Pruning Hydrangeas
One of the topics of great confusion is when and how to prune Hydrangeas. It differs based upon the species of Hydrangea that you are growing. The arborescens discussed below and the big paniculata are pruned in the late Winter before new growth starts. The pink/blue macrophylla are pruned ideally before the end of July or first week in August. The former plants flowering on new wood (current season’s growth), and the latter growing on old wood (last season growth). I often tell clients to grow the macrophylla (blue/pink) in an area that does not require regular pruning other than wayward branches or dead stems. It seems hard to prune your beautiful blue/pink hydrangeas now, but if they are oversized, you have a very narrow window to prune now before they start to produce next years flower buds.
With the mild Spring and no hard freezes in the early Spring, we are having a banner year for Hydrangeas. Typically a freeze in April or May helps to naturally prune the plants by killing the upper buds, and often the ones containing the flower buds, but with this year, there was very little dead stems that required pruning, meaning they are much bigger shrubs this year than in the past. If they are flopping and out of control, then now is the time to cut back. In a month it will be too late.
There are two ways to prune. Sometimes I remove the oldest stem down to the base to allow for new growth, or I will prune newer stems down significantly to a point where two healthy buds protrude opposite from each other. If you can get to them now, I also prune out the spaghetti stems that are weak and going sideways. These just draw important resources from the rest of the plant.
If you have some of the newer macrophylla plants (Endless Summer Series), that flower on new and old wood, this pruning technique applies to them too.
Watering
I have had a lot of discussions since my last newsletter that covered watering. I am a big proponent of actively managing your supplemental watering rather than the ‘set it and forget’ method.
You can save a lot of dead plants and lawn, as well as money, by watering longer (deeper) and less often.
Deeper watering … deeper roots … less sensitive to heat … less demanding plants … drought tolerance … less disease and insect overpopulation. I am always happy to develop specific plans for people’s gardens and re-program irrigation systems.
Home Weather Station
Each addition of the newsletter I provide a weather update on the past and upcoming weeks, but, as you know, rain and temps can vary from town to town, especially rainfall, with storms dumping and inch in one town and nothing two town’s over. My readers are from every state in New England and many from beyond, so you can’t really rely on my local forecast.
If you are a bit of a geek and really want to be tuned into your local weather, then a simple weather station can give you the data you need to make good decisions in the garden, especially when it comes to watering.
My current weather station is a Netatmo Smart Home Weather Station. It is fantastic and very reasonably priced for what you get. $240 gets you the indoor and outdoor modules and the rain sensor. $320 includes the Anemometer for wind. The modules require a new battery once a year and are bluetooth connected to an online app. It is a very slick and simple product with easy installation. If have my outdoor sensor on the shady side of a column on the front of my house and the rain gauge on a fence with no overhanging branches or trees. Done.
Spend a little time looking at the web page. I love the interface that allows me to look at data for the week, month or year. I can see exactly how much rain has fallen and compare that to the temperatures to inform me on how to irrigate, or more importantly, not to irrigate.
Just to repeat what I say at the bottom of each newsletter, these are my opinions and any product promotion is based upon my insights, and I never receive any compensation for the discussion of any product or service.
Time to order your Spring Bulbs
You might think it is a weird time to be thinking about bulbs to plant in October, but if you don’t order now, your choices will be limited in a month or two. So, if you want to be able to choose from the broadest selection and hard to find bulbs, spend some time searching the online catalogs and ordering now. They won’t ship until the fall, so don’t worry about having to store them.
Bulbs are your best and cost-effective way to add color to your garden, especially in the barren months from February-May and beyond.
I love helping people to design with bulbs, and it is often one of the last additions to your garden after it is established. As a suggestion, when looking through the catalogs, try to resist buying 10 of everything, as the best impact from bulbs comes from having large groupings of the same bulb. Also, you don’t have to do it all in one year. Sometimes building your bulbs over multiple seasons is the best. I would love to help you put together a plan, if interested.
Here are my three favorite bulb suppliers:
- Van Engelen (Wholesale Division) John Scheepers (Retail Division)
- Brent and Becky’s Bulbs
- Brecks Bulbs
Planning for Fall
I am always encouraging clients to create long term plans and to be thinking ahead. With that in mind and while we have lost a lot of our energy to do work in our gardens with the heat, we can always plan ahead for the fall when the weathers chills out. What new beds do you want to create, plants to divide, plants to install, gardens to edit, lawns to oversee, etc. Plan now for when the weather starts to look good at the end of August and early September. I am a fan of taking photos of the garden in all seasons so you can reference at other times.
Collecting Seeds
Many of you are growing with native plants now, and the best way to get more plants is to grow them yourself. It is the long game, but it only takes two to three years from seed to have healthy plants. Typically we think of seed collecting as a fall chore, but many early season flowers already have viable seed.
Collect now to start in the late winter or sow now in gardens to get germination this year and solid growth next year.
Do a little research on your plants, as many of the non-native cultivars that grow in our gardens are sterile and don’t produce viable seed. In the natural world, plants flower to produce seed and guarantee their continued existence. Once seed is created they stop flowering. This is why the practice of deadheading perennials extends flowering as plants continue to flower in an effort to produce seed. Cultivars that are sterile are often caught in a loop of flowering and not producing seed, so they flower again and again in a vain attempt to produce seed. That is part of the FrankenPlant development that has occurred in recent horticulture. The down side to this is that the sterile sexual parts provide no benefit to pollinators or the ecosystem.
Barking Dog Gardens - Gardening in New England 