Every year. EVERY year. The media, even the gardening media, peddle rubbishy old nonsensical myths about how to grow mistletoe. Yesterday BBC Radio 4 Gardener’s Question Time were telling people to make a hole in the bark, stick the seed in and, wait for it….. seal it in with Sealing Wax!!! An astonishing thing to suggest – not least because who has a stick of Sealing Wax handy these days?
Meanwhile Smallholder Magazine’s January issue is telling people to cut flaps in bark, stick the seeds under and bind it all up with hessian.
These are not unusual – gardening lore for mistletoe is full of these weird, mediaeval-sounding methods. Even the official RHS ‘Advice’ does so.
And then they say ‘only one in ten seeds germinate’ (RHS, Smallholder magazine) or that successfully growing mistletoe is the ‘Holy Grail’ of gardening (BBC GQT). In other words they think it is fiendishly difficult.
Well yes, if you follow their methods it is. As their methods will inhibit germination and kill the seeds.
Whereas, if you apply the tiniest piece of common sense and think about how mistletoe spreads naturally – by birds wiping or excreting seeds onto branches, whereupon they germinate and grow – you’ll realise that there’s no alchemy to this. The seeds just need to be put on a branch.
The seeds need light, need to penetrate bark their own way and need space to grow. None of which they get if you’ve buried them in an early grave inside the tree. The seeds just need to be put on a branch.
The seeds just need to be put on a branch.
The seeds just need to be put on a branch.
The seeds just need to be put on a branch.
The seeds just need to be put on a branch.
For considered advice visit mistletoe.org.uk/homewp/index.php/grow-your-own/ and for Grow-Your-Own Kits visit englishmistletoeshop.co.uk