Tag Archives: pruning tips

Japanese maples, November garden tasks, ornamental grasses, perennials, pruning for wreaths, pruning tips, wildlife gardening

Post Thanksgiving What-Not-To-Do List

Twas the weekend after Thanksgiving and all through the house, not a creature was stirring not even a gardener. I should probably do something productive, but what? Should I be good and do a little light weeding? Maybe I can muster up the energy to plant a few more bulbs. Come spring I?ll be happy I did. Then again I could make notes of my gardening successes and not so great horticultural decisions. ?I know?, I say to myself, ?this weekend I?ll revel in what I don?t have to do in the garden?.

Japanese maple in fall color

I don?t need to prune trees and shrubs at this time of year. Other than clipping a few well placed branches to use in a holiday wreath, I?m off the hook for this task right now. Deciduous trees are still in the process of losing their leaves and are not fully dormant. Evergreens shrubs and conifers can be trimmed lightly but most shaping is done when they start growing in late winter or very early spring.

The season is pretty much over for me except to enjoy what?s left of fall color and the ornamental grasses waving their seed heads in the wind. A lot of perennials are dying back but I?m not in a hurry to neaten things up. The seed heads left in the garden supply food for birds and other creatures while the foliage provides shelter for the plant in the cold and frost. Remove anything that has turned slimy or just plain unattractive but leave berries and seed heads for food and winter interest.

Purple finch

At this time of year my garden is visited mostly by chickadees, nuthatches, goldfinches, purple finches and warblers. They will spend the winter here and I?m doing them a big favor by not cutting back brown foliage containing nutrient-rich seed heads. Some of the reliable seed producers that I won?t have to clean up this weekend include artemisia, aster, coreopsis, penstemon, sedum, lupine, salvia, black-eye Susan, coneflower, phlomis, monarda, agapanthus and grasses.

Chickadees gather hundreds of seeds in fall and early winter and store them in hiding places to ensure themselves a food supply later in the season. They are a remarkable bird that we take for granted being so common. I read in Audubon magazine a couple years ago that a chickadee weighs about as much as a dozen paperclips but their body is large for their weight. This means they have to ramp up the number of hours they devote to feeding. At night chickadees cram themselves into tiny cavities and shiver, burning the day’s fuel to keep from freezing.

Anna’s hummingbirds at feeder

Hummingbirds still need a nectar source at this time of year. Anna’s hummingbirds live in this area all year long. So In addition to the plants in my garden that supply nectar I keep my feeders up year-round and keep them clean. They need your nectar even more in the winter when very little is in bloom. In addition to nectar rich natives like mahonia my abutilons are a winter favorite for them.

Other tasks I can put off at least for this weekend include planting wildflower seeds. I see California poppies coming up all over the place. Nature knows when the time is right. Well, maybe I?ll broadcast a few working them into the soil very lightly. I need to hoe off some early weeds that would compete with them. How many calories are burned in light gardening tasks? I might just reconsider not being a total couch potato this weekend.

Filoli Garden, pruning tips, pruning wisteria, wisteria

How to Live in Peace with a Wisteria

A wisteria is one of those plants that you either love or dread. One of nature?s most resilient survivors they are able to withstand and recover quickly from difficult conditions. To some they are a little too tough for their own good with a growth rate rivaling bamboo during the summer. If you dream of a wisteria-covered pergola shading your patio here are some maintenance tips that are sure to keep both gardener and vine happy.

Wisteria at Filoli Gardens in Woodside

Wisteria are so vigorous they can be pruned at any time, keeping them in bounds and to clear out unwanted or dead growth. Prune out any stems you see extending into eaves, windows or shingles. If yours has gotten away from you, you can even prune it down to the ground and start over with training although you?ll have to wait a few years for your vine to bloom again.

To their control size major pruning is done during the dormant season. Start by trimming the long tendrils that grew over the summer back to about 6 inches from the main trunk. Cutting the tendrils back in this way will initiate flower bud development, neaten the plant up, and show off the attractive trusty, gnarly character of the vines.

Pruning during the dormant season will also give you a fighting chance of keep your wisteria from getting into mischief. As you know if you have a wisteria, those long tendrils are capable of growing another 25 feet during the summer.

