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Hydrangeas Perform Better With Proper Pruning

Pruning of one season affects bloom of another.

After decades of breeding, most modern cultivars of hydrangea are much more compact and a bit stockier than old fashioned hydrangeas that had long, limber stems that could bend downward from the weight of their own blooms. They stand up to proudly display their modern, vibrant color, even when their billowy blooms get heavy with rain. Yet, even with all their genetic improvements, they should still be pruned properly and annually to promote continued bloom. Without pruning, even modern cultivars can get floppy and lanky.

Because most hydrangeas bloom on stems that developed during the previous year, they should not be pruned too much while dormant through winter. Instead, solitary (generally unbranched) stems that grew from the base last year and bloomed this year should be pruned back to a pair of buds about a foot high as their blooms deteriorate. Even though some blooms continue to develop late into autumn, most are finishing about now. Therefore, pruning stems back while also removing spent blooms gets the pruning done early enough for the side buds to start to grow into secondary stems.

These secondary stems should not get pruned again, even when they go dormant through winter. They do not grow much before winter, but should be mature enough to bloom during the following spring. Thinning these branched stems through winter by cutting some of the smaller stems to the ground should produce fewer but significantly larger blooms, as well as prolong the blooming season. (However, many modern cultivars naturally bloom sporadically after their primary bloom phase until autumn anyway.)

New canes that develop from the ground to replace older branched stems may not bloom their first year, but can be left unpruned through winter to bloom early the next spring, which starts the process over again. Old stems should be cut to the ground after their third year (second bloom season). Leaving a few spent blooms on the plants long enough to dry (as dried flowers) should not interfere too much with proper pruning.

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Horridculture – Too Busy To Write

The little windmill palm is not so little anymore, and deserves a space in the garden.

It will be a while before I resume blogging as I formerly did, if I resume. I may just continue to share my gardening column here. The situation is too complicated to explain, and too irrelevant to bother with.

So, if I do resume, I hope to write more about my own home garden. I have been negligent in that regard for a few reasons. Firstly, my home garden is not very interesting. I am a nurseryman, so am in the habit of giving away anything in the garden as it becomes appealing. Secondly, my uninteresting home garden has been neglected for too long. I have been too busy with several other obligations that I still can not keep up with. Thirdly, the landscapes where I work part time are far more interesting than what I would grow in my own uninteresting and neglected home garden if it were not so uninteresting and neglected.

In the future, I hope to renovate my home garden and make it more interesting. Seriously, all those interesting species that I bring back but do not give away from Southern California, the Pacific Northwest and even the Phoenix region deserve a comfortable garden in which they can perform as they should. Seven cultivars of banana grow fast! It would be unhealthy for them to remain canned much longer.

Because I know nothing about landscape design, I do not know how to renovate my home garden, but can figure it out as I proceed, even if most of it is as simple and utilitarian as it had formerly been. Palms do not conform to a simply utilitarian garden, so do not leave me much choice about incorporating them as aesthetic elements. It should be fun. At least that is what I continually try to remind myself.

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Norway Maple

Most other Norway maples are cultivars.

The botanical name of Norway maple, Acer platanoides, means ‘maple like a sycamore’. It resembles Platanus X acerifolia, which means ‘sycamore with maple foliage’. Platanus X acerifolia is London plane (‘sycamore’), which serves similar purposes. Norway maple lacks the irritating foliar tomentum of London plane. It has more aggressive roots though.

Norway maple was likely never a fad, but was common as a street tree during the 1950s. It naturalized as in invasive exotic species in parts of the Pacific Northwest. It is not such a nuisance locally. Most domestic trees are sterile or almost sterile cultivars. If their roots were more complaisant, they could have been ideal street trees. Their shade is splendid.

