Care Guide for English Yew (Taxus baccata).
Watering. Yew plants require careful watering, especially in the dry summer months. If your Yew is in planters then regular, small amounts of water help keep the plant healthy.
It also helps to paint the inside of the planter with a copper-oxide based product, such as ‘Spin-Out’, which will extend the time the plant can stay in the same container.
In the ground, Yew requires regular additional water in the first season until the roots have taken. This is often best achieved by installing a ‘Leaky Pipe’ or drip pipe which is easy to just connect to your outdoor tap.
One of the most important things to remember is that Yew does not like to have its roots in standing water, so free drainage is very important. This is achieved by good ground preparation, ensuring any waterlogged ground, or ground prone to flooding, has drainage installed before planting.
Clipping. The timing for clipping Yew is not as crucial as it is for many other plants and it often left until the autumn and winter in situations where there are a lot of other plants to shape. This does not mean you can’t clip it in the spring and summer, quite often if it is clipped in the spring you will need to give it another quick trim in the autumn to remove the second flush of growth.
Feeding. As with Box, Yew appreciates feeding on a regular basis. This is only necessary for the first year of Yew planted in the ground, but necessary always for Yew in planters.
We recommend feeding every three weeks in the growing season with a liquid feed, and a long term maintenance feed of ‘Osmacote’ or similar over the winter months.
Treatment. Yew is particularly susceptible to Vine Weevil and needs treating every year to prevent serious damage. We recommend any chemical treatment you are able to buy from your local Garden Centre. Try to get one which is mixed with water and then used to douse the roots of the plant. It is best to do this treatment in the last week of June and the first week of July (Wimbledon fortnight) when the grubs have just hatched and are busily eating the roots.
If you live near to the nursery, we can treat this for you. Please ask for a quotation.
