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….
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.
Plant Fads: Mugo Pines and Stella D’Oro Daylilies
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.
Hard Decisions
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…
Today People Are Looking For…
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…
Time to prune Mugo pines
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…
Lonicera Fragrantissima
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…
Mugo Pines: When to Trim and Prune
Don’t trim or prune your mugo in the fall. That is the short answer. Pines will stop growing from the points at which you prune off their branches
Pruning Your Mugo Pine
Don’t Butcher Your Pine The Mugo gets large when left unpruned I have to make this small entry, to save someone out there from the butchering I saw was once done to mugo pines. On the other hand, if you don’t keep up timely pruning, you will have a monster bush on your hands ( like…
Purple Leaf Sand Cherry, Prunus x cistena
I have a large purple sand cherry that I planted in the first years here at this place, which I now call “Flatironed Acres“. What many people don’t realize is that this shrub grows quite wide with a floppy graceful form. Perhaps that is because many try to use shears to shape it to form….