‘Schwedleri’, with bronzed foliage, was likely the most popular cultivar originally. Modern cultivars are darker bronze, golden, variegated or simple green. Their deciduous foliage is not so impressive for autumn though. It turns somewhat brownish yellow. The palmate leaves are about five to nine inches wide. Defoliation is efficient. Refoliation is quite late. Not many Norway maples get more than forty feet tall within the mild climates here.

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Fads Influence Contemporary Garden Design

Even boulders can become a fad.

Landscape design and gardening trends change like every other sort of fashion. Several fads of the past were quite practical and justifiable. Many were not. Whether justifiable or not, many merely became old fashioned. Some evolved into a more contemporary style. Others were not so adaptable. Planning for a landscape is easier than planning for fads.

For example, plants seem to be disproportionately small within a new landscape. That is because someone planned for them to have sufficient room to grow. Shade trees should eventually mature to be proportionate to their respective spaces. In fact, all plants should mature accordingly. However, overly trendy queen palms can become passe at any time.

Many home gardens contend with fads from the past that are awkward to accommodate. Strict symmetry that was very common long ago has become more than old fashioned. It is now considered to be unappealing. Relaxed asymmetry is now common and popular. Of course, this is an advantage as aged trees of symmetrical rows begin to die randomly.

Queen palms that became popular in the 1990s are getting more expensive to maintain. Only professional arborists can groom them as they get too tall to reach from the ground. Queen palms at rear fences of backyards were a fad. Sadly, most utility cable easements are above such rear fences. Palms that encroach too closely necessitate costly removal.

Living Christmas trees was another fad that caused serious problems later. Most of such trees were either Italian stone pine or Canary Island pine. Many found permanent homes within confined home gardens after Christmas. They seemed to be so docile while small and potted. The problem was that both species grow too big for compact home gardens.

Sustainability is presently a fad that actually has potential to be beneficial in the future. It only needs proper execution. The results of fads may linger long after the fads are gone. Many trees that are fads now could survive for centuries. No fad demonstrates that more accurately than sustainability. That which is truly sustainable can evolve with future fads.

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Palm Springs

Palms and redwoods do not mix.

No, not ‘the’ Palm Springs. It is merely a concept for a new garden. It may not begin to develop for quite a while, and certainly will not begin prior to when the rainy season begins this autumn.

Palms and redwoods do not mix. Technically, they can, but they look silly together. However, there are a few young palms here, and there will be more in the future. Some are very important to me. The pair of Mexican fan palm seedlings came from the mature specimen that Brent scattered some of his brother’s ashes under in front of his home at the Jungalow. The windmill palm came from the childhood home of two of my best friends from the fourth grade. The rare hesper palm was a gift from a now deceased friend. It was stolen and then recovered.

Palm Springs may be developed to accommodate the various palms within their own space, away from the redwoods. The preferred location is a small and relatively mildly sloped plateau on an otherwise steep hillside, where oaks and chaparral species grow wild. A natural spring, if tapped, may be able to provide adequate irrigation. Otherwise, water is available reasonably nearby. Other lush or jungly species can also inhabit this garden. This includes heliconia, giant bird of Paradise, canna, calla, blue ginger, cup of gold vine, Philodendron selloum, four cultivars of angel’s trumpet and three distinct species of bamboo palm that are already here. The garden would not be visible from either of the nearby roads until some of the palms get very tall a few decades later. I doubt that anyone would mind if they could see such odd vegetation anyway.

Ultimately, Palm Springs could be like a bit of Southern California within its own confined oasis almost hidden above the redwoods.

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Oem

This picture is from my Six on Saturday post for this morning.

Its name is so minimalistic and blunt in the language of the indigenous people who are most familiar with it. Others might know it as the giant highland banana. It seems to me that most of us who find it to be of interest know it by its botanical name of Musa ingens.

Oem, or giant highland banana, or Musa ingens, is native to the tropical montane forests of New Guinea. Because it is endemic to high elevations, it does not perform so well in the sort of continually hot and humid tropical climates that most other species of banana enjoy. It actually prefers the weather to get somewhat cool at night. Therefore, it is more likely to be happier here than in Southern Florida, Hawaii or coastal San Diego County.

