Posts Tagged shrubbery
The One-Third Rule of Pruning Shrubbery
Pruning your shrubs can give your entire landscape an amazing aesthetic appeal. Ideally, there are typically two types of landscapers when it comes to pruning shrubbery; those who prune timidly from fear of damaging their bushes and those who prune aggressively to come up with perfectly shaped shrubs. However, to achieve the best outcome when pruning your bushes, trimming about one-third of the good wood is ideal.
If you prune more than this, you risk exposing your shrubbery to excessive damage, which could stunt its growth. Prune less than this, and you might not do much to improve the appeal of your shrub.
Read on to learn about the one-third rule:
Why The One-Third Rule?
Moderate pruning is pivotal when it comes to stimulating vital growth. Plants typically live in a balance between the below-ground and above-ground parts. Once the plant loses a number of stems through pruning, it tries to gain back the balance by pushing forth new growth. This regrowth is essential, especially in moderation, since it allows the plant to heal as well as simulates growth from dormant buds.
If your shrubbery loses too much leafy growth, it goes into panic mode. This can be shown by the appearance of water sprouts or suckers, which can leave your shrubs ragged looking. Even worse, this suckering can go on for a long time, making landscape maintenance tough.
Use the Rule on Established Plants
The one-third rule is ideal for your fully established shrubbery- plants that have overcome their transplant shock. If you have newly planted shrubs, give them a grace period of one or two seasons before pruning them to ensure that their root systems become established enough.
Use the rule on small ornamental trees and shrubs. As for larger shade trees, limit pruning to at most a quarter of the total branches. While growth on shade trees is stimulated into new growth through assertive pruning, its pruning shouldn’t be as vigorous as that of multi-stemmed shrubs