i will post a pic as soon as i go and pick them up. he said the trees were the biggest in cyprus tho if that helps?? Thanks! That'll probably be Pinus nigra , then. Have to confess before, when you said "cyprus cones", I rather assumed it was a typo for "cypress cones", rather t...

Rich wrote:Sorry to dig up a relatively old thread. But what are "suckers"? Are these the leaves?

Suckers are new stems growing from the base of the main stem.

Could hear the racket of them (both bumblebees and Honey Bees) under the Cotoneaster frigidus today. Have to agree, I can't recollect seeing a single wasp yet this year either - decidedly worrying in view of the number of insect pests they eat. Did anyone else see the news item in today's Observer ,...

We need to treat these zones with some caution Becky, as they were developed for US gardeners. A zone 8a area in the UK may have a very different climate to an area with a similar zone classification in the US. Treated with care and a bit of intelligence, they're OK. A zone 8a area in the UK has th...

DON'T use any sort of chlorine-based or acid-based bleach. That'll etch microscopic cavities in the metal of the cutter blades, which then act as reservoirs for disease organisms. Americans recommend something called 'lysol' which (I think) is enzyme based and non-corrosive to metal; not sure if lys...

a freind has bought me back some cyprus spruce cones from hols to try and germinate.would you do the same for those? cheers.darren Can you post a pic of the cones? Treatment depends a lot on what species they are. For Mediterranean Cypress ( Cupressus sempervirens ) and most other Cupressus cypress...

Not sure what, but not Euonymus - that has opposite leaves, not alternate.

Here's a rather more accurate zone map for Britain, and one for Europe

In the fridge, in damp (not dripping wet!) sterilised sand, at +1 to +2°C. You might want to try sowing some of them right away, as Pinus pinea can germinate without stratification, and the seedlings will still have enough of the summer to get some growth before the winter. The rest of the seed, I w...

Summer heat should not be an issue if it does not have any winter damage. It can very easily be so - if the summer's growth doesn't mature fully due to lack of heat, then it becomes very much less tolerant of frost the following winter. That's why hot summer continental climate species like Ketelee...

Errr, Cambridge is in the east as opposed to the south and benefits from being close-ish to the coast, how does Newcastle stack up against Evesham which is more central? Cambridge isn't close to the coast (90km inland from the Suffolk coast), and the sea east of there is quite different too. South ...

Cloud forest counts out P. montezumae too, it is from drier areas. More likely P. pseudostrobus then.

The chalk would account for its somewhat off-colour yellowish-green foliage. P. pseudostrobus should be a nice rich green.

Are the needles mostly in 5s? What length?

Ah those days in June when the sea fret rolls in and it doesn't get above 9° . . . Whether that's bad for Phoenix canariensis_CIDP depends on how high it gets in the wild on Tenerife. Go up to 2000m altitude there and when the northeast trade wind rolls cloud in (which it does on most days), the tem...

It's a Montezuma Pine if that fits with the Latin name, Conifer :wink: Thanks! . . . Hmmm . . . Montezuma Pine is Pinus montezumae , but that doesn't fit your pine too well! Branches too slender, needles too pendulous on yours. It'll be one of the other warm temperate Mexican pines, if not P. patul...

And I have seen pine forest at Doi Itanon in Thailand with lots of wild Musa and Alpinia growing beneath it. You dont expect bananas under Pinus and you have to see it to believe it. That's Pinus kesiya (Khasi Pine) and Pinus latteri (Tenasserim Pine) there; both are tropical pines that won't toler...