Not many horticultural enthusiasts grow it anyway. Actually, I do not know of anyone else who grows it. I have seen only a few comments online regarding germination of the very rare and expensive seed. Furthermore, no one seems to be successful with germination. This particular species does not generate pups as readily as other species of the genus, and even if it did, there are no established specimens from which to procure such pups.

However, its lack of popularity is less likely a result of its rarity and difficulty to propagate, but more likely because of its massive scale. In the wild, oem can grow to a hundred feet tall! It may be limited to about half as tall within cultivation, and without competition from other tall trees, but that is nonetheless a potential to get fifty feet tall! That may not seem like much relative to other trees, particularly the redwoods that are more than a hundred feet tall, with potential to get three times as tall. The concern is that banana trees are not actually trees. They are merely humongous perennials. Their pseudostems do not grow for very long before they begin to deteriorate and collapse. Pseudostems of smaller sorts may complete the process within two years, but are easily removed afterwards. Fifty foot tall pseudostems take significantly more time to mature and then deteriorate, but are not so easily removed from refined landscapes. Arborists can not climb them to cut them into sections. They require space to fall harmlessly. They are full of water, so are very heavy.

Now, oem lives here. It is merely a single dinky pup, but grows very efficiently. I have no idea of what to do with it. It can likely stay canned through this year, but may need to go into the ground next year. Not only does it need plenty of space, but it does not conform to the styles of any of the landscapes here. Consequently, it might eventually inhabit my home garden, regardless of its awkward appearance. This will likely get very interesting.

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Six on Saturday: Those Lazy-Hazy-Crazy Days of Summer

Summer is a few days more than half finished. Weather remains noncompliant. Again, I should not get redundant by describing how last spring lingered, with only a few days of summery warm weather. Instead, I can now describe how the weather is beginning to be more like that of autumn. There is still time for some warm weather through September and perhaps even into October here. For now, we can simply appreciate the comfortably mild weather. During a typically warm summer, this is about when we begin to miss the rain. It might finish during March, and might not resume until November. The dew this morning looked almost like raindrops, but even a native Californian can distinguish dew from real rain.

1. Mornings start out atypically cool and damp. It is not exactly hazy. Nor is it uniformly foggy. It almost looks cloudy. It has been doing this for much of this oddly mild summer.

2. Friday morning was so damp that the dew resembled rain. It left spots on windshields of the work pickups, although such spots were not circular as if caused by real raindrops.

3. Banana trees and other species that appreciate warmth are growing unusually slowly. This happens to be the rare Musa ingens, which is the biggest banana tree in the World.

4. ‘Ponderosa’ lemon is slightly chlorotic, likely because of the lack of summer warmth. I should remove the fruit to redirect resources. One lemon can grow to weigh two pounds.

5. Giant reed is one of the most aggressively invasive exotic species within riparian zones of California. It does not seem so aggressive in cultivation here while the weather is cool.

6. ‘Proud Land’ rose bloomed nicely and nearly on schedule last spring, and continues to bloom, although somewhat reluctantly. I installed this now old specimen in about 1984.

This is the link for Six on Saturday, for anyone else who would like to participate: https://thepropagatorblog.wordpress.com/2017/09/18/six-on-saturday-a-participant-guide/

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Horridculture – Deadhead (from last Wednesday)

At least the new growth is healthy.

Property management pays landscape service companies to maintain their landscapes for them. It is expensive. It is certainly fiscally adequate to justify the expectation that this sort of damage would not occur within the landscapes that property management pays landscape service companies to maintain. Now that it did occur, it should be remedied as efficiently as possible by the landscape service company that is justifiably expected to both prevent such damage, and remedy such damage if it occurs. This should not be a complicated concept.

