Help with winter protection for newly planted 6 foot emerald cedars!!
Sophie H.
8 years ago
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Winter Protection
Comments (2)TG - Another bamboo grower in New York! Thanks for all your detail as i've been raising bamboo since '06 also and am rather new to gardening in general. It's nice to read about others' local-ish experiences. Wish i had some hard-nosed experience to share with you. All i can offer is a bit of my experience to date. I'm growing in Brooklyn in an urban lot where the soil seems rather poor due to decades of neglect and the unsavory practice of burying building trash in the ground (we unearthed two radiators and an entire cast-iron bathtub digging our bamboo bed). We grow Ph. Vivax, Ph. Bambusoides, and Ph. Nigra in a bed out back - they were mulched w/ 1.5" cedar the first season, but have since self-mulched through old shoot covers and dead leaves. We give them no protection in the winter - we want the grove to be as maintenance-free as possible as we travel quite a bit. The Nigra is holding steady - no new shoots since we planted it and the existing ones are rather scrawny, but they show new growth each season so we leave them in with hopes that one season they'll catch up. The Ph. Vivax seems to be doing well - several new shoots both seasons, but the Ph. Bambusoides is thriving. The new culms this season reached 1" in diameter and grew to 15' (the Vivax is holding at around 7'). I'm hoping to get a grove of Robert Young going this year assuming the plant recovers from a traumatic winter spent indoors in a pot. Things look hopeful. I hope you get some good feedback and good luck!...See MoreHelp with the option of transplanting a 6' Blue Atlas Cedar
Comments (15)After undercutting all around, leave the shovel under the ball and slowly tip the tree towards you and the shovel. Have someone nearby with a hand shears in case you missed a root. If the ball is small enough for you to handle, you can carefully pull it out of the hole with one hand on the shovel and the other on the tree. If the ball is large or if you are worried that it may crumble, don't take any chances - pin the burlap on the ball BEFORE you go around with the undercutting. This way only the very bottom won't be burlaped. If you can't pull it out of the hole, just tip the tree to one side, fill some dirt in the hole on the other side, then tip the tree the other way and fill, repeating until the tree is at ground level....See MorePlease help-- newly planted limelight sinking in clay soil
Comments (24)Out here in Illinois, about 2 miles from Lake Michigan with heavy clay soil, my local nursery recommended planting the trunk flare junction "even with or 1-2" inches above existing grade." I didn't understand what this meant at the time, but I'm thinking it's consistent with planting above grade, so I think I'm going to aim for that. If I'm interpreting the local nursery instructions wrong, please tell me! Here is a picture of our front bed. There is room to move the hydrangea over to the right and forward (and I think, aesthetically, it would probably be better placed there), so I am planning to do that. That will allow me to dig an entirely new hole, which, this time, I will dig only to the depth of the root ball. Depending on what the soil looks like, I plan on tilling the entire area between the old hole and new hole (or double dig) to combine the soils together. Question: If the soil very over amended, should I still do this? Or would I be better off leaving the overly amended area and just starting over in the new area? I would probably still add some amendment to the new area (adding no amendment at all makes me nervous), but I would only add about 20% cotton burr compost. And one last question on amending. The plants in the middle of the bed and scattered around are, I think, some type of onion. I am waiting for them to bloom this year, but then plan on transplanting them in our backyard somewhere. Point being: once I dig the onions up in fall, I plan on amending the rest of the bed before the fall. That was my logic for amending only the planting holes right now. Does this make any difference in terms of whether it's a good idea to amend the planting holes? Thank you, all, for the advice! (I have now been informed that the marestail at the right which had been serving as a focal point (guffaw!) is, in actuality, an invasive weed). :-) This post was edited by fampoula on Thu, Jul 4, 13 at 22:53...See Moreoverwintering Hydrangea macrophylla winter protection
Comments (104)My first Hydrangea is now in the ground for more than 25 years. At this point, I keep it for sentimental reasons only. It's gotten so THICK with canes that if I wrap it in my usual cage, I have to get everything so tight in there that I think I may actually be suffocating the plant. I've not had good luck overwintering it in recent years. This past winter I didn't even bother with it. If I were you, I'd consider taking a cutting or digging out a portion of your sentimental one and essentially start over. It would indeed be the same plant, so you could keep your sentiment. But I can understand sentiment. I should get rid of my first Hydrangea, but I'm not. For a long time I would cut back the old canes completely to the ground in the Fall. I'd only leave canes that had shot up from low points on the canes or from the crown. They would have grown all summer and would end up giving me great flowering the next year. I'd have very long stemmed flowers, too, that I had cut. The big problem with this technique is that you end up with weaker stems than you would otherwise and next summer they'd be weighted down to the ground with their flowers. I've found that, for my zone, I can usually prune as hard as I want up until about Fourth of July, just to be easy to remember, and not hurt the flowering potential for next year. After that, the buds start setting for next year and you start running into that problem. (But then I've cut some "nikkos" back to the crown in the Fall and on some I'd get great flowering and on some I'd get none. Do I really understand this? NO.) So, here is another method for you to consider to keep it smaller, at least in height. Another thing I've experimented with is to prune all the wimpy growth completely out and just end up with a few stout canes over time. This was interesting, but you end up with an artifical looking Hydrangea and the few stout canes start looking rather strange. But with this technique, more or less, you could develop a plant that wasn't so crowded. I don't know though. I wish I could help you more. I'd like an answer to the question you have, too! Hay...See MoreSophie H.
8 years agolast modified: 8 years agoken_adrian Adrian MI cold Z5
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8 years agoSophie H.
8 years agolast modified: 8 years agowisconsitom
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