Shrubs are really not my thing, but they do need to be talked about. They are the structural element in any landscaping and most Property Owner’s Associations require them around the foundation of our houses, to hide utilities, and/or act as buffers between properties. And therein, lies the issue. I blame POA’s or HOA’s for a number of problems. In their quest to make certain that very exacting regulations are met, they encourage landscapers to plant things that are a certain height and often totally inappropriate. Landscapers, for their part, want to keep POA’s happy and also to keep their costs low. This often results in a shrub or tree being wedged up to the foundation of the house that looks good now, but can grow to 30 feet tall – not an ideal foundation planting. A favorite shrub to use is Viburnum odoratissimum or Sweet Viburnum. This shrub grows extremely quickly and has lush green leaves and white flowers. I do not find it “sweet” since it has a sharp odor. I call it “stinky” Viburnum. For the first year or two, this shrub nicely covers the foundation of a house, and then it takes off. I had them along one side of my house and I was pruning them every few weeks. They also are susceptible to white fly if they are wedged together with inadequate ventilation. White fly leads to sooty mold fungus as the honey dew secreted by the fly larvae encourages black mold. Yuck and double yuck. If you remember, I finally gave up and had them all dug up. They never should have ben planted that close to the house and in an area that was deep shade. On the other hand, Sweet Viburnum does make a great screen or buffer between properties if you wish privacy due to their fast growth rate and thick foliage. Many landscapers love Ligustrums of all types. Ligustrum japonicum (Japanese privet) is very popular as it grows two feet per year. Although it can reach 12 feet tall, it can be pruned to any height. There is a variegated variety as well as a smaller variety called “Sunshine” Ligustrum with bright yellow leaves. Warning- Japanese Ligustrum is on the invasive watch list for some parts of South Carolina, but not the Lowcountry - yet. ![]() There are so many attractive evergreen shubs that can be used in our area, why use the same two over and over again? What can you use next to your foundation instead of the towering landscaper and POA friendly shrubs? In shade, there are many types of Azaleas that do not grow out of control. Florida anise (Illicium floridanum) likes full shade and moist soil so they would do well in an area where water drains off the roof. They can grow to 10 feet, but are slow growing and easy to keep trimmed. In sunny areas, there is my favorite – Dwarf Bottlebrush (Callistemon citrinus). They are slow growing and stay tidy with little maintenance. The red brush like flowers are pollinator magnets and they are not prone to disease. They will get about three-four feet tall and five feet wide – plant them about three feet from your foundation. In fact, make certain that there is air flow between any of your foundation shrubs and the house. This will prevent all sorts of issues in the future. Now about Azaleas! They are getting ready to bloom soon. The worst thing you or your landscaper can do is to prune them right now. I saw a lovely Azalea hedge that had been totally scalped by a power hedge trimmer. All of the blossom buds were cut off – no flowers this year. Hand prune Azaleas after they are done blooming, but no later than July 4th. Azaleas are acid loving shrubs so they like a taste of Hollytone or Miracid in the spring and fall. ![]() Although fall is the best time to plant shrubs, you can do it in the early spring before our heat sets in. How do you plant shrubs? Pay attention. This will be very different from what you may have been taught. With both shrubs and perennials, it is important to take them out of the nursery container or, God forbid, burlap covering. Wash all of the soil from the roots. Nursery soil is usually some sort of growing medium and not the natural soil that your plant will ultimately be growing in. Look for circling roots. If they are severely circled, it means that the plant was very pot bound. Untangle and untwine those roots and soak them in a large bucket of water. If you need to trim off some circling roots, that will be okay as long as you leave some good rootstock left. Dig a hole twice as wide, but only as deep as the roots. The plant should sit with the root flare from the trunk at the very surface of the soil. You do not need to add any supplementary soil other than your own native soil. You want that plant to get used to what it is going to be growing in and not just some yummy stuff. That will cause those roots to curl around inside the hole and not spread outward. The hole that you dig might look like a big bowl and that is just fine. When placing the plant in the hole, make certain that the roots are fanned out like spokes on a wheel. Fill in with your native soil and tamp gently. Do not stomp around the trunk. You will push the oxygen out of the soil. Water thoroughly until the water puddles on top. You may see little bubbles and that is great since it means that there is oxygen in the soil. Keep watering every couple of days for two weeks and then twice a week until the plant gets established. I will be back with more on our quintessential Southern shrubs – Azaleas, Gardenias, and Camellias. None of them are native to our hemisphere, but they have become iconic symbols of spring in the South.
