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Horridculture – Hackers (again)

Is it really too much work to not leave such stubs while destroying a hedge?!

It has been quite a while since I posted anything that qualifies for the theme of ‘Horridculture’. Such topics are not only unpleasant, but have become redundant and passe. They are annoyingly frequent reminders of how several of the horticultural industries attract too many of those who either lack practical experience or simply do not care about their work. I can not even remember how many times I wrote about hackers, which is why I did not assign a number to this title. I can see that I addressed this issue as recently as February. Nonetheless, because this particular incident involves a Prunus laurocerasus, cherry laurel hedge that we have been renovating for a few years, it is difficult to ignore. The formerly severely overgrown hedge had been responding somewhat slowly but otherwise adequately to its renovation, all behind a reasonably presentable facade. Actually, until recently, the facade had become tidier and denser than it had ever been before. Then, a tree service was hired to clear some adjacent unmanaged vegetation. The objective was to remove vegetation from an area that is to be paved for dumpsters. There was no concern for the quality of the work, since remnants of such vegetation can be managed or removed later. The problem is that those who performed the task also removed a significant portion of the facade of the hedge beyond the area from which unmanaged vegetation needed to be removed. What is worse is that it was done so horridly. I do not remember seeing any proper cuts. All involved stems were stubbed and gashed. I can only guess that whoever did this expected the hedge to be removed later. I can not be certain of that, since complete removal within one process would have been less work than such thorough disfigurement. I mean that someone put a great deal of effort into disfiguring the hedge this severely. Fortunately, the hedge will eventually recover. I removed the stubs and neatened what remains, and will try not to look at it for the next several months. The tree service that did this actually removes unwanted trees for us efficiently and safely. Their arborists are quite experienced and qualified for what they do. I just do not want them to do anything else.

Someone put a great deal of effort into this degree of damage.
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New York Times

(This article is copied from my other discontinued blog at Felton League. It is not about horticulture, but links to another article about hedges, and features Brent’s garden.)

This is why I have never stayed at Hotel del Flores.

The New York Times featured a picture of my homeless camp! It is the third illustration of this article about landscape hedges. It shows where I camp while in Southern California, including the orange garden daybed where I sleep, and, as the primary topic suggests, a portion of the surrounding hedges.

This illustration should demonstrate why I enjoy being homeless in Southern California. It is quite luxurious. The weather is exemplary for camping. I wake amongst lush tropical foliage and palms, to the gentle sounds of small fountains and wild parrots. It is about as excellent as camping within one of my gardens, but very different, and special because I do it for less than three cumulative weeks annually. For many years, I have been wanting to stay at the famously eccentric Hotel del Flores nearby, but will not do so without inhospitable weather to dissuade homelessness.

Seeing this particular illustration reminds me of why this Felton League blog has been discontinued. For quite a while, there has not been much to write about that would not be intrusive to those involved. Societal difficulties as well as personal difficulties within society certainly remain, but are not as prominent as they had been. My own experience with faux homelessness, albeit within another Community, is strangely appropriate as an illustration for an unrelated article within the New York Times.

Most of those who experienced unemployment, poverty, homelessness or related difficulties here in the past are now enjoying major improvements to their personal situations. Many of those who are not yet benefiting from such improvements appreciate support from this graciously compassionate and generous Community. This has always been a good place to be in a bad situation. Perhaps, now that I no longer blog here, I should write a book about my experiences.

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Hedge Pruning Straight And Narrow

Hedges should not overwhelm their landscapes.

There are rules to hedging. Many hedges violate some of such rules. Formal hedges are the most egregious offenders. Their uniformity, symmetry and form require compliance to relatively strict standards. Relatively relaxed standards of informal hedges or screen are standards nonetheless. Almost every hedge eventually needs maintenance of some sort.

The primary difference between formal and informal hedges is uniformity. A formal hedge involves only a single variety of a species. Spaces between individuals of such a hedge are all the same. An informal hedge can involve more than one species. Spacing may be variable, even if for a single variety. Informal pruning is less strict than formal shearing.

