• Home
• About
• Henry on Public Radio
• Contact
• Donate/Store
  • Organic Gardening (not just) in the Northeast
  • Shopping Cart
• Presentations
  • Past Events
• Recent Gardening Articles
• Archives
  • Henry’s Travel Articles
  • Henry’s Blog
• Links & Resources
• Gardener’s Basic Library
• Sources and Venues
  • Local Vendors
• Recipes & Gardening Tips

What to Do with a Dead Tree?

Posted on Wednesday, June 23, 2021 · Leave a Comment 

If you are a regular reader of this column, you know that I kill plants (just like you probably do). Houseplants. Annuals Flowers in the ground. And yes, even trees. Although some oaks live 400 years, most plants naturally have a much shorter life span. And although some die due to my negligence, most do not. But I do push the limits of Zone Hardiness, trying plants that rather would winter in Pennsylvania – and occasionally killing them.

 

Pagoda Dogwood berries are loved by birds

I have a native dogwood tree that shows up all over my property. It is called the pagoda dogwood ( Cornus alternifolia) and is one of my favorites. This small tree never gets much taller than 10 feet, has just finished blooming with understated white blossoms, and has blue berries loved by birds in July or August.

 

But it has a short lifespan for a tree: 25 years is a good run for this one, even in the wilds. Fortunately it seeds in, so I always have plenty. When one dies, I can cut it down, thank it, and get rid of it. No mourning.

 

For the last 20 years or more beds I have had a hazelnut tree called Harry Lauder’s walking flower stick (Corylus avellana Contorta ‘Purple Majesty’ ,) in one of my flower beds. This tree is a naturally-occurring freak: its stems twist and turn in unusual ways. Great in winter for its silhouette, mine also had purple leaves and was a great tree. I pruned it to keep it just six feet tall. But last summer it showed signs of distress, and this spring it did not leaf out. It is dead.

 

But because it is striking in profile, I decided not to cut it down. Not yet, anyway. I planted annual vines around its base and I am training them to climb up into the tree. If all goes as planned, in a month or so I will have purple hyacinth beans blooming in the tree.

 

Colorful ribbons decorate this dead tree while vines grow up it

In the meantime, my wife Cindy and I decorated it with colorful strips of cloth. Each is just a couple of inches wide and perhaps a foot long. She attached threads to the top of each so we could tie them on like Christmas ornaments. Even the slightest breeze has them fluttering and twisting. It’s lovely.

 

Although nowadays I buy almost exclusively native plants, last summer I was tempted by a lovely Japanese clethra (Clethra barbinosa), and brought her home. This spring it did not leaf out, a major disappointment. My test for a dead branch is to rub my fingernail on the bark, scraping off the outer layer. If it is alive, it will show some green. But this clethra showed brown everywhere, and I decided it was dead.

 

New growth from the roots may bring this Japanese clethera back to life

As I was lopping off the branches prior to digging it out, I noticed a few leaves growing at the very base of the tree. Life! So I am letting it stay. Unfortunately, I do not know if the tree was grafted onto a different rootstock, which is common in the landscape trade.

 

So, for example, a branch or branches of a Japanese clethra might have been grafted to a summersweet clethra ( Clethra alnifolia). This avoids having to start a new plant from seed and ensures that the new plant has the desirable characteristics of the plant grafted to rootstock. If the rootstock grows, one gets a plant different from the purchased plant.

 

All apples are grafted onto rootstock because the seeds are hybrids and will not breed true. The rootstock used for apples determines the size of the tree. Some will produce miniatures, others full-sized trees. So if your apple is killed by rodents last winter and the roots sent up new shoots, what you get will probably not be interesting to eat. Yes, Johnny Apple Seed traveled around America with a sack of apple seeds, but those apples were for making hard cider, America’s beverage of choice, not for eating apples.

 

If your rose died last winter, you might be able to bring it back to life. Most roses are sold on roots that are different than the flowering portion. You should be able to see a scar, the graft union, on your rose. If the union was planted below the soil line, the rose may sprout from the fancy rose you bought, not the rootstock. So wait and see what happens. By now, this late in the season, a “dead” rose should have sent up shoots if it is going to.

 

This rose grows from roots of a hybrid tea that died. Smaller blooms but nice.

Most plants we grow are vigorous and seem to have an innate “desire” to keep their genetic lines viable. That is why they produce seeds, and many (especially weeds) send out roots that can send up new plants. So if a perennial plant dies, you may be in luck. A baby plant may replace the mother plant. It’s what they do.

 

A few words of warning, however. Any plant that starts from seeds dropped by a hybrid plant will probably not breed true, although it can. A hybrid is a cross between two genetic lines, and seed producers develop them in carefully isolated circumstances to protect their lineage.

 

I like to think that if I never kill any plants, I am not trying hard enough. I try to grow new and different plants, often things that would rather grow a few hundred miles south. When those rare (for here) plants do survive and bloom, I feel like a million bucks. Hopefully they did not cost that much, as I will probably lose them at some point.

