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Aralia spinosa - OK to keep?

21 years ago

I'm trying to landscape with all native plants. OK, except for my roses ;-).

An Aralia spinosa (devil's walking stick) started sprouting, out of nowhere.

Can I move it? Is it good wildlife food? Picturesque?

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Comments (7)

Treedoc66
21 years ago
It sure is an appealing plant from an aesthetic standpoint with the tropical-like foliage and huge mid summer flowers followed by clusters of dark fruit.
However, it can be a bane in a more cultivated area of your garden due to all those armed shoots coming up everywhere - it is thorny and prolific!
Wildlife? I am not sure, but I would think birds and critters will eat the berries.
Can it be moved? I dont know how easily, but some suckering shrubs can be hard to move successfully from a colony. I am thinking of plants like Aesculus parviflora and Asimina triloba. Try it and see.

Rx
User
21 years ago
I personally like this plant a lot, especially the red color of the new leaves in the spring. I cut a bit of stem & root (no more than 2 feet combined) to a friend out of my yard and it grew well. That was 8 years ago. In that time, it had grown from a small club of wood into a spreading mass of 10 growths, the tallest of which was 8-10ft. Last year, I cut off 3 large growths from his plants for my yard again (since I moved). This spring, my 3 are coming up well.

Best,
Ross
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Thanks for all the advice people...I water it regularly never too much. I repotted it last summer and it responded well to the repot with all kinds of new shoots. It's in a warm spot with lots of indirect light. The new top shoots are still fine and I'm watching that. It's the older growth that is dropping off. I've had growth yellow and drop off but that's because I let it dry out - that's why I water it regularly. I think maybe I gave it too much water over the December month as I was not around a lot and wanted to keep it moist - maybe too moist. Anyway now - I am not watering it at all waiting for it to dry out a bit and so far the dropping seems to have stopped.(sigh) Plants can be like young children - can't they?? We'll see what happens in the next month. I'll let everyone know in a follow up message when I conclude what happened.
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Organic Rock, Click on the "Good Article on Aralias" in the earlier post...has all the info you'll need. But just my opinion is that a 3-gallon pot is almost too large now...these plants don't have huge root systems and will rot if overpotted/overwatered. If it's just the older leaves dropping, this is natural. They get shaded out by newer growth and especially with my older plants I have to run my fingers through foliage at times when older leaves turn yellow to dislodge them from branches. I just put them in pot as mulch. Has this never happened before with your plant? With almost any other plant I'd suspect spider mites but I've read often that this plant seems immune to pests (and I'd agree). Have you moved the plant recently toward more or less light? Any changes in temps or watering? Might just be that it is a variety that has reached its natural height for the growing conditions and is slowing down in growth but will still be a beautiful plant...I rather like the gnarly stems and actually remove some foliage to show the trunks/branches off. Good luck. josh
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croakie_SC
21 years ago
I just planted one this fall. The warblers LOVE the drupes in fall!
tagg818_charter_net
19 years ago
I was thinking of putting one of these in my yard, if I can find one, but now I'm not so sure I want to. It sounds as though it might take over everything. "it had grown from a small club of wood into a spreading mass of 10 growths"?
shelley_r
19 years ago
I've had an Aralia spinosa for several years. I, too, love the plant, but apparently they need full sun to bloom. Mine is in partial shade and it's never bloomed. As for the shoots, I read that if you want to control them, you can just run over them with a lawn mover when they are very small. I haven't tried that, but it makes sense. I just let mine form a colony and I'm glad that I did as I just lost the parent plant in a storm last week.

Shelley
cydonia33
19 years ago
I love this plant too... as long as you have thick gloves to deal with the nettles, you should be fine... Birds love the berries, and butterflies are all over the flowers...
User
19 years ago
They are easy to move, as long as you get a good piece of root with the growth.

The suckers can be controlled just by pulling them when they break the surface. They tend to only sucker for me early in the summer.

Best,
Ross

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