Out in the garden this morning tracking all the potted stuff that might have been drying out a bit in these recent hot, sunny days we've been having.
More than ten years ago we pulled a little sucker shoot from our English elm hedgerow (yes, there is a lot of English elm in our local hedges - but that's another story) and stuck it hopefully in a pot. Happily, it carried on growing, but within the tight confines of the pot its progress was slow. Without really meaning to do it we were creating our very own bonsai elm tree. Every couple of years we've trimmed it back a little, so that we now have a beautiful mini coppice stool which bears tiny elm leaves perfectly to scale with the tree.
We may not see splendid mature English elms in all but a few tiny pockets of the British landscape these days, but this appears to be one way of keeping the spirit of the tree alive and well. As long as this elm remains diminutive it's hardly likely to be clobbered by Dutch elm disease.
The big thing to remember though is that anything in pots needs regular watering to get through long hot dry spells in summer & also be very careful not to splosh water on the tiny delicate leaves as they seem to 'burn' quite easily.
More than ten years ago we pulled a little sucker shoot from our English elm hedgerow (yes, there is a lot of English elm in our local hedges - but that's another story) and stuck it hopefully in a pot. Happily, it carried on growing, but within the tight confines of the pot its progress was slow. Without really meaning to do it we were creating our very own bonsai elm tree. Every couple of years we've trimmed it back a little, so that we now have a beautiful mini coppice stool which bears tiny elm leaves perfectly to scale with the tree.
We may not see splendid mature English elms in all but a few tiny pockets of the British landscape these days, but this appears to be one way of keeping the spirit of the tree alive and well. As long as this elm remains diminutive it's hardly likely to be clobbered by Dutch elm disease.
The big thing to remember though is that anything in pots needs regular watering to get through long hot dry spells in summer & also be very careful not to splosh water on the tiny delicate leaves as they seem to 'burn' quite easily.
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