 

Henry is the author of 4 gardening books and is a gardening consultant. He lives in Cornish flat, NH. E-mail Henry at henry.homeyer@comcast.net or write him at PO Box 364, Cornish Flat, NH 03746. Please include a SASE if you want a response.

 

Filed under Article · Tagged with Japanes clethera, pagoda dogwood, pruning roses

What Your Roses, Peegee Hydrangeas and Lilacs Need Now

Posted on Thursday, May 10, 2018 · Leave a Comment 

My roses are waking up, and starting to show leaf buds along their stems. This is a good time to cut back dead stems, which will stimulate new growth and start them off well for the summer season. It’s time to shape your roses so that they are as good-looking now as they were when you bought them.

 

When I was a boy, roses were fussy. My parents bought a house in the country in June, when all the roses were in bloom. Those roses, I imagine, helped clinch the deal. But within a few years they were gone. Diseases, bugs and beetles had ravaged them. We didn’t spray with toxic chemicals, and many of those roses depended on toxic sprays, I suppose.

 

Now breeders have created roses that rarely get black spot, and are not very attractive to rose chafers and Japanese beetles because they don’t have a strong floral scent. Sure, Japanese beetles sometimes find my bodacious pink or red blossoms, but I just pull them off the beetles and drop them in soapy water – or crush them.

 

Knockout rose in summer

My favorite series of roses are the ‘Knockout’ roses. These beauties start blooming in June, and continue to produce blossoms until hard frost. It’s not unusual for my plants to be blooming at Halloween. There are others that are probably just as good, so ask at your local family-owned garden center. ‘At Last’, a Proven Winner rose, is another favorite of mine, in part because it is lightly fragrant, too.

 

On a recent sunny afternoon I took my pruning shears and went outdoors to give my roses a haircut. It was a harsh winter, and many stems were dead near their tips, and a few canes were dead all the way back to the ground.

 

I took time to really look at the stems of the roses. What I wanted to do was remove the dead material back to the highest bud that was alive and active – and outward facing. I looked for signs of life, which were buds starting to produce leaves. Dead stems are generally brown, and live stems are green or reddish.

 

Cut back until you see green beneath the outer bark

How should you make your cut? On an angle, just a little above a bud. Look at the piece you cut off. If it is brown all the way through, you are looking at dead wood. You should cut lower down the stem until you see a layer of green just beneath the bark.

 

If you had a stem or two last year that grew more vigorously than the others, you may wish to cut them back past the first green bud. What I want is a well-balanced plant, not a lopsided plant, or one with a very tall leader. Some rosarians (rose-obsessed gardeners) like to cut back most stems to within 6 inches of the ground, and let the entire bush grow up each year from the ground.

 

Some roses bloom on old wood, not new growth. Rugosa or beach roses are like that, as well as some once-a-season old fashioned roses. Those are best pruned for shape of the bush after blooming, but dead wood can be taken out now.

 

This summer you will want to snip off spent blossoms. After blooming, cut back the stem to a mature leaf cluster which has 5 or 7 leaves. Cutting back to clusters of only 3 leaves won’t stimulate the rose to re-bloom.

 

A word on fertilizing. I am not keen on fertilizing roses, as it tends to make them grow too fast. Often fast growth is weak, with stems that flop. But if you feel you need to fertilize, do so after the first flush of blossoms, not now. Re-blooming roses like the Knockouts tend to re-bloom every 5 to 6 weeks.

 

I admit to being negligent when it comes to pruning back my PeeGee hydrangea, so this year I have given it a good hard prune. It’s best to do while the plant is still dormant, or just waking up. I cut last year’s stems that blossomed back to big, fat older stems. These hydrangeas bloom on new wood, and pruning now will stimulate new growth – and lots of blossoms. The PeeGee is a shrub, but can get too tall and wide unless you prune it.

 

When pruning, you will find some stems that are dead near their tips. Cut those back until you see a layer of green beneath the bark. That indicates that it is alive there. As with roses, always cut back to just above a bud, or to a bigger branch.

 

Remove any spindly, weak branches, or any that aim back into the middle of the plant. If you have branches that have the potential to poke someone in the eye, cut them back!

 

Do not hesitate to prune your hydrangeas hard. Decide what size plant works best in the space you have, and prune until you have reached the right size. You won’t kill your plant by pruning. Opening up the middle of a shrub allows more sunlight to reach the leaves, which helps prevent fungal diseases.

 

Lilacs will be blooming soon, so you may want to wait until after they bloom to prune them. Pruning now just means that you will have fewer blossoms this spring. But if you want to help your lilacs to have better blossoms next year, spread some limestone or wood ashes in a circle around them. Lilacs like neutral or slightly alkaline soil, and limestone helps to achieve that.

 

Pruning, to me, is like sculpting. Done well, it creates plants that are gorgeous – even when they are not in bloom.

 

Henry can be reached at henry.homeyer@comcast.net. Read his blog posts at https://dailyuv.com/gardeningguy.