Both types of hedges are generally utilitarian, as well as aesthetically appealing. Many provide privacy. Many obscure undesirable scenery. Some divide gardens into distinct spaces. Size and shape is very relevant to how effectively a hedge serves its purpose. Unfortunately, most hedges are significantly larger than necessary. Many are obtrusive.

This happens because their depth, from front to back, is easy to ignore. A healthy facade of dense foliage conceals wasted space within. It can slowly expand outwardly as each subsequent shearing procedure allows. Expansion is faster above than below, which is why so many hedges are wider on top. Distended tops shade and inhibit lower growth.

Obtrusive hedges are difficult to restore. Most require removal of their appealingly dense foliar facades. Such a procedure exposes unappealingly bare stems within. This should be temporary for most hedges. They efficiently refoliate to develop new facades with less depth. Such renovation is impractical for junipers, which can not refoliate so efficiently.

Renovation of obtrusive hedges is unpleasant and temporarily unsightly. However, it can recover formerly useless space. A hedge that was six feet wide can be as effective if only a foot wide. There is no need for it to extend over usable spaces, such as walkways and patios. Other vegetation will likely appreciate better exposure to sunlight. Mild weather delayed but did not eliminate the need for seasonal maintenance of hedges.

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Shear Hedges Seasonably And Properly

Scheduling is important to hedging too.

There are rules to hedging. For example, hedges should be uniform and exclusive to just a single cultivar. A modern ‘Green Beauty’ boxwood will never conform within a hedge of more yellowish old fashioned boxwood. Hedges should also remain within confinement. It is important to shear them back from obtrusion into walkways and other usable spaces.

It is not as simple as it seems to be. That is why so few hedges get proper maintenance. Almost all occupy and therefore waste more space than they need. Most have wide tops that shade out narrower lower growth. Moreover, many plants that are not components of hedges all too commonly succumb to inappropriate shearing too. It is sheer shear abuse!

Even if done properly, only hedges and a few other plants are conducive to shearing and hedging. It is an aggressive procedure that compromises form, texture and bloom cycles of involved plants. For hedges, that is not a problem. They need not bloom, and adapt to a refined hedged form, which is more desirable than their natural shrubby form would be.

However, it is important to not unnecessarily shear plants that bloom, or provide intricate foliar texture or form. Shearing deprives rhododendron of young floral buds. It ruins foliar texture of Heavenly bamboo, and foliar form of Japanese maple. It is acceptable to shear boxwood only because it responds by generating such appealingly uniform foliar growth.

With proper scheduling, it is possible to shear only a few blooming plants without ruining all of their bloom. Aggressive shearing after the early bloom of oleander and bottlebrush leaves them with space to grow enough to bloom again during autumn. Without sufficient space to grow, they will require subsequent shearing, which will ruin subsequent bloom.

It is better to shear some of the simpler hedges, such as privet and boxwood, shortly after winter. They regenerate lush growth immediately afterward, and do not mind two or three annual shearings. The last shearing should be early enough to allow a bit of growth prior to autumn. Photinia generates appealingly bronzed new growth in response to shearing. Also, frequent shearing inhibits potentially undesirable bloom.

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‘Marjorie Channon’ Pittosporum

Finely textured and variegated foliage is the main attribute of ‘Marjorie Channon’ pittosporum. The small leaves are only slightly undulate.

Pittosporum tenuifolium (or nigricans) has been employed as a resilient shorn or unshorn hedge for decades. The more contemporary cultivar ‘Marjorie Channon’ though, is grown more for variegated foliage. The light green leaves have creamy white borders and undulate margins. Mature unshorn shrubs get only eight feet high and broad, and are not quite as dense as the straight species. They may not be so useful as large hedging, but can provide striking contrast and depth to deep green foliage.

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Horridculture – Fences

P00429
This is not exactly visually appealing.

