How To: Clean Up Hydrangea

Today I did some spring cleaning in my yard. Specifically with the White Dome Hydrangea (Hydrangea arborescens 'White Dome'). Like many people we left the hydrangea up for winter interest and now it is time to get them cleaned up for another growing season. Here is what they looked like before I started:

First I'll dive right into pruning the hydrangea, then I'll talk about cleaning up the ground underneath them. Note: This pruning method can be used for any Arborescens-type hydrangea including Annabelle, Invincibelle Spirit, Incrediball, and Bella Anna. It's best to wait until they have put out some new growth; you need to know where the live wood is before you can know where to start cutting. First, locate the set of leaves closest to the end of the stem. Then move down one set and make the cut just above those leaves.

Why? The second set of leaves is usually the most vigorous and the wood below it is the most healthy. Most often the second leaf set is larger than the first. It might feel like you're taking off too much of the plant. Don't worry - Hydrangea arborescens are vigorous growers, and not only grow back on old wood but send up new canes as well so it will have no problems filling out.

While cutting back the canes, keep an eye out for damaged or bent canes. Depending on the vigor of the leaves, cut these canes above the first or second leaf set below the damage. In the case shown below, I actually chose the third leaf set; the first set was on damaged wood and the second leaf set was weak.

It may be necessary to cut back all the way to the base of the plant. I noticed that some of the shrubs had canes growing along the ground. I cut these off all the way to the base, even if there were lots of nice leaves; having the canes in full contact with the mulch and soil is an invitation to rot and disease.

Sometimes the damage isn't as obvious as a cane that is bent or broken. If a cane twists easily to one side or flattens when you pinch it, it is a sign of an almost-dead cane and should be cut off. Here is what the inside of a healthy cane looks like:

Bright white pith with a healthy green ring.

And unhealthy canes:

Discolored, corky pith with gray ring.

Yellowing pith and slimy, mashy green ring.

Also, remove any spindly or thin canes. These canes don't have enough vigor to amount to much, and removing them will keep the plant's energy focused on the larger healthy canes, and prevent the center of the plant from becoming over-crowded.

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Now, on to cleaning up under the hydrangea. Like I said earlier, we left the hydrangea up all winter. The downside of this is that the shrubs became leaf-catchers. The result is that there was a thick mat of leaves underneath the entire planting of hydrangea. So I started raking, and after the first few passes it was clear I started none too soon. First, I was amazed at how many leaves there were - 5 inches / 12.7 cm of wet leaves, courtesy of our Silver Maple (Acer saccharinum). Second, the debris at the bottom and the mulch underneath was rotting. Not decomposing into lovely soil - rotting into a soppy, fuzzy mess.

Waiting any longer to clean this up would have caused the bases of the hydrangea to rot. I was planning to topdress the area with some new mulch, but I'm going to hold off on that until the ground dries out.

So, how do you go about cleaning under hydrangea? I started out using my standard size garden rake, but it could only get so close to the plants before it started hooking the canes. So I switched to my mini-rake (every gardener needs one of these!) which easily reached into the narrow areas between the plants. But remember what I said about the leaf-catchers? The base of each hydrangea was stuffed with leaves. No rake would get them out, and certainly not a leaf blower. So I knelt down and pulled the leaves out by hand. (Gloves were a definite necessity - slimy leaves and soggy, fuzzy crabapples would not have been pleasant without them.)

I actually alternated between tasks: cut back some canes so I could get the rakes closer to the plant, rake a bit, trim some more, rake, remove leaves by hand, rake, move to another plant, repeat. It took about an hour to clean up five plants. Here is a reminder of what the area looked like before:

And here is the result - 

And the leaves? Remember, they were wet so this is not a fluffy leaf pile:

An hour or two of work, a job well done, and the White Dome Hydrangea are all set to go for summer!

The Forsythia Flower Show

About two weeks ago I was checking on some of the gardening blogs I follow, and Alan @ It's Not Work, It's Gardening! had put up a post about relocating a large Forsythia in his backyard. His garden is in the St. Louis burbs and a Zone 6 (I'm Zone 4) so the Forsythia was already blooming on March 14. I was completely jealous.

You see, Forsythia can be a tricky plant here in Zone 4. Our winters can get pretty brutal; temperatures routinely drop to -30*F (-34*C) and stay there for weeks. Any flower buds on early spring blooming shrubs that are above the snow line are killed by the harsh temps. Since we had hardly any snow to speak of this winter, I had little hope of any Forsythia blooming this year.

Last week I was driving through Excelsior and I caught a beacon of yellow out of the corner of my eye:

The sight almost made me stop in the middle of the road! As I continued through town I saw more Forsythia in glorious bloom. For the next half hour I went on a Forsythia Hunt, taking pictures out my car window. I hope I didn't freak out any of the neighbors as I drove around in circles!

Here are the results of my drive-by photography!

One of my clients has a Forsythia, so I took the opportunity for some flower close-ups.

So how is it the Forsythia are in such rare form this year? My theory is that, although we had no snow to protect the flower buds, we didn't have the damaging low temperatures that would have otherwise killed the flower buds with or without snow.

The result is a fabulous Forsythia flower show!

The Difference of a Week

Garden Bloggers Bloom Day for March came one week too early this year. Or my flowers are one week late. But if anything is blooming in March in Minnesota, I'm happy. I went back and checked the date of last year's post about the crocus blooming ....April 1st - two weeks later than this year. So we definitely have a jump on things. Speaking of which, things are really jumping with the temps in the 60s (15-20*C) and recent rains. We had our first thunderstorm  over the weekend, and this week has been misty and rainy, so the plants are getting a much-needed drink.