Realistically, this is likely not as egregious as it seems to be. Automated irrigation was likely disabled through the rainy season last winter. It might have been enabled a bit too late into the dry season that began last spring. Hey, it happens. The upper stems of the subject succumbed to desiccation, likely as a result of warm and arid weather. Now that the automated irrigation has been restored, the subject is now attempting to recover from the damage by generating healthy and vigorous new growth relatively low within its canopy. Upper necrosis might remain only because the gardeners are prohibited by their insurance to perform any tasks above a particular height, even with a pole pruner instead of a ladder, and the necrosis is simply too high for them to engage. That task must instead, and perhaps more appropriately, be performed by an arborist. However, the arborist who typically maintains the trees at this particular property would need to charge an expensive minimal fee for this relatively minimal task. It would be more feasible to postpone the task until there is a need for more substantial arboricultural work. The arborist could remove necrosis from this subject within a few minutes, and without charging extra, while at the site to maintain many other larger trees.

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Blackberry

Blackberries are ripening slowly this year because of the mild weather.

Rampant brambles of feral blackberry, Rubus fruticosus, canes are much too common and give blackberries a bad reputation. Yet, with regular selective grooming and pruning, their biennial stems that emerge from woody perennial roots are both more productive and easier to contain than one would guess. ‘Primocanes’ grow rapidly to six to sixteen feet in the first year. In the second year, they become ‘floricanes’, which do not grow longer, but instead develop lateral stems that bloom and fruit. Only a few modern ‘fall bearing’ or ‘everbearing’ cultivars fruit on primocanes.

Canes are trailing, semi-trailing or erect. As the names imply, trailing types like ‘Marion’, ‘Boysen’ and ‘Olallie’, need support. They are the most popular locally because they are more productive. Erect types that need no support, like ‘Navaho’, ‘Choctaw’ and ‘Arapaho’, are less productive, but because they are more tolerant to frost, are more popular where winters are colder. Old classic blackberry varieties are quite prickly. Modern thornless varieties are becoming more popular as more varieties are developed. All have palmately compound leaves with five or seven leaflets. Simple small white or pale pink flowers that bloom late in spring are followed by the familiar blackberries that are ripening now.

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Blackberries And Raspberries Are Expensive For A Reason.

Cane berries need aggressive pruning, but are no fun to prune.

All the raspberries and blackberries that are now ripening do not come without a price. The canes that produce them may grow like weeds, and in many gardens really are weeds, but they need quite a bit of work. Like the deciduous fruit trees that need such meticulous pruning while dormant in winter, berry canes need winter pruning while dormant, as well as summer pruning as the berries finish.

Blackberry canes that have produced fruit should be cut at the ground as the fruit gets depleted. Then, for ‘trailing’ varieties, about a dozen of the new canes that grew since spring should be selected, pruned to about six feet long, and trained onto the same supports that the removed canes used. ‘Semi-erect’ varieties need only about half as many canes, and get cut about a foot shorter. (‘Erect’ varieties that get cut even shorter are not common locally.) All other canes should be cut to the ground. Through the rest of summer, the pruned canes develop side branches which should eventually get pruned to about a foot long in winter to bloom and produce fruit next year; but that part must wait.

Summer bearing raspberries, like ‘Willamette’, ‘Tulameen’ and ‘Canby’, do not need to develop side branches to produce fruit next year, so do not necessarily need to be groomed of spent canes and pruned just yet, and can actually wait until winter. Everbearing raspberries like ‘September’, ‘Heritage’ and ‘Fallgold’, are not nearly so simple, although canes that were selected while young last winter and allowed to grow through summer likewise need no pruning just yet. The top portions of these canes will produce fruit later in autumn, and later in winter, get pruned down as low as fruit developed. However, the lower portions of older canes that fruited the previous year and got their tops pruned down last winter are now finishing their second and last phase of fruit production, so should get pruned out as they finish.