aspenhill's blog: Shrub Assessment

Monday
Late last week Bonnie and I were talking about the shrubs in the gardens and making plans for their maintenance - something we've not ever focused on before. I guess the topic came up, like most of our garden focus these days, from a recent Garden Answer video. Laura had been pruning her hydrangeas and explaining how to do it as she went along. She has also been cutting back her buddleias and caryopteris during her general winter cleanup.

It seems that the recommendation is to prune out one third of most shrubs each year, especially the shrubs that need major or even a bit of rejuvenation. It also seems that a good time to do this is in winter before new growth gets underway. I have never done that. So, Bonnie and I talked about the shrubs that I have and what we plan on doing with them. We'll prune one third for many of them, general prune remaining branches, add compost around the bases, add slow release fertilizer, and apply mulch.

Last fall I took the loppers to a really overgrown lilac by the front porch. It is a korean small leaf lilac 'Palibin' that I planted many years ago. It is dwarf compared to the more traditional lilacs, and although it doesn't get too tall, it does keep spreading wider and wider. I lopped off a hefty percentage of the width completely down to the ground, but didn't dig up the roots. Bonnie spent a few hours in the freezing cold late last week digging them out. I heard her out there, but only went out myself when she opened up the front door and called out for me to come see what I thought about it. Just a few minutes standing there had me chilled to the bone. How she can stand that cold is beyond me. Anyway, it looked good to me and even better because she was the one who did the heavy grunt work. As strong as she is, even she struggled with it. We decided that even though the overgrown width has been dealt with, we should still prune what is left

This is a list of shrubs to deal with:
1 Buddleia (Lavender Cupcake) - *Notes prune entire shrub nearly to the ground; *Notes Bonnie has one at her cottage that we need to do too
6 Callicarpa (4 Issai, 1 Profusion, 1 Snow Storm) - *Notes prune all Issai nearly to the ground
5 Calycanthus (1 Aprodite, 1 Athens, 1 Venus, 2 species) - *Notes all thriving
2 Camellia - *Notes both severely deer damaged
2 Caryopteris - *Notes alive but not thriving at all
2 Deutzia (1 Nikko, 1 pink) - *Notes Nikko thriving, pink immature, new last year
1 Fothergilla (Mount Airy) - *Notes doing well
3 Hydrangeas (1 Blue Wave, 1 Quick Fire, 1 Vanilla Strawberry) - *Notes Blue Wave severely deer damaged
4 Kalmia (Sarah) - *Notes definitely needs benefit from fertilizer
3 Philadelphus (1 Minnesota Snowflake, 1 Snowbelle, 1 Snow Dwarf) - *Notes doing ok
3 Sarcococca aka Sweet Box - *Notes doing well
1 Symphoricarpos (Kordes) - *Notes doing ok
6 Syringa - 3 semi dwarf (Palibin, Bloomerang Dark Purple, Miss Kim) and 3 traditional (Sensation, noid purple, noid white)
2 Viburnums (1 Koreanspice, 1 Blackhaw) - *Notes doing ok
1 Weigela - *Notes extremely overgrown
1 Spirea - *Notes doing ok
3 Flowering Almonds - *Notes immature, new last year
various azaleas and rhododendrons - *Notes definitely needs benefit from fertilizer

I wonder if this can all get done in a marathon garden work weekend

( No account? Join now! )