 

Filed under Article · Tagged with pruning azaleas, pruning hydrangeas, pruning roses

Mid-summer in the Flower Garden

          I love George Gershwin’s Porgy and Bess, particularly that song about summertime, when the living is allegedly easy. Fish are jumpin’ and the cotton is high, and all that. Well, it’s mid-summer and the gardening is just as busy as ever, the weeds are high and who has time for fishing? But I’m not complaining. I love the garden and the weeds give me an excuse to avoid cleaning the basement. Here are some of the mid-summer tasks I’ve been working on.
 
Watering: Pots and planters need daily attention. I poke a finger in pots to verify that the soil mix is still lightly moist. I bought a hanging basket full of supertunias at a fundraiser, and it needs watering every day. The basket is filled with a peat-based potting mix, which loses moisture fast. So the leaves shrivel and it looks awful by the end of the day unless I water daily. I give it some liquid fish fertilizer a couple of times a week, as the potting mix is devoid of much in the way of minerals.
 
New plantings in the ground that are still establishing themselves also need water every day or two, depending on the weather. But mature flowers rarely need watering if they are planted in the right place. I only water if they go limp.
 

Deadheading roses

Cutting back, pruning.  Now is the time to cut off spent flowers. This has been a splendid year for roses, perhaps to compensate for the poor lilac show. Some roses re-bloom, some do not, but cleaning off the dead flowers will improve the looks of the plant. Cut back not just the dead blossom, but all the way back to the next stem that has 5 leaves.
 
Other plants such as peonies will look better if you cut off the spent flowers, and some (such as and perennial bachelor buttons) will re-bloom. Cut off the flowers and stems of delphinium right to the ground after blooming is done, scratch in some fertilizer, and you should get another stem with blossoms in the fall.
 
Spring and early-summer blooming shrubs need to have their blossoms cut off now. I recently have worked on forsythia, common ninebark, lilac and spirea. If you cut these back in the fall, you will lose blossoms. Forsythia and ninebark can really grow fast, up to 3 to 4 feet in a season if you let them go at their natural pace, so cut them back before they are totally unmanageable.
 

After edging

Weeding. Weeds, those sneaky rascals, get discouraged if you keep pulling them out. But left alone now, midsummer? They grow like crazy. Grasses are trying to sneak in to the garden, too. Keep the grasses at bay by digging a trench at the edge of the lawn. Use a shovel or an edging tool to dig a 4-inch deep, V-shaped trench between the lawn and garden beds. Grasses grow to the edge of the trench and don’t know if it is the Grand Canyon or something smaller, so they stay back.
 
If you see weeds blooming, stop whatever you are doing and pull the weeds.  Or, as the Red Queen would say, “Off with their heads!’Snip off the weed flowers before they can set seeds and sprinkle them into your soil. Then deal with the weed when you have time. Don’t throw weeds with flowers into the compost. Some (most?) can morph from flower to seed even after being pulled, and those weed seeds in the compost can come back to trouble you later.
 

Weeding before edging

Use a good weeding tool when you weed, so that you can get all (or most of) the roots of weeds and grasses. You probably know that my favorite is the CobraHead weeder (www.CobraHead.com). I like the fact that it is so easy to get its single tine under a weed, loosening the soil so that when I tug the weed, it comes out, roots and all.
 
Mulching. Mulching really reduces weed problems if you weed carefully, and then apply mulch. What to use for mulch? That depends on your budget and your aesthetic sense. Most gardeners use bark mulch of some sort, though many use “color enhanced” wood-based mulch. Not me. I am skeptical of what companies use to enhance the color of their mulch, so I only buy natural, organic mulch.
 
I also like to use chopped leaves as mulch. Leaves are fantastic sources of organic matter and nutrients that microorganisms can break down and share with our plants. Pine needles, too, are excellent mulch. I know that many gardeners think that pine needles are too acidic to use, but I have never had a problem with them.
                                                                                
Last but not least, this is the time to plant some new daylilies. These are workhorses in the garden. Bugs don’t eat them and they don’t get mildew or blight. They come in different colors, blossom shape, and bloom time. Go to a family-owned garden center or nursery to see what’s in bloom. You just might be amazed.
 
Henry Homeyer can be reached at P. O. Box 364, Cornish Flat, NH 037476 or by e-mail him at henry.homeyer@comcast.net. His Web site is www.Gardening-Guy.com; you can find his past articles there (including the one you missed because someone wrapped up the fish remains in it).
 

• “Organic Gardening – Not Just in the Northeast”

  Henry’s latest Book, Organic Gardening (not just) in the Northeast: A Hands-On Month-by-Month Guide is now available for $21.00 INCLUDING postage. To Learn more about this book click here: Organic Gardening (not just) in the Northeast: A Hands-On Month-by-Month Guide is organized around the calendar year, starting in March and continuing through the year with timely advice. The book is packed with useful information you won’t find elsewhere: how to sharpen your pruners, use a screwdriver to test for compaction in your lawn, and build a welcoming cedar arbor as an entrance to the garden. Learn how to grow ladyslipper orchids or Himalayan blue poppies, prune apple trees, grow giant pumpkins, and even how to start a date palm from a grocery store date or build a small stone igloo to delight the grandchildren. Eccentric, eclectic, and entertaining, whether you are a beginner or a veteran, this book has something more for you. To see what other garden writers have said about it click here