HOWZAT

A: It will be dry, hungry ground close to the fence, because of the laurel roots and the shade/rain-shadow they cast, so tough shrubs are needed, which will also be evergreen and happy facing north. Try Viburnum tinus and davidii, aucuba, mahonia, fatsia, skimmia, sarcococca, yew or box. Fish out an encyclopaedia and see which of these you fancy and can incorporate. Some bamboos might do too. Plant in a line of large and varied bulges, so you do not create your own secondary straight line. Aim for varied height too.

Q: I am inundated with celandines which flower brightly in spring and die away in summer. But they appear to choke the emerging shoots of perennials. How can I lessen their number? I am on heavy clay soil. — Mrs B. Jupp, Belfast

A: If they like your garden you will never get rid of them. On light soils one might lift and divide the perennials into very small pieces, clean their roots, sieve the soil to remove most of the celandine tubers, and then replant, relying on glyphosate applied now with a paintbrush (thus keeping it off other emerging perennials) to suppress the remainder. On heavy soil you are stuck with the paintbrush alone, and perhaps growing less delicate perennials. If the smothering of wet foliage is causing the perennial shoots to damp off or fall prey to slugs, rip off the celandine foliage until the shoots are free above it. If you are prepared to have an empty bed for a couple of years, you could lift the perennials, wash their roots clean, and store them elsewhere while you have a chemical sterilant applied to the soil.

Q: What can I grow in a shady 4ft border that is right next to a neighbour’s 18ft-high conifers? — Mr S. Massey, Rotherham, South Yorkshire

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A: You will need plants for drought and poor soil, as well as shade. A combination of oriental hellebores, iris foetidissima and butcher’s broom (ruscus aculeatus) would give you dense cover after two or three years, but you should mulch and water regularly to get them established; that goes for any new plant in rotten conditions, even if it’s capable of going through hell later. Make a hole for each, the size of a bucket, between the trees’ major roots if you can find them, and add plenty of compost and extra fertiliser. That will give your plants a running start before the tree roots get the scent of nutrition and come running to compete.

Q: I have a 14ft ceanothus ‘Puget Blue’ growing against the wall of my kitchen and it is already starting to flower. In recent winds it came adrift from its fixings and has lurched forward. What can I do? — Mrs. J. Scott, Altrincham, Cheshire

A: What an intense blue these spring-flowering ceanothus produce; seems all wrong for the time of year. They often try to flower before Christmas. When a bigwall shrub heaves forward it is very difficult to get it back again. Roots which are unused to holding back the plant (the wall ties did that) tear and lose their grip, and the pressure needed to pull back the plant is enormous.

Usually people end up both pulling the plant back with new ties and pruning it back to save other plants or a path below. But ceanothus hates being cut back hard into old wood… How old is yours? Ten years? That’s not a bad life for a ceanothus. I’d take it out once it’s flowered and start again. To keep the new one dense and tight to the wall, you should give it a good haircut after flowering, and once again (but very lightly) in September, to make it bush out. (Cut it hard in September and you take away all those rounded little buds, which are next spring’s flowers.)

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