Pruning Your Mugho Pine

I have to make this small entry, to save someone out there from the butchering I saw was once done to mugho pines.

Now is the time to snip the new growth, called candles, which is how these pines should be pruned. I usually just cut them half off with shears. Occasionally, in the type ( mugho's vary) that grows larger I will cut out the odd branch or two to shape it, but don't ever cut pines into their old wood, such as a massive pruning that is done on some deciduous bushes.

Mugho Pines are dwarf trees, and they keep their shape well with yearly attention in the spring. It doesn't take very much time to trim them.

I haven't seen them this year, yet, but my mugho's have often gotten an ugly case of caterpillars that strip the needles. I hand pick those and burn them. I suppose you could drown them in something, but I live in the country where we can still burn things. A little bar-be-cue stove would work in the city.

The things we do for our garden!

updated to add: I wrote much more on this topic, "Pruning Your Mugo"

Purple Sand Cherry

I have a large purple sand cherry that I planted in the first years here at this place. 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. I am not a fan of that in this type of shrub.

There are many types of large shrubs that I think look best with a natural form, like this prunus x cistena,forsythias, and viburnums. I learned the hard way to not prune cherries until late winter/early spring. In the fall, especially, it seemed to lead to problems. Cankers and nasty things like that.

The sand cherry does look like it could use a bit of trimming up and shaping, though. The Ohio State site has a page on this plant. Their picture shows what looks like bushes that are about 4-5 years old. My Sand Cherry is at the end of its predicted life, but it is still very healthy and looks happy. Just a bit flopped.

I think the fact that it is in an open windy spot which has moisture during the beginning of the season, but dry later is something this plant likes. I tend to neglect that part of the garden. But the soil is decent and looser loam than other parts.

Anyway, the plan is to trim out some of the extraneous branches and maybe clear some of it from below, so the hostas ( I have glaucus leaved hostas underneath) make a better show. They are somewhat hidden by the lower branches of the shrub. I also want to trim some of it away from the Hansa rose.

I don't advise anyone to grow it in close quarters. It will look cramped and need lots of pruning.

An Update: Purple Sand Cherry, short-lived shrub

Here's some pruning info:
General Pruning info

You might find the entire site useful, Landscape Plants.

Scenic Nursery: Bedding Plant Planting

Scenic Nursery | Weblog: Bedding Plant Planting
I always enjoy reading Patrick Rogers entries, and this one is now appropriate for Ohio gardens. We are still trying to put in our bedding plants.... between inundations.

'Bedding plants' is sort of an old fashioned term bringing on visions of Gertrude Jekyll, and her magnificent plans for elite estate gardens. These are all those plants we try to choose between in scores of flats on display. But you knew that, right?

You can stick these in any old way, but if you want results worthy of the time and money you put into them, follow Scenic Nursery's directions. At the very least I like to slightly tease the roots before putting them into the planting hole, and pinch off the top bloom ( I know it hurts...just do it). When I had more time I also liked to carry a bucket of compost/peatmoss around to put a trowel-ful into the planting hole. It makes a difference.

And just a reminder now: give annuals a trimming after the first flush of bloom, they will reward you with renewed effort. It is much more desirable than struggling, sprawling plants going to seed in August.
I have an annuals page for further info, because we are now in the midst of planting these, still...but it won't be much longer.
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Yes, it's been rain, rain, rain, here. The weeds love it. The grass is getting away with more than its usual flourishing - I think I have mentioned before that I consider grass a major weed in this garden. I now have a prairie garden where it was supposed to be garden perennials. Yes, too, I am losing the present battles with that portion...but the war is not over. I did make major headway last week, it just isn't noticeable yet.

So far my trees look good. That is what gardener's do...look for their silver linings. I won't tell you all that I have neglected to do.... I need to stay positive. Focused. It is time to fertilize everything, the rains made some things sort of yellowed. I'll try fertilizer first, and then additives... Ironrite often works on the Sweet Gum trees.

Ok, confession: I am a guessing gardener..... if you are scientific you get one of those soil kits and try to analyze your soil needs. I am like the cook who figures out what is most likely needed and then tries a pinch of this and dab of that. Not very scientific. What can I say? I have an artist's temperment.

We all have our garden styles.

The Scented Garden

It is the time of roses and peonies, two of the most beautifully redolent scents of my late spring garden. These are old fashioned plants, the roses are the varieties William Baffin, Zepherine Drouhin, Therese Bugnet. The Oenothera speciosa and veronicas are blooming, as well. The veronicas are puny this year. Due to so much rain and so little sun, although the fact that I am only now weeding out the perennial garden probably has something to do with it, too. Veronicas like sun and dislike crowding I think. They always do best for me in their first couple years... then, even though I divide them, they pout.

It has been thunderstorming so much that I am sure that everything I am replanting at this time will root and get established. The down side is that the fields are mille-lakes. My own garden is wet, but not ponded. I have been working it anyway.

I decided to circle the Prairie Fire crab with Annabelle hydrangeas. It is situated front and center of the driveway. I feel the Annabelle is obscenely flamboyant when in full bloom, so a sideshow is distracting. Center stage suits this shrubby plant much better, and I think it will contrast nicely with the purplish leaves of the crabapple. If not, I will rip it all out in a couple years. This year I had to get it away from the Hinoki Cypress, which is a choice and expensive evergreen. Annabelle just crowded into it and hung all over it. No shame whatsoever. So -with the help of my son- , I mercilessly dug out enough to surround the new tree in the driveway.

