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Q – Our blighted box is spoiling our garden.Ìý Can you recommend something to replace it that is green or green/white?

Matthew Pottage – Berberis,Ìý Loniceras, Podocarpus.Ìý A dwarf Yew called Taxus baccata ‘Repandens’.Ìý Try a small Podocarpus called ‘Kilworth Cream’.Ìý

Q – A friend has given me a Giant Redwood and a Dawn Redwood.Ìý They are currently in pots.Ìý Can we keep them in large containers?Ìý Can we pollard them?

Panel – No!

Pippa – Pollarding will ruin it.Ìý Find someone who has the space to look after them properly and give the trees to them!

Bob – Things with fibrous roots tend to do better in containers.

Anne – Shallow-rooted Birch are ok in containers, Magnolias too, Japanese Maples as well.Ìý

Pippa – Camellias would do in a container but it is a lot of work and the plants, as a rule, don’t generally like it.Ìý Go for shrubs rather than trees and get the biggest containers you can.

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Q – We’ve recently had an extension built and the builders have dumped sharp sand in my vegetable patch and washed concrete into the herb garden. Can the panel advise whether I need to dig everything up and start again or will the plants survive?

Bob – I’d just dig it in. Sand isn’t normally a big problem. The concrete will be very limey and full of chemicals – just dig it in and then put a top layer over it.

Pippa – See how the plants react before doing anything.Ìý Keep them well watered and fed and see what happens.Ìý Years ago when I worked at Wisley they employed someone to paint the timber in my lab and there was an Actinidia kolomikta on the wall there and it was fascinating because the painter painted over all the stems!

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Q – I have two tree stumps at the bottom of my garden – one is 8ft (2.4m) tall and one is 6ft (1.8m) tall – I’d like to grow some flowering climbers up them.Ìý What can you recommend?

Matthew – We have a lot of Oak, Birch and Scots Pine here at Wisley that we send climbers up. I like climbing Hydrangeas – the Petiolaris cultiva – also there’s one called ‘Summer Snow’ that’s great.Ìý Pileostegia viburnoides if you want evergreen foliage.Ìý Virginia Creepers are lovely too – Parthenocissus.

Pippa – Do be careful leaving trunks and stumps around if there’s a risk of Honey Fungus.Ìý

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Q – Is there a natural method of getting rid of snails?

Pippa – The nematodes are the best thing for getting rid of slugs as they work below ground. As snails are more surface-dwelling it can be trickier.Ìý There’s nothing available at the moment that will do for snails what nematodes do for slugs.Ìý You could use copper barriers to ring-fence areas.Ìý Wool pellets or pine needles will also create good barriers.Ìý

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Q – I have a young Pandanus that was planted a couple of years ago.Ìý Unfortunately, it has been uprooted and moved a few inches to one side.Ìý Since then the leaves have turned yellow/brown – how can I save it?

Matthew – The Pandanus will need lots of heat and humidity – I guess it’s not the moving it’s more the climate that it doesn’t like.

Pippa – Temperature-wise it’s going to be struggling.Ìý

Anne – An optimistic minimum temperature for a Pandanus would be 7-10 degrees Celcius (44.6 – 50 Fahrenheit).Ìý I think this plant is too cold.

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Q – What do Vine Weevil eggs look like when you squash them?

Pippa – They are tiny and you’re not really going to see them to be honest.Ìý Often what you think might be eggs are actually slow-release fertilizer balls that are doing good, so don’t worry!

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Q – My ‘Mother-in-Law’s Tongue’ plant has flowered suddenly and unexpectedly.Ìý Is it likely to do so again?

Bob – It is rare but it can happen.Ìý

Anne – They are South African and there are lots of them.Ìý We mainly see Sanseveria trifasciata with big succulent leaves.Ìý

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Q – I want to create a sensory garden on a piece of ground about 8m x 1m (26ft x 3.2ft).Ìý Divided into five sections (one for each sense).Ìý We’d like some plants that will create interest during the winter months.

Anne – In shadier bits put Daphnes, small winter-flowering Honeysuckles.Ìý Citruses and Salvias could be in the sunnier bits.

Bob – One plant will do the lot: Loquat.

Matthew – The ‘Feijoa’ or Acca sellowiana would be great

Pippa – We had a wonderful Chionanthus that the kids nicknamed the buzzing bush because of all the bees – that’d be good.

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Q – What’s wrong with my ‘Redhot Poker’? This year it sent up a number of stems but most of the flowers are dead/dried up.Ìý It’s three years old.

Pippa – I wonder if the flowers have gotten too dry.

Anne – I would blame the late frosts.

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Q – Has the panel any experience of growing rose cuttings in potatoes?

Bob – People do do it but I don’t think it’d work very well

Pippa – My big question is, why?!Ìý Roses root very well as it is so I shan’t be trying it.