Get your canes in now

[Allan]

I have masses of hazel in my woodland but haven't the time to fiddle with it, it wouldn't last all that long whereas my canes are easy to use, easy to clean off and store well if you clear as soon as cropping finishes. Mine will be at least 5 years old and good for a few more. When I get new canes I glue dowels of appropriate sizein the hollow ends or cut just below a knot, that way the bottoms don't readily split when pushed in.
Anyone who wants hazel had better come and get them from here, they need coppicing.
Allan

[Deb P]

I grow my own bamboo canes, one clump of the nigra variety does the trick and looks cosmetically better too.

[Johnboy]

Hi Old Herbaceous,
I do indeed remember Jack Hargreaves and what a wonderful countryman he was. His programmes had me enthralled which is something no modern programme has. Most of my hedges are Hazel but I do have some Hawthorn, Wild Pear, Crab Apple, Wild Cherry (Gean),
Holly, Wild Plum, Euonymous Europea, Blackthorn and Ash so quite varied! I also have several specimen trees in the hedgerow or actually along side.
What I like about Hazel Peasticks is that at the end of the year they make good Kindling called 'Morning Wood' hereabouts.

[Jenny Green]

I remember Jack Hargreaves too - didn't he start off on How and then do the countryside programme?
I used to love that when I was a child, but I think I was in a minority of children my age.

[Carole B.]

I loved watching it too Jenny,you can still get videos or DVDs of them,we got some for christmas last year and they wear well with time.It makes you realise how bad a lot of todays progs are,they focus on the presenter or celebrity not on what they are making the programme about.The exception to this is Country Ways and it's sister prog.Coastal Ways which still retain the old style format thank goodness.

[Geoff]

I don't understand - how can you grow beans in ground you cannot push canes into?

[Chantal]

Well I've given in and put up some of my canes; not because of the pushing in later problems but because it gives my plot some structure and helps me to decide where to put everything else.

[Jenny Green]

I don't understand - how can you grow beans in ground you cannot push canes into?

I don't know about you Geoff, but my canes go in substantially deeper than my beans. It's been my experience of growing on a clay soil, that the ground beneath the first four inches or so begins to dry and harden as the rainfall reduces. When I've left putting in the canes until the first week or so of June, I've found sometimes I can hardly get the canes in at all, whereas if I put them in now it's much easier. I can push them in by hand and don't have to make holes with bars or anything like that at all.
This is even more true of the temporary fruit cage I erect every year, where the soil is undisturbed. I've just put them in and got them in easily. In previous years I've barely got them in at all when I've left it until a couple of months later.
Now if this isn't your experience then it's simple - don't follow the advice.