Can I cut poinsettia down to a stump ?.
My 2 year old poinsettia is getting top heavy, no leaves at the bottom. I pruned it last spring by leaving some leaves, had it outdoors all summer where it was thriving. We are in zone 5, so I brought it back indoors, a bit late, it shed some leaves but recovered quickly. Has been " blooming white" since December. It put on a lovely white show till end May.
Can I repot and cut it back to 8' to 10 " from soil level, which means there won't be any leaves left? The photo was taken end March. It still has the white bracs , except now it has new growth at the top while looking naked at the bottom. Or should I propage instead? Unfortunately it really does not have much new green growth to show, so I'd rather work with the mother plant as it is.
Comments (6)
tsugajunkie z5 SE WI ♱
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cut tree down, now left with 12' tall stump. Ideas?
Comments (45)We have a 12 foot tall tree stump in our garden that was left that tall because the tree company charged less to not have to remove those large bottom sections from a relatively inaccessible back yard. I asked them to make a couple extra cuts to the top of it, forming a point like a roof peak. An inverted v . Then I had my husband put large pieces of bark overlapping like shingles (you could purchase cedar shakes to do the same) to cover the "roof". Then we drilled a hole to look like the entrance. Squirrels sit or lie on top, and now that the wood is beginning to decay, woodpeckers and other birds have been checking out the hole and pecking at it to enlarge it.... I have encouraged ivy to grow up it (it's shady) and when it turns red in the fall it looks pretty. Also, we found a true-to-scale wooden bird and attached it to the trunk. I love it. I had been thinking of carving a bunch of steps in a circular arrangement up the outside of the trunk, but since it was an oak, it has retained it's bark and really looks great just as is. I'm looking forward to all the fungi , etc. it will probably provide as it decays, and who knows, the birds may become successful someday at hollowing it out. This is my first comment on the forum, so I don't know how to post a picture yet, but you get the idea........See MoreTree cutting- to stump or grind down?
Comments (12)hey mike.. i could never get away with that in my sandy soil ... in MI the rotting wood leaches all available moisture from the near sand... and they become so dry by about this time of year ... they arent even rotting ... unless they are dry rotting ... most of the rotting in my MI ... is spring and fall when there is ambient moisture ... i could never grow anything.. IN the stump ... unless i was willing to water it every single day ... [again ... big garden vs small garden dilemma] trees i cut when i moved here 14 years ago ... are just to the point of rotting to the point where i can kick off the exposed part ..... with 5 months of ground freeze .. and the dryness of july/august ... thats not a lot of rot months per year ... comparing to mike in the PNW ... i am often amazed at how different it all is ... heck.. up the UP of MI ... there are still stumps from the clear cut at the turn of the 20th century ... 1900s ... and they are colder than i am ... but they have the same sand that i have 350 miles south .... thank you mr glacier .... [ever wonder about the global warming.. that made the glaciers recede 10,000 years ago ... one thing for sure.. it wasnt my fault] but i digress ken...See MoreWill cut down tree stump attract termite?
Comments (2)Yes, in this area. The stump and roots eventually dry out and become infested with termites. We had several pine trees cut down many years ago and the roots still have termites in some areas of the yard. I didn't realize what the things were until they started eating any wooden stake I put in the ground. I am now researching and trying to find out what can be done to get rid of them in and around my garden....See MoreCan I regrow an Oak Tree from one that has been cut down?
Comments (6)If you let the bottom part of the stump regrow it has got the roots so it will be stable ...the other parts of the stump you can make into a hedge if you just leave them on the ground some will sprout and others won't. Either way its good mulch if the tree isn't diseased. Otherwise just use the stumps or compost them and only let the base with the roots regrow. You can wax the top of the stump with beeswax to seal the open wound and stop it rotten and getting diseased. we have an apple tree that grew back like that and ive got horse chestnuts growing that way. You can also employ a proper arbour maintenance guy to cut your trees into shapes that are less likely to get ripped up in a storm hey take a lot of the longer branches and shorten them so you get new flimsy growth which the wind can't break as easily and they look nice after a few years and if it is properly done. They do third in Europe a lot and it looks great. Here in Ireland a lot of people with an electric saw think they can do work with trees and really they have not a clue. So be careful to find a guy and see his work. Sometimes they cut them so ugly but when cut right it make a them a lot safer and still looks nice. Bit like a lollipop lol! But better than having no trees at all. You can also plant other trees around large trees to create wind break... Trees like poplar are good for that and birch they break the wind up and divert it before the fall force hits the big tree. Its not bad for buildings to have some wind break too. Might not make much difference during a hurricane though. If its a big oak its probably been there longer than you and birds may have lived there for generations ...trees are an amazing asset and take so long to mature that I'd do everything I could to protect them and help them endure safely before cutting them down. They do so much good. And you might find problems if you fell a lpt of them... Landsliding away flooding in paddocks and other things which the trees have been preventing for years....See More
tapla (mid-Michigan, USDA z5b-6a)
last year
doriswk
last yearlast modified: last yearI already moved the plant outdoors several days ago, its on a covered porch where it gets some morning and a bit of late afternoon sun. Seems to love it there, showing already more green at the top, but none at the bottom. I agree it looks really nice just the way it is out on the porch, but come fall it has to go indoors, and then if left as is, it will be getting too big for us, and perhaps top heavy.
A couple of Xmases back we had bought two poinsettias, a salmon colored one and this white one. I was planning to keep the salmon poinsettia which I liked better, not the white one, but the salmon went downhill very fast, so we were left with this feisty little survivor, and we do appreciate survivors.
I added more pics so you can see the "bare bottom". My plan in ca 3-4 weeks from now is to prune and re-pot it and cut it back to at least to where the stems are branching off right now, but there won't be any leaves left. I'll only do this if I know it will still leaf out.
Al, thanks for offering more info about re-potting, but you already provided me with some for my hibiscus which I followed through. I assume this works the same way?
Another thought is that I propagate a few stems in a couple of weeks, assuming that at least one will root and we'll have a white poinsettia for next Christmas; in this scenario we'll enjoy this plant as is till September when I re-pot and cut it back as already explained, but then it may not show any white bracts till spring...
I hesitate to propagate the poinsettia because I have not succeeded with propagating the hibiscus although I tried with at least 10 stems at different times, some in water, some in hormone and soil, all looked O.K. for several weeks then turned into a flop, a waste of time. Are poinsettias easier?
.tsugajunkie z5 SE WI ♱
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Rebecca/N. IN/z6A
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popmama (Colorado, USDA z5)