Garden Railway Forum

A quick look at my local webbs garden center's miniature alpine plants section revealled some quite nice small branched bushes for not a bad price so i decided to buy two and see how they did in my garden. 2 months later and they seem to fit into the landscape perfectly, they are also very easy to "shape" into what you want for example they could form a stretched out shrub by trimming the top of it every now and then or, like what i am trying to achieve, you can trim the lower branches and sides so they ressemble a tree. either way they seem very useful little plants and would fit into a lot of garden railways i am sure

Nice to know, we have been thinking some smaller plants and something tree like in miniture would look great around buildings track side.

Looks like you found it there

Cheers for posting

Steph

This is a quite a good time of year to pick up old stock in garden centres, before they start to get the new spring stuff in. Last week I got a couple of small conifers from our local Wyevale Garden Centre, reduced to £1 each.

philipy:122778 wrote:... reduced to £1 each.

And that is the trick ... when they get too big, take them out and replace with new and smaller ones.

Some of our trees at Butterley are over 20 years old, but they've not been trimmed back well enough so they're going to get cut off at ground level coz the root systems are so big that if we tried to uproot them we'd wreck the garden!

dizzysteamer wrote: ↑Sun Feb 12, 2017 9:08 am Nice to know, we have been thinking some smaller plants and something tree like in miniture would look great around buildings track side.

Looks like you found it there

Cheers for posting

Steph

A garden full of flowers would not only enhance the beauty of your home but also impress visitors or even home buyers. There are a lot of flowering shrubs. Eastern redbud is a small, handsome, multistemmed understory tree that reaches 20 to 30 feet with a 20- to 30-foot rounded crown. Shrub roses are also a good option. They combine the fragrance and form of old roses with the strength, hardiness, and long bloom season of modern hybrids. Other option would be Forsythia. They add a great joy to the eyes.

Landscape supply company normally suggest selecting the soil of good quality with their own characteristics and suitability. There are a few factors to be considered while planting trees and shrubs:
1. Site selection
2. Soil preparation
3. The hole size

Best Wishes. Check for trendy garden ideas online. Do post pics of your garden.

Yes - tis a good time for the old sale stickers in the Garden Centre - will be going back to one of my favourite retail sheds to see if these bad boys are in the sale as well - they were a bargain the first time around

https://gardenrails.org/forum/viewtopic ... 43&t=11029

It's worth keeping an eye out in Aldi/Lidl as well. They sometimes have miniature conifers for not a lot of money.

My neighbour had a bonsai shop. He told me that the big trick to keep trees and bushes small, is to keep the root system small. He took his bonsais out of their pots once in a while to trim the roots to fit the size of the plant. That way he had a few 40 year old trees which where absolutely perfect to scale.

Normally one would only remodel the tree above the ground, but the root system needs to fit the tree, otherwise it grows like mad and you can't keep them small..

daan wrote: ↑Mon Jul 31, 2017 10:53 pm My neighbour had a bonsai shop. He told me that the big trick to keep trees and bushes small, is to keep the root system small. He took his bonsais out of their pots once in a while to trim the roots to fit the size of the plant. That way he had a few 40 year old trees which where absolutely perfect to scale.

Normally one would only remodel the tree above the ground, but the root system needs to fit the tree, otherwise it grows like mad and you can't keep them small..

I did read that the easiest way to keep the root system small is to grow the tree in an empty half grapefruit skin. Just fill it with the soil/compost/whatever and then check every so often and shave off all roots as soon as they appear through the skin.
Never tried it myself so don't know if it actually works, but it sounds plausible.

Big Jim wrote: ↑Sat Jul 22, 2017 10:17 pm It's worth keeping an eye out in Aldi/Lidl as well. They sometimes have miniature conifers for not a lot of money.

Yes, true, Jim.

I'm currently waiting for them to get small Buxus( Box) in. Its usually about end of September I think. They do trays of 8 small plants for about a fiver and if you are careful and tease them apart, you'll find that some of them are actually 2 or sometimes 3 very small rooted cuttings grown very close together to look bushier!

Also, we have several assorted Acers around the garden. Most came from garden centres but the best one of the lot came from Aldi about 5 years ago and cost a tenner.