Correas and Pruning
6 Comments »11th March, 2006; Category: Caring for Native Plants, Correas, Pruning Australian Native Plants
I found some more Correa cuttings which had grown roots, in the hot house. Sometimes they strike readily, other times they will actually send out flowers and the odd new shoot but when potting time comes there is not a root to be seen. Grevilleas will do this too, I have found.
If I have to trim the roots of the cuttings when potting on, I will often tip prune the plant at the same time, or take a little more of the top to balance the root system that is available to the plant.
Last year we had a trip to Ngarkat Conservation Park, near Keith in the upper South East of SA. It was winter, the first rains for the year began that weekend, and the area had had a bushfire through it in January of the same year. Despite the lack of rain we found the locally occurring Correas had sprouted abundant new growth from the base of the plants at ground level. The top of the plants were a few charcoal twigs.
This made me feel that it was worth experimenting with quite severe pruning of the Correas which I had neglected in the garden. I forgot about it last spring. I am watching for the new growth to appear this autumn and will try a few of the late flowering plants, rather than lose the flowers this year. Thought I would cut back to the last three of four buds on each stem and see what happens. I will have nothing to lose really as the plants are quite scruffy. They will have to be chopped back or pulled out.
Pruning Plants
No Comments »10th March, 2006; Category: Caring for Native Plants, General, Pruning Australian Native Plants
Lost my right hand man to Writers’ Week again today. Hopefully I can get some potting on done and also finalise the plant list for the plant sale. I keep finding species that I missed when I did the list the other day.
Meanwhile I have plants presenting great cutting material and I would love to be sidetracked by that job also. Everything comes in waves in the Nursery. Zillions of jobs needing to be done now, and then periods of watching things grow until the next wave of potting on. (Until I visit someone with a native garden and plants presenting cutting material).
Sometimes I feel like Peter Cundell on the ABC TV gardening programme, Gardening Australia. Put a pair of secateurs, or loppers in his hands and the personality changes as he attacks plants with glee. He is usually pruning, while I go mad taking cuttings.
The above reminds me of a friend whose plants always looked wonderful, in flower or not. She was a self confessed mad pruner but without the tools. She made a practice of constant tip pruning of all her native shrubs. That is, removing the top growing tip containing a couple of leaves. This forces the plant to make new growth back along the branches. As a result, flowering is much improved because of the greater number of shoots on the bushes. It often looked as though she had used shears to trim the plants.
I remember seeing her after one Plant Sale with a basket of plants and before she had got back to her car every one of them had been tipped pruned. “Can’t help myself!” she said.
It is a hint I often pass on to customers at Plant Sales. People are often disappointed with the appearance of native plants as they get older. They don’t usually have time to prune at a particular time in the plant’s seasonal growth. Tip pruning often solves this. The exception to this is for a plant which has a naturally upright habit, where tip pruning could ruin the shape of the plant.