Since I have a broken foot, I will be writing even more about gardening since I cannot be in my own garden until I get screwed back together again. Then I will be hobbling around in a boot checking up on my little darlings as they sprout and bloom. My tulips just opened this morning!
0 Comments
I prune my Myrtles back the end of February. I cut the tall thin branches making certain to remove any dead, damaged, or diseased material first. I use bypass pruners for a sharp clean cut (my favorite brand is Felco, made in Switzerland). I do not cut the branches back every year at the same place. When landscapers and homeowners hack their trees back every single year at the same location, the tree produces an unsightly knot. The issue is that many yards have the wrong kind of Crepe Myrtle planted. Some varieties grow as tall as 30 feet tall. Not good if they are planted right next to your house. Rather than “murder” the tree every year, make certain that you plant a smaller variety and there are many dwarf varieties coming out each year. It is truly the old adage of making sure you have the right plant in the right place. Down here landscapers are notorious for planting shrubs that are too large for a foundation planting right next to the house. By the way, my Viburnum odoratissimum are gone! I am looking at Florida anise as a replacement (Illicium floridatum). They like shade and grow slowly at to a correct height depending upon the variety. Hopefully no more whitefly. It does amaze me to see how people prune shrubs. As mentioned before, power tools are not the way to go. Mow and Blow landscapers just chop and slash away with no regard for when the plant can and should be pruned. I visited a yard last week where there was a large flat topped hedge – it was really scalped. On closer examination, they were Azaleas. They will not bloom this year because the landscaper sheared off all of the buds for this spring. You should prune most flowering shrub after they bloom and no later than July 4th. You do not wish to cut off next year’s flower buds.
You should also prune down here from the inside out, opening up the shrub to air. If you look closely at a massacred shrub, you will see quite a bit of dead material inside the mound of the shrub. If you let that go, you will soon have a shrub with green on the outside and brown on the inside. Ugh. Opening the shrub up also helps to prevent disease. With pruning, always cut out the dead branches first as well as any that are crossing and rubbing against each other. Look for cracked and open branches and discard those as well. Pruning correctly can help make a beautiful healthy floral display on flowering shrubs and healthy renewed foliage on shrubs not known for their flowers such as Podocarpus, Boxwood, and Ligustrum. Weirdly Warm Winter WeatherHappy New Year and welcome to a new gardening year. I just spent two weeks in North Carolina spending time with a very active four year old while her baby brother was on his way. Between hide and go seek and chase, we found time to forage for an arrangement. You can find cool stuff at any time of the year in the South – seed pods, foliage, berries, and an occasional flower such as this Camellia blossom. Arriving home the day after Christmas and after spending an entire day and night sleeping, I headed for the garden. Due to the exceptional warm weather over the holidays, I still have summer flowers blooming like this Ageratum. I grew this from seed and hopefully it will reseed and spread again next summer. Just in case, I put in my seed order for the spring with Johnny’s Seeds in Winslow, Maine. I have used many companies and find that they have the best germination rate. www.johnnyseeds.com The most surprising thing I found in my garden was this Cestrum elegans or Red Cestrum shrub. It is a mass of tubular shaped blossoms. It seems to bloom from autumn through until the heat of summer. Cestrums have only a few arching branches so it is a tidy shrub and does not out grow its space. I highly recommend it so do an online search for it. I have not seen it at any local Lowcountry nurseries. Yet. It is not too late to plant spring bulbs. I just planted mine. They have been in the garage fridge since October. I always order species bulbs – that is tulips and daffodils (narcissus) as close to the original form as possible. They seem to take our heat better than most hybrids. January and February are great months to do some hardscaping if you choose. Shrubs can still be moved around and it is always good to do it before the heat of late spring or summer. Seed and plant catalogs arrive in the mail and I often sit and plan what I will do this spring with a catalog on my lap. Now is a good time for some “creative staring” at your garden and yard to plan for the new growing season.