It all works out.

Honeysuckle

I should add a little something about the Heckrotti honeysuckle vine. It is blooming on the arbor now, the best it's looked in years. I had a vine on the porch at the other house, where it always was sickly, although the flowers are beautiful two-tone when blooming. This year, it has finally come into its own and outshines the Jackmani clematis which is on the other side. I have a Belgica on the house trellis, but that blooms later. Honeysuckle smells lovely, but it does draw bumble bees. Just be warned.

I have many plants that mingle their scents and create a wonderful atmosphere. It always brightens my mood to smell certain plants. The lavenders are ready to bloom, but as I was weeding around them that was enough to lift my spirit.

Unless I find some in the nursery, I will have to do without Heliotrope this year. I was going to save it from the frost last year, but..... just one more of those things I didn't get to. Now I am really sorry. Heliotrope is non pareil for summer sweet fragrance.

KJ Gardens

KJ Gardens

oooo neat! Another garden blog! Looks like a Midwestern gardener, too.

Will You Take Gravy With That?

Have you ever noticed how much hyperbole is ladled onto so much of the reading- whether online or off? It is as if it were all advertisement copy.

The subject of gardening has not been exempt. Think about the essays that tell you that "there is nothing as thrilling as harvesting your own vegetables". Now, vegetables from your garden are indeed a pleasure.... but I don't think I would say that nothing challenges the thrill of that. And beware when something is described as "no maintenance". There is nothing pertaining to gardening that is without maintenance. It is a matter of degree.

Those are simply the things that come to mind at the moment.... sort of a little rant of mine simply because I have run across this sort of overinflated eloquence more than seems proper. while at the same time I know that the beauties of nature and the satisfaction of our labors will cause the poetic to wax forth! Yes.... guilty, myself, of that. It's just that, occasionally, the down to earth plain facts are not only good enough, but refreshingly welcome.

Here's to truth in advertising about the venture of gardening, the products and plants!

Immigration Policies, Horticulturally Speaking

I recently read that there is an oak blight newly introduced to the East Coast in addition to the ash tree crisis of the Emerald borer. This is an oak wilt that is caused by a fungus under the bark. It grows until suddenly the entire tree is killed. At least that is the gist of the description.

It seems to have arrived via a California nursery shipment to the East Coast. And that got me to thinking.

Throughout our nation we have been used to freely exchanging goods over state lines with relatively few restrictions. In fact, plant materials seem to be the major portion of banned materials. Yet, we see devastating problems are permeating the borders. I cannot imagine our yard and forests devoid of the oak. Yet, this has already happened with the Elm and the Chestnut. When was the last time a mature tree of those was seen? They exist, but are now a rarity. It makes me wonder what is the reason we can't hold the line on some of the known dangers? Are we not trying hard enough?

In the case of the health of the rivers I know that is true from local experience. One of the most important small, but pristine, rivers of Ohio is endangered and risked by the collusion of apathetic and disingenuous politicians and greedy development interests.

The environment is important. It is a long range investment, and it is worth the protection of its resources. Some of the monetary gain for individuals will need to be weighed against the preservation of important natural well-being of our trees and waterways. And those individual interests will need to be displaced more than they are, presently. Sometimes it is as simple a matter as caring.

Has it been that long?

Wow. Blogger is totally different. And the season has shifted into hot weather. The world is moving toooo fast! Not really, I'm just a bit slow; can't believe how much time since my last post.
I planted a few more trees, the bald cypress -which I'm very excited about, and the other Prairiefire Crabapple. I weeded a little, but the weeds are terribly ahead of me now. It reminds me of something I read in an interesting garden book this week, Gardens of the Heartland. This book is a hybrid garden picture book, historical information, and travel guide to Midwest Gardens and Arboretums. It has a portion on the W. J. Beal Botanical Garden, in which it quotes about Beal:

Raised a Quaker, Beal was said to have had three enemies in life---"alcohol, tobacco, and quack grass."

I thought of that due to the fact that I can identify...quack grass being my nemesis of the moment. I fight wars with it every year, and this year it is ahead of me.... but I have plans, I tell you. Plans.
Yes. I am going to renovate the part where it is the worst. I don't care that it has heated up to July temperatures with dry winds.... I intend to dig up that part of the garden and pull out all the worthwhile plants, then dig out all that nasty white root by hand and fork.

I realize that this is only one battle and that my hatred of using roundup means I will again face grass trying to defeat my garden efforts next year, again. But I have in my memory an old Italian gardener from my former neighborhood. Granted it was a city lot, but it was immaculate. No weeds. I asked him once how he had accomplished that, and he told me that every year he makes sure to keep after the garden and root out the weeds and that every year there has been less.

I bet he lived there for a good fifty years.

The point, though, is that tirelessly rooting out weeds and not letting them go to seed, filling their spaces with better plants, will pay off. Besides, if I spray the area I would lose my hellebore and small bulbs stand.
I need to buy my tomatoes and peppers and get them in now, the soil is definitely warm enough.
By the way, the porch plans are off for this year, which is just as well as I dreaded the idea of moving that birdsnest spruce... and the other things. My husband felt it was too much too take on. Have to respect others limits. Or should I say "no use beating a dead horse". No, I shouldn't say that. The old gray mare ain't what she used to be either......