Wisteria shading a patio

Whatever time you do renovation pruning remember the response of the wisteria to aggressive pruning is to literally explode with new runners. They put energy into new vegetative growth at the expense of flowering. Make sure you keep up on ongoing maintenance pruning by removing all unwanted runners right to their point of origin. Then prune back the others to 3 buds or sets of leaves. Repeated pruning of these runners is what will eventually give you spurs of wood, short laterals that in turn will provide you with flower clusters. You need to prune these runners all season long which ends up being every 3-4 weeks.

Do not fertilize your wisteria. They do not flower well is there is an over abundance or luxuriant growth. Over feeding also ends up giving them the means to become un unmanageable monster. If you find the wisteria vine has invaded a nearby bed, cut roots with a shovel below the soil line to control any that have wandered.

Maintaining a wisteria requires some diligence but the reward is worth the effort. Remember this especially during winter pruning season to make summer maintenance easier.

Cooke’s Purple wisteria

Which variety of wisteria should you get to cover your arbor, pergola, tree or other structure?

Chinese varieties such at ?Cooke?s Special? has clusters of fragrant blue-purple flowers 20 inches long. This variety can re-bloom which makes it a favorite.

Japanese wisteria ?Caroline? blooms early with mauve flowers. ?Royal Purple? (also known as ?Black Dragon?) has sweetly scented dark purple flowers. Japanese wisteria are most effective when grown on pergolas so the long flower cluster can hang freely.

Silky varieties produce a profusion of short, 6 inch, fat clusters of strongly scented flowers that open all at once. They have velvety seed pods and bloom best in full sun.

 

camellias and azalea, late winter garden tasks, pruning fruit trees, pruning grasses, pruning hydrangeas, pruning rhododendrons

Garden Tasks-Rain or Shine

Those of you who lived in the Santa Cruz mountains during the winter of 1982 remember it well. Following two days or torrential rains, a large section of hillside above Love Creek gave way. Thirty homes were destroyed and ten people were killed by the slide. The rainfall totaled 111 inches that year.

Rain gauge on 2/8/17 showing 99.99″ +10″ more as of 2/18/2017

During the winter of 1997 the San Lorenzo Water Department recorded 90 inches of rain. The department?s historical rainfall data goes back to 1888 and shows that during the winter of 1889 a whopping 124 inches of rain fell. This winter is one to rival the books with about 70-110 inches of rain falling so far depending where you live. We don?t aspire to break any records.

How does this much rainfall affect our gardens? If you have addressed drainage issues and are slowing, spreading and sinking all this water, congratulations. But what about the plants? Fortunately most plants are dormant or semi-dormant at this time of year. Even plants that don?t lose their leaves aren?t in growth mode yet. When a plant is actively growing either roots or new foliage it will suffer if the roots are soggy day after day. Fungal problems and root rot will take its toll on a plant. An extremely wet March or April is not a good thing.

We gardeners are the eternal optimists and hope that only gentle rains will fall through May. And during those lulls in the weather this is what I?m going to be doing over the next month.

California fuchsia – zauchneria californica

Prune fruit, nut, shade trees and deciduous vines like clematis. Cut back woody shrubs like Mexican bush sage, artemisia and butterfly bush to stimulate lush new growth. You can cut back these plants close to the ground. Don’t use this approach on lavender or ceanothus, though. Prune them lightly after blooming without cutting into bare wood.

Prune fuchsias back by a third and remove dead, crossing branches and interior twiggy growth. Container fuchsias can be cut back to the pot rim.

mophead hydrangeas in June

Cut back hydrangeas stems that bloomed last year and apply a soil acidifier if you want the flowers blue. Although sulfur is the traditional favorite for quickly acidifying soil it is not as kind to many beneficial soil microorganisms. Coffee grounds, pine needles, peat moss and cottonseed meal are better for your soil.

I?ll wait to prune back perennials that may have their new foliage damaged in a late frost. Already damaged foliage can protect a plant from further frost damage. Mid-March is the estimated date of last hard frost in our area. Or at least it used to be.

Don’t cut back grasses yet if you get frost in the area where they grow. Wait until mid-March. If you live where you rarely get frost go ahead and prune these plants back now. I?m going ahead and pruning California fuchsia, salvia ?Bee?s Bliss? and hummingbird sage now. They look terrible.

camellia sasanqua

Don’t prune spring flowering shrubs and trees like lilacs, flowering cherries, plums and crabapples, rhododendrons, azaleas, camellias, weigela or spirea until after they flower. You can cut some branches during flowering to bring in cuttings for bouquets.

I can tell that spring will soon be here as the flowering plum buds are showing color. Can?t tell from the weather report, though.