Down here, spring will be here before we know it. First Frost in Our Lowcountry GardensThere was frost on my roof this morning, but my plants do not seem the worse for it. This is a wake up call for what we should and can do to protect Tropicals and tender perennials. Many things breeze right through below freezing temps such as most perennial Salvias, Pelargoniums (Geraniums), Dianthus, snapdragons, and pansies. Tropicals should be brought under cover on a porch or inside a garage. If you have large containers, cover them with cloth. Old sheets work well although your yard will look like it is decorated for Halloween. Do not use tarps or plastic – plants need to breathe. Now is not the time to prune. You do not wish to encourage new growth that can be nipped by the frost. The exception to this is dead branches and crossing branches that are rubbing against each other. Those can be pruned at any time. Your Camellias should be starting to bloom. Sansanquas bloom first and then later in the winter, the japonicas will bloom. Prune Camellias after they bloom in the spring. Tea Olive (Osmathus fragrans) can bloom for an extremely long time all through the winter months. Loquats bloom in January and February. Rather than buy cut flowers for the holidays, see what you can forage in your yard. I always do foraged arrangements. I find that this is actually a beautiful time in the garden with seed heads, berries, and interesting stems. What fun to get the kids and grandkids involved as well.
Happy garden scavenger hunt! The year is 1956 and I am ten years old, My parents have moved to a new house in the suburbs. We are landscaping as everyone did in the 1950’s – a few shrubs along the front of the house and that is about it. I go along for the ride out to a nursery in Chesterland, Ohio, owned by a nurseryman named Julian Potts. While my parents are looking at Yews and Japanese Boxwood, Mr. Potts notices me eyeing some plants on a stand. He asks me if I like to garden and I say “I would if I had a plant.” He hands me a plant as a gift that he called a “Cup Plant” (Silphium perfoliatum) – an American native prairie plant that is all the rage today, but unheard of in those days. With that act of kindness, a gardener was born. I cherished that plant as it grew to six feet tall and had yellow flowers that the bees loved. The leaves formed cups that collected water and birds drank out of them. (I just noticed that some Cup Plant seeds I planted are sprouting! More for next spring.) My parents had a copy of the Better Homes and Gardens Garden Book, copyright 1951, and I poured through it. I found the perfect garden pond photo on one page and begged my parents to let me use a little plot of land to work my miracles. They gave me permission to do anything I wanted in the field behind our house. The original photo and my reality was not exactly close, but I had fun setting an old half oil drum in the ground and filling it with water. - that was my "pond." Mr. Potts continued to gift me with little plants and I dug violets and small trees out of the woods across the street from our house. My garden wasn’t much, but at age of ten until I hit High School and discovered boys and parties, this garden was my special spot. I googled Julian Potts and discovered that there is conifer credited to him. “Hal’s Fraser Fir” was propagated by Mr. Potts in 1975 and later named after a man who lived near the old Potts nursery and found seedlings that he sent to a collector. So Julian Potts’ memory lives on among Conifer collectors and certainly with me. I have to admit that a few tears were shed when I read his name.
The moral of this story is that a single act of kindness has given me a life long love of gardening and so much pleasure. Think about that with your children and grandchildren. A child’s size set of garden tools, some seeds, gardening books, and maybe a plant would make a wonderful Christmas gift and who knows, you could be encouraging a new Comya Gardener. She's About a Mover! |