Saturday, January 30, 2010

The Woodies

I guess I am into the woodies right now, because these are the plants I can see in my yard right now.  What would we do without shrubs, our landscapes would certainly not be as interesting.  One of my favorite shrubs is right next to the walk as you approach the front door - Viburnum Carlesi Compactum.  It is small (about three feet) fragrant and attractive in the fall.  You can only prune it right after it flowers or you won't have blooms the following spring. 

As I look out my front door I see the dried flowers of Limelight Hydrangea which is the showstopper of late summer.  Cars stop, people with dogs stop because it is an unbeliveable specimen!  It grows about eight feet tall and six feet wide.  I cut it down to about three feet each March, feed it an acid fertilizer and it rewards me and most of my neighbors with gorgeous flowers in white, pale green, pink tinged and rose up until frost.  This hydrangea prefers sun!

Along the side of Limelight I am struggling with a grouping of four Itea Virginica Henry's Garnet.  They have been in the ground six years and never flowered.  I have given them one more year and then it is goodbye.  They get a few little flowers, so this year I cut them down, fed them with a systemic because it looked like some of the leaves were being eaten, and watched them revive to look more plush than I had ever seen.  I try to be as organic as possible, but when an "antibotic"is warranted, I go for it.  Well, we'll see come spring!

These are my woodies in the front of my house, we will move around the sides and back another day.  Can anyone give me some pointers on Henry's Garnet?