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Ilona's Garden Journal




Shrubs and Bushes

Grow these mid size woody plants for many reasons: beauty, privacy, hedges, berries. The list is long when tallying up the benefits of bushes in the garden.

Late August Good For Choosing And Planting Shrubs

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People in my neck of the woods generally plant trees and shrubs in the spring, but early fall is just as good, if not better.

Late August and early September in Ohio are often dry (perhaps not this year!), so some attention should be paid to making sure a newly planted bush is kept moist. Once the cooler weather and rain of fall begins, the roots will take hold and should have a good start before hard frosts.
Nurseries usually carry fresh stock at this time of year, so consider adding to the shrubbery of your landscape.

Why Plant Shrubs?

A little refresher if you aren’t already convinced about the value of shrubs. For utility, these woody plants provide solutions for many problems in the landscape: privacy, physical separation, visual interest.

Many have fragrance and beauty that you won’t find in any other type of plant… think of lilacs for instance. Some provide that Holy Grail of gardening: all season interest. There are lots of reasons to include them, but they seem to play second fiddle to trees and perennials.

Think about that space between those two primary parts of the garden and what stands out in it? Yes, shrubs.

myspringshrubs

 

Bush Talk

That reminds me of the fact that when the praises of a plant are sung by those who wish to sell it, the message can get jumbled.

My observations about shrubbery in the landscape:

Small, Dwarf, Compact

What happens when a plant is described as “dwarf” or “compact”? We think of small dimensions, but in plant talk it may just convey a relative size, small-er, not necessarily small.

A great example of this is Euonymus alatus ‘Compactus’.  It can reach 10′ x 10′ rather than the 15′ by 15′ of the regular plant. It is still taking quite a bit of garden real estate, even though it is called the dwarf burning bush.

Blue, Pink, Red

Plant descriptions are notoriously inexact when it comes to color. Pink and blue in shrubs might depend on the pH of the soil (yes, Hydrangeas). Red is more often of the magenta variety, and it could refer to flowers and foliage OR one or the other. Foliage color morphs throughout the season on some plants, so red foliage might be only in fall or only in spring, or it could be a varied combo.

Height and Width

A major consideration with any woody plant is how much space it will eventually claim. This will matter quite a bit when planted next to walkways or prize plants, etc.

The information given for a plant may be quite accurate under specific conditions, but what happens if the bush sulks in your soil? Or loves the moist conditions? Or any number of other variables?

Just like hardiness maps, height and width estimations may be more of a ball park figure.

This is one reason I am a big fan of arboretums. Viewing a plant which has grown to a measure of maturity in your climate tells more about how the plant performs in your garden than a whole bookshelf of garden books.

 

Since I have a number of posts from the past on this topic, this might be a good time to revisit some of them for planting ideas and info.

Choose a Shrub

viburnumDo you need some ideas about shrubs that are great choices or even those that might not be that great, but people love them anyway? Then there are those choices that make a certain season seem to sing.

Underestimated Flowering  Shrubs

10 Autumn Features

Winter Hazel, Bee Balm, And Privet

Featured Bushes

kolkwitzia

Endless Summer Hydrangea

Endless Summer Hydrangea 2

Lonicera Fragrantissima

Beauty Bush

Purple Leaf Sand Cherry

All Season Viburnum

Evergreens

Pruning A Mugo Pine

Plant Fads

Garden Under Snow

Gardening Advice

autumn foliage

Fall Planting

10 Suggestions for August Gardening

Sweet Scents

Garden Mistakes

 

 

Plant Fads: Mugo Pines and Stella D’Oro Daylilies

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Mugo and clematis

You would think that something as time honored as gardening would be immune to fads, but anything with the idea of “style” attached will have plenty of action between the “in” and “out” of fashion.

Shrubs That Were Once “On Fire”

I started thinking about this when looking at my two mugo pines. The phrase “in their heyday” came up in my mind, and it got me following a rabbit trail of considering the different plant fads I’d observed through the years. Bradford Pear trees, mugo pines, Euonymous elata aka “Burning Bush”, and those previous to my own gardening career: forsythias and Tartarian honeysuckle. Those are among but a few of the woody plantings that last long after the fad has passed.

Fashion in gardening is not a bad thing in itself, but it is shortsighted, and that is not very advantageous when working with something that has a potential lifespan longer than your own.

Fashion does not take such terms as “health”, “appropriate”,  or time units such as “decades” into consideration when going forward. By its very definition it is more about image than substance. If a plant fashion becomes a “classic” it is more by accident than by intent.

Broken Pear Trees

Take the Bradford pear trees, for instance. Once considered a top quality “city tree” because the shiny leaves, spring flowering, compact shape, and freedom from fruit were very desirable qualities which created a fashion for it.