I snapped these photos a bit quickly as it was starting to rain again. The crocus came up a few days ago, and the pussy willow fully opened today.

The purple crocus had more work to do this year and shove their way up through new sod. They seem to have done admirably.

Garden Bloggers Bloom Day - March 2012

What is Garden Bloggers Bloom Day? Well I'm glad you asked. On the 15th of each month, writers of gardening blogs post photos of what is blooming in their garden. I've known about it for a while, but this is my first post for GBBD. And this year we actually have things blooming on March 15th! We have been enjoying a glorious week of 70*F / 21*C temperatures. That doesn't happen very often. But even with the warm weather, my blooming list is going to be pretty short.

So, here we go.

First is our Silver Maple (Acer saccharinum). It just opened today.

Second (and last for the outdoor plants this month) is the American Pussy Willow (Salix discolor). It's been blooming for almost a week already, but the warm weather has opened them up some more.

Sadly, the warm weather has brought the bugs, too. Oh well.

Houseplants count for Garden Bloggers Bloom Day, don't they? Good, because my Christmas Cactus is still blooming....since December.

Here's a (really bad) photo of what the cactus looks like
from the other side of the window. (sorry, the lighting was awful.)

Spring is in the Air

The calendar may not say so, but I say Spring has officially sprung in Minnesota!

The thermometer reads 69*F / 21*C,

YAY!!! [happy dance]

the pussy willow (Salix discolor) has popped,

and the pussy cats are in Sunshine Heaven.

Oliver, Relaxer Extraordinaire

Puddy, the Sunshine Diva, surveys her domain.

That Voodoo that YooDoo so Well

While on my recent trip to the Minnesota Landscape Arboretum I also stopped in their little conservatory attached to the main building. It is full of all sorts of tropicals, and is a real pick-me-up when Minnesota is trying to decide if it will be winter or spring.

I forgot how wonderfully humid the conservatory is; it was almost a shock to the system. The above photo was taken at the door to the conservatory. If you look closely you'll see a bench half-way down the path on the left. I didn't even make it that far before my coat became unbearable.

There are many fun plants in this conservatory that I will talk about, but I want to focus on one particular plant for this post. Because on this Arboretum visit I met a Voodoo Bulb.

I was wandering about the room, blissfully snapping pictures, when I smelled it. "Ug, what smells?" It was a very unpleasant odor, like week-old roadkill. It was quite strong so I knew it was nearby. There were two ladies in the conservatory as well, and they also wondered what stunk. One lady, in fact, couldn't stand anywhere near the area. I was among various cacti and agave, which are not the likely suspects. Which plant is it? Then I saw it.

"Typhonium venosum - Voodoo Bulb"

That has to be it. And, being the plant geek that I am, what do I do? Lean down, stick my nose in the center of the thing and take a whiff. Yep, *cough* this is it! The weird thing is, the plant is across from the bench where I stopped to take off my coat. I had to walk by it when I came in. I never saw noticed smelled it until now. Weird.

So, now that the source of the smell has been located, time to admire it. In addition to being bizarre, this plant is really quite beautiful - the vase shape of the bulb, the gracefully-arching spadix, the deep purple, and especially the color of the spathe.

Too bad it has to smell like a dead animal. That fact put a thought in my head; I know of only one plant that smells like rotting flesh: the Corpse Flower. The Como Zoo Conservatory has one, but I've never seen it. Hmm, interesting thought.

As I moved around the table taking pictures of the bulb, the smell suddenly got worse. Then I saw that I was directly at the end of the spadix, which must be where the pollen - and source of the smell - is. Nasty.

Just then the caretaker of the conservatory came in. He saw I was studying the Voodoo Bulb and we started chatting. The first topic, naturally, was the smell. So I asked him if it was possibly related to the Corpse Flower. He affirmed that oh yes, all plants that smell like this are in the same family (Araceae) as the Corpse Flower. That got me thinking; if this little bulb (12 inches / 30.5 cm high) can put off such a strong odor, how much more pungent is a 5-foot / 1.5 meter tall Corpse Flower?! I'm not so sure I want to know anymore. (What am I saying? Of course I do!)

The Como Zoo's Corpse Flower.
This photo is from Thanland. Click the link the check out
the article, more photos, and a video.

The gentleman also said that he personally has two Voodoo Bulbs. Ah, a fellow plant geek! He also explained that the Voodoo Bulb (and all of its relatives) bloom for only one day out of the whole year, and that this particular bulb just opened that morning.

Well, wasn't it my lucky day?

A Touch of Whimsy

I recently made a trip to the Minnesota Landscape Arboretum in Chaska, Minnesota. They always have a variety of rotating displays and exhibits throughout the year. I specifically wanted to see the display of fairy gardens, and was lucky to discover they extended the run of the exhibit a week.

This particular exhibit was presented by the folks at Tonkadale Greenhouse, based in nearby Minnetonka. (I realize I am endorsing my competition, but I believe in giving credit where credit is due). The diminutive gardens are very creative and full of charming whimsy.

Not all the fairy gardens were made by Tonkadale. Various Arboretum members and staff also displayed their creations. These are two of my favorites.

"Cabin by the Lake"
by Chad Sypnieski - Arboretum Member

untitled
by Sandy Seha - Arboretum Staff

I believe this was made so that kids could play with it.