Fences are necessary. They contain children, dogs and minor livestock. They exclude deer, cattle and others who are unwanted within an enclosed space. Some obscure unwanted scenery. However, even the more ornate sorts are more functional than aesthetically appealing.

That is why hedges are popularly grown to obscure fences that obscure outside scenery. Climbing vines take up less space than hedges, but are likely to damage the fences that they are intended to obscure.

Where I lived in town, the garden in back was surrounded by fences. I loathed them. I grew a grapevine on one. Another one was outfitted with a trellis of twine for pole beans to climb. Tall zonal geraniums obscured at least the lower half of the fence behind the laundry yard. I would have preferred no fences at all.

There were no children or dogs to contain. Nor were there cattle or deer to exclude. Except for the laundry and trash yards, there was no unwanted scenery to obscure. Nonetheless, the neighbors wanted fences, probably because they all believed that backyards should be fenced. It was just how it had always been.

Some urban fences are more like high and solidly constructed walls. Batons cover the seams between planks. Where local ordinance limits the height of fences, lattice is commonly added on top to (sort of) lawfully increase height. It is difficult to grow much on the shady north side of such tall fences.

I am fortunate that I do not work with many fences anymore. However, an area at work is surrounded by cyclone fences. It is necessary and practical, but would be very unappealing around landscape situations. I put pole beans on one, and two grape vines on another. If I must contend with them, I may as well take advantage of them.

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‘Icee Blue’ Yellowwood

90313No, it is not an oxymoron. ‘Yellowwood’ is the common name for a few specie of Podocarpus. The evergreen (or ‘everblue’) foliage of ‘Icee Blue’ yellowwood, Podocarpus elongatus ‘Monmal’, really is as silvery grayish blue as the name implies. It can be as striking as some cultivars of Colorado blue spruce. It grows slowly in narrow columnar form to only about fifteen or twenty feet tall.

The finely textured evergreen foliage is ideal for both formal hedges and informal screens, although it takes a while to fill in, particularly for larger hedges and screens. Tip pruning of lanky growth of informal screens improves density. The narrow leaves are about two inches long. Fresh new foliage may be lighter and very slightly greener, which can contrast nicely with more mature foliage.

‘Icee Blue’ yellowwood will tolerate a bit of partial shade, but exhibits the best color in full sun. It prefers to be watered somewhat regularly while getting established. As it matures, it becomes less reliant on watering. Like many other Podocarpus, it is susceptible to infestation by scale insects and the ants that cultivate them. Scale produce sticky honeydew which blackens with sooty mold.

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Bullwinkle II

P90303What makes this Bullwinkle worse than most is that I pruned it like this myself. What makes it worse than worse is that it did not need to be pruned in this disfiguring manner for clearance from utility cables like the last one I wrote about was. https://tonytomeo.com/2018/08/08/horridculture-bullwinkle/ It is instead an attempt to renovate an overgrown hedge that was behaving something like a fat hedge. https://tonytomeo.com/2018/06/06/horridculture-fat-hedges/

In fact, the only reason it did not qualify as a fat hedge is that it had plenty of space for all of its superfluous bulk The side to the left was only beginning to encroach into the driveway on that side, and was easily pruned back to the curb, which for now, is adequate confinement. The side on the right was only beginning to encroach into the upstairs balconies, and was likewise easily pruned back for reasonable clearance.

The problems with this hedge were within and on top. It had been shorn back only for minimal confinement for so long that all the foliage on the sides was within a thin external layer. Pruning any farther back would have exposed a thicket of necrotic stems in various degrees of deterioration that had been accumulating within the interior for many years. Almost all growth was directed to and concentrated on top, which shaded the interior and lower stems even more than the accumulation of necrotic crud within did. Since the top had always been pruned down to the same height, all subsequent growth after pruning on top was above where it had been pruned previously, which was of course above the height where it was wanted, and consequently removed when the hedge was pruned again. There was no incentive for lower foliage to develop.