I remember a suburb that lined its main thoroughfare with them. However, some windstorms later, the weakness of this tree, its proclivity to split off large branches and become misshapen (not to mention potential harm) led to a wholesale removal of these trees. Now most Bradford pear trees are on a list of undesirables.

Stella D’Oro Daylilies Fade Away From Favor

Of course, many plant fads just fade away, without anything more notorious than be being overused.  ‘Stella D’Oro’ daylilies strike a chord with anyone as an example?

I don’t suppose there is anything to be done about the propensity we human beings have for becoming obsessed and inured by turn with all sorts of fickle interests and passions, but the wise gardener can keep the more mundane, yet important, principles of using plants in the environment uppermost in their thinking and planning.

That would go a long way to prevent the most glaring of plant fad mistakes and regrets.

Maybe it is all a matter of keeping in mind that nature, living things, are more than just material in the hands of our making. There is an integrity to how we all are interdependent in the human, animal, plant world and our relation to even the inorganic parts of our globe.

And it isn’t even ours as in “ownership”, but rather as “stewardship”. We have a certain responsibility to the care and nurture of it, and while “prettifying” things has its place in our use and cultivation… it also has bounds of reason that makes for the true nature of beauty. We can get sort of crazy in our ideas otherwise, and it just doesn’t work out well for the long run.

The “long run”, the stretch of generations, is how we ought to look at the impact of our use of the earth, even while we have a bit of fun with the types and colors of petunias and roses.

These were just a few thoughts that were sparked by my garden, and those two mugos… one of the first things planted in my yard.

Look around your own yard with an eye towards the benefits that plants of the past my hold. If they are more of an eyesore, or a nuisance, why keep them?

I still like Stella D’Oro Daylilies and recently planted some at the front of the driveway. Why? Their long bloom, bright color, and toughness are just what that spot needs. Consider some fresh new ways to use some of the old plant fads.

What plants are on your “fads” list?
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© 2013 written for Ilona’s Garden Journal by Ilona E. An excellent blog.

Hard Decisions

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My garden, like myself, is no longer young and freshly planted. We have been here awhile, and the signs of maturity are equal parts dignified and disconcerting. Once this property was almost a blank space with few trees and mown grass, now it holds almost thirty years worth of plantings, some grown quite large. Large enough that it is time to consider whether to keep some of the less stellar choices I have made.

This year had seen the apex of neglected gardens and the aftermath of some of Nature’s affronts. January’s ice storm had drawn down the branches of the trees with a merciless hand, showering the house with crashes and clatterings of broken branches throughout a night of fierce-some pruning. The spring and summer were times to reshape the willow, and pull out the broken off branches of the large Arborvitae, tasks only finished this past week.

The willow may actually be the better for its massive pruning. But the Arborvitae, a tree of some age, is looking like a balding and scruffy personage after huge branches broke under the heavy weight of the Northwesterly ice which had coated large arms of its stature with a burden that it could not withstand. Although many other trees had lost a good deal, like the pines especially, nothing took the brunt so greatly as did this particular Arborvitae.

Past experience with these plants is that they come back well after such mishandling by either nature or the gardener’s hand. Some globe Arborvitae (much younger in age, but all the more roughly broken) had suffered from snow weighting their branches to the breaking point and were severely misshapen. The globes looked split down the center; surprisingly, they recovered within a year. I thought I would have to remove them, but procrastination on my part worked in their favor, for once. I now expect the regrowth to fill in the tree in a few years.

The other age related wrinkles in my garden are not so optimistically regarded.

looking toward the unsatisfactory driveway some years ago

This past week, as I mentioned, I have trimmed and pruned many shrubs and trees, and while there is still much to do, the garden is shaping up… but the mistakes of the past years are all the more exposed. I really have to remove some fringe trees which have not thrived in the too dry conditions of the driveway, and the Doublefile viburnums are trimmed within an inch of their life, but still do not fit within that same area. It was a grand mistake I made that I hoped could have been mollified with efforts on my part. It is obvious that I need to remove them…. I just hate to do it, because I doubt if I can save them once they are pulled out. That area has been a challenge for me in more than one way. It remains to be seen if I learn to understand what answer it requires.

An old garden will tell you what doesn’t work for it, but will still make you dig for answers on what does.

There are other parts of the garden that are not aging as well as I had hoped. The Lavender walk is suffering from the enthusiastic growth of the rue, the encroaching grass, and the awkwardness of the surviving lavenders. I’ve debated taking it out, although perhaps removal of some of the rue and replanting with new lavenders might be all that is needed.

The worst part of an old garden is the way weeds come to make themselves at home within the older plantings. A newly planted space has none of that.

