more leaves.. means more food production.. means more vigor.. means faster establishment ... ergo ... do NOT prune for the first year or two.. if its shear size is not an issue .... if its bigger than the house... well then trim it back .... but if you can avoid it.. please do ... either prune it to try to invigorate it.. or move it.. but dont do both ... cutting off all its roots.. and all its leaf making ability might be counter productive ... MOSt flowering shrubs... which are a prerequisite to berries... prefer as much sun as possible ... the only other thing that might forestall flowering.. is too much nitro.. as in.. fertilizing the heck out of it.. as in trying to love it to death ... i would dig the new hole .... get some good rope... strangle it altogether to give access to the root area... dig away ... drag to new hole ... refill with native soil.. and water it PROPERLY ... letting it nearly dry in between waterings.. insert finger to find out how the soil moves water ... nice mulch ring will help ... you most likely will not need to water it much this winter .... while the weather is cold.. err towards not watering .... once you are sure it is well watered in... once the heat starts coming in late spring ... then up the waterings according to your inserted finger ... good luck ken

It's all good, Gal. I've oft noted the less than clearcut "northerlieness" of varied locations, like your Maine example.........and depending on which type of map one is viewing, the various types of distortions necessary to fitting all the land masses on the flat sheet of paper.....can even distort this further. But no matter. Whaas, I like Symphoricarpos too, although I do know of some folks having that plant in their gardens wishing they didn't, what with the vigorously stoloniferous habit it has. Guess it all goes down to where you have it and what you are trying to accomplish. But you're right-it is very reminiscent of the shrub genus in discussion here. I'd be more inclined to use coralberry where I wanted straight-up colonization of a portion of a site, in other words, a more naturalistic planting. I think it is native to our part of the world as well. For that matter, the white-fruited Symphoricarpos alba is quite nice too. Rina, I have to admit, I see Toronto and other Canada words in your posts and get the idea we're in similar climactic conditions, but we're still colder here, never rising above a Z5 designation. Then there's years like last year, where cold-hardiness is really put to the test here. We shall see. This is a fun topic for discussion, but that's really about all it is at this point! +om

mindy, whether you prune the rose lightly or hard, if you cut off the place where the flowers were, you won't get hips. On the other hand, for one year, missing the hips isn't a disaster. I would think that a good time to cut it back would be in the autumn, when the weather starts to turn wet again. Mine (courtesy of MG!) has taken a long time to really get itself established and it's only now that I think it would respond well to being pruned hard, so my plan is to whack it in late October.

First I am not trying to argue. Second I have seen your gardens in the uk and they are gorgeous. Just stunning!! To me heirloom is of course a tried and true. Which means open pollination, which simply means that the item in question needs to be pollinated by insects or other means like someone hand pollinating it. Tried and true for generations to me means that it is grown from seed and tried over and over again and it still comes true while being open pollinated unless it is crossed. Melons or Curcurbit can cross within half a mile. Beans and peas do not cross. Tomatoes excluding hybrids potato leaf and currant will not cross. This simply means that if a plant is open pollinated and it is tried and true. That to me means that it produces TRUE seed. Heirloom, tried and true!! In regards to an apple tree, most actually have to have 2 types of apples in order to produce fruit. Now if you are going to try and gather seed you can't very well gather seed without an apple. If natives did not come TRUE from seed regardless if it is a bush, shrub or a flower. Then how do they reseed out in the wild?? 1 criteria of winter sowing is if it reseeds then you can winter sow it. Callicarpa americana is a native. Native means that it is distributed in its area by means of wind or birds or human distribution. Euonymus americanus is another native. Both are shrubs and both come true from seed. IF they are not crossed. Now granted if I was to have 3 types of callicarpa they would not come true from seed, and the ONLY option would then be to propagate from cuttings to get a true plant. Hybrids, the only way to propagate a hybrid is to propagate from cuttings. Some say that if a hybrid sets seed then you can grow it. It is possible in 3 years of saving the seed after 3 generations you may get a stable strain. That to me is not worth it. So I don't mess with hybrids. PawPaw is a native tree that produces fruit, which produces seed, which is true. Mulberry is a tree that produces fruit that produces true seed. There are a lot of fruit trees that actually produce true seed, there are a lot of shrubs that produce true seed. What you have to be aware of is simply: Is there anything that it may have crossed with?? Is it a hybrid?? If people learned botanical names instead the description then this would make seed saving a heck of a lot easier in my opinion. The botanical tells you a lot. Just because you can grow it from seed doesn't mean it will produce true seed. That is why heirlooms are sought is because they DO produce true seed if not crossed. Here is my favorite website on seed saving!! Here is a link that might be useful: Seed Saving