves of the bush I picked them from, but I'm pretty certain its the same fruit. A. I've always thought of the fruit as poisonous, though apparently it is the unripe fruit and seeds that contain the greatest amounts. Try this webpage: http://www.pfaf.org/database/plants.php?Prunus+laurocerasus The bitter almond flavour seems to come from cyanide which is what potentially makes them poisonous. Like anything it's a question of dosage as it seems about 900 sweet almonds makes a fatal dose of cyanide, but less than that can be quite nice! My interest is from a gardening perspective, rather than herbal / culinary. My guess is that in an increasingly litigious world, people err on the side of caution. As am I when I say I have no direct experience of using these fruits. Q. I have approx 1/3 of an acre at home idle. I have lots of laurel hedges grown in my garden as borders and have grown very fast. I had an idea of maybe buying approx 2 feet laurels and either potting or planting them on the 1/3 acre for a few years and selling on as a mature hedge. I think one of your answers says moving laurels especially as they get older is not a good idea. So could I pot them in lines for a few years until they are approx 5 or 6 feet and would this be a difficult process? A. What you
describe is perfectly possible, as a landscaper I have bought laurels in 10L
pots that are about 4-5 feet high and they are very useful in giving a start
to a hedge. If you go the container route, you need to think about how they
are going to be watered, some degree of automation is needed even if it's
turning on the tap for a sprinkler or leaky hose every now and then.
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