The longer I live and the longer I garden, the more I find one tip that works for many a problem. That is the power of a consistent attention to what is needed. If every day I work for a few hours or even a few minutes, if I bend down and pull some weeds here or there as I pass…. and not leave the garden neglected until there is a marathon amount of work to accomplish…. I sustain some form of victory. A garden is made of little attentions given often…. much like every other relationship we may desire to cultivate.

And with that nugget of wisdom I leave for another time, my friends.
~Ilona

Arborvitae trees and Willow in better days

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© 2011 written for Ilona’s Garden Journal. An excellent blog.

Today People Are Looking For…

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The candle growth on a pine.

 

Today people are looking for information on how to prune a mugo pine. That is the Google interpretation of what people want from this garden journal. It is just a little too late to be asking that question.

But it is just the right time to prune other things, like the Spring blooming shrubs:

Lilacs, Viburnums, Forsythia, Weigela, et al … all those shrubs that just finished flowering last month and could use a good trimming up? The time is now, and I have just the post for you:

 

Ask me how I know timing is important for pruning?

I was out of town when the time to prune the mugo pines was in season and I missed it. I had pruned off about half the candles of the one nearest the porch, but then got busy getting ready for my trip South and never resumed the job.

The other Swiss Mountain shrub ( aka Mugo) … the one that is already grown out of bounds on the other side of the house… didn’t get pruned at all.

I think it is a tree, now.

Luckily, the location is fine for its growth; but still, I had not intended for it to be more than a shrub.

It got away from me.

 

Other Chores for this Time of Year

This has been a year for that, so far. I started weeding the stone walk yesterday. The front garden will get mown (that is held off until bulb foliage matures), and will continue the “front yard recovery act”.

At least the weather has been nice!

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© 2011 written for Ilona’s Garden Journal. An excellent blog.

Time to prune Mugo pines

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Pruning this Shrub


I started the other day: hand pruning the Mugo pines by cutting off the new candles midway down.

Neglected it the past few years and my -now- small trees are spreading more than I like. So I just started snipping and finished 3/4 of one and will get them both done this weekend.

Just a bit tedious, but not difficult.

You can see how large I let this one grow by the photo, but it is off to the side and is fine for now, although visually it takes up space. The other one has stayed about a third of this size.

oh. and that is my favorite cat waiting for some poor unsuspecting birdie. Handyman and I call him “Bob”, the kids call him “Assassinator”. My favorite cat ever (I’m more of a ‘dog’ person). He has so much gumption and personality, but is slightly more scared of things since the time we got him “fixed”- didn’t trust people so much after that. heh.

All about pruning your mugo pines, from earlier posting.

Grow a Mugo Pine:

Lonicera Fragrantissima

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winter honeysuckle


Annie and Melissa twittered back and forth about this plant, mentioning Elizabeth Lawrence while they were at it. So I went to see what she is noted as saying about the Winter Honeysuckle.

”Nearly every garden in the South has a large ungainly Christmas honeysuckle, Lonicera fragrantissima, that is dull at its best, shabby at its worst and never the least bit beautiful even when in full bloom.” -Elizabeth Lawrence

Quoted from her book, which is on google.

This opinion is in the same category as those about lilacs. While true, it doesn’t convey the sentimental and perhaps irrational love for a plant with a certain fragrance at a certain season. The winter honeysuckle is a plant that grows big and has rather dull leaves and tiny flowers… that part is entirely true, but the sweet lemony fragrance that lightly, but flirtatiously, floats on the air in the late winter is a beautiful thing. One that I look forward to each year.

It was quite garden friendly when I grew it in the back of my city garden, by the alley fence. It was planted under the big old sweet cherry tree that was part of the garden when I moved there.

Now I have a large hedge of several plants that are at the back part of my drive. They suffered dieback one year and I cut them all down to the ground- they have now resumed their six foot stature. It is a personal choice, but I very much love them and think they ought to be part of a garden that holds fragrance as an important factor. But then, I grow lilacs, too.

Also mentioned here, and here; and in Spring Blooming Plants .

Growing Facts

 

  • Not picky: full sun to partial shade
  • In the garden: easy to grow, easily transplanted
  • Average conditions: prefers loamy, well-drained, moist soil
  • Maintenance care: prune in spring after flowering
Wikipedia photo by Konrad Lackerbeck

Furthermore, it must be noted that I have had to cut it back to the ground several times as it has aged. There can be a problem with dieback, particularly due to extremely cold winters. Not normally a problem in Zone 5 (where I garden), but enough to be said.

 

Something official from Auburn U. (the photo above and more on this plant ID page). Fine Gardening gave it a mention in their good article on winter plants, all blooming early in spring in my Zone 5a climate.

Tags: Elizabeth Lawrence,fragrant shrubs