The hedge is there to obscure the view of a building on the left from the windows of the building on the right. The most important foliage for that purpose is the lower foliage, which is precisely what is lacking. Almost all resources were going to the upper foliage, which was contributing nothing, while shading out the lower growth. Although the inner thicket of necrotic stems was partially helping to obscure the unwanted view, it was also inhibiting healthier lower growth.

The illustration shows what remains after the useless top and necrotic interior were removed. After the picture was taken, the left and right sides of the hedge were pruned lower to eliminate the useless upper foliage that was not contributing to the function of the hedge. As unsightly as it is, it partially obscures the view of the building on the left from the building on the right, and will obscure it more as new foliage develops. Now that the interior is exposed, new growth should develop within the interior, and lower to the ground. Because the area is partially shaded by nearby redwoods, the exposed interior limbs are not likely to be damaged by sun scald.

After the new interior growth is established and obscuring the view, the external sides that are there now can be pruned back farther and sloped inward toward the top so that the lower growth of the hedge gets more sunlight. The hedge certainly does not need to be as wide as it is. It would be easier to maintain if it were narrower and so close to the allowable boundaries. Ultimately, with appropriate pruning over the next few years, this old hedge should be restored.

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Coast Rosemary

51223Just like real rosemary, the coast rosemary can either be a low ground cover or a dense shrub. Lower cultivars can get nearly five feet wide without getting much more than a foot high. Shrubby types can get nearly six feet tall without getting much wider. Shrubby types are more popular than ground cover types, and are often pruned so that they do not get too broad.

The tiny leaves of coast rosemary are silvery or grayish green, and can be variegated. Small white or very pale lavender flowers bloom sporadically throughout the year, and can be profuse in spring. Established plants do not need much water, but are probably happiest if watered somewhat regularly through summer. Shade subdues silvery foliar color and inhibits bloom.

Shrubby coast rosemary makes a delightful low hedge. It can be shorn like any other formal hedge, but is best where it has space to develop naturally. If space is limited, but not ‘too’ limited, a coast rosemary hedge can be aggressively shorn once annually at the end of winter, and then allowed to grow wild for the rest of the year.

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Guilt Trip

P80923It was so long ago that I barely remember it. I was just a little tyke. My older sister tripped on the driveway and broke one of the Japanese boxwood shrubs in the hedge on the edge of the driveway and front walkway. The hedge was still young then, and not completely filled in. My Pa replaced the missing shrub shortly afterward, but not before my younger brother and I learned that the gap was a shortcut through the hedge. The puny new shrub was not enough to compel us to go around like we had done before. Of course, it did not survive for long. It too got broken off.
We did feel sort of guilty, but only for a while. The second shrub was replaced with a third, which seemed like it should be sufficient to patch the gap in the otherwise formally shorn hedge. We were careful with this one, and actually got into the habit of going around the hedge to avoid altercation with it. However, it died even without our influence. Again, we felt guilty about the g. ap.
I do not remember if there were more attempts to fill the gap in the hedge with other shrubs. When we moved away from that house, the shrubs on either side were slowly filling in to obscure the void. A few years later, the gap could not be seen.
However, many years later, the hedge was pruned with an up-do, which exposed the lower few inches of trunk of each of the individual shrubs. Although there was no gap in the very uniform hedge, it was very obvious that one of the trunks was lacking, right where it had always been lacking. Oh, the guilt!
Even if someone wanted to go through the effort to cut a hole in the otherwise exemplary hedge to replace the missing shrub, it would be very difficult or impossible to find a shrub of that now old fashioned cultivar of Japanese boxwood. Modern cultivars are darker green. A single shrub of a modern cultivar would only compromise the uniformity of the now very uniform hedge. The missing shrub will need to stay missing forever. More guilt on top of guilt!
The satellite image below and the street level view from Google Maps shows that the hedge is now foliated all the way down the the ground. I will not even bother mentioning where the the missing shrub is missing from. I know you could not see it anyway. The hedge is a bit more overgrown than I can remember it ever being before, and it has a bit of that fat hedge syndrome going on, but it still looks great for half a century old. The gap is long gone. Only the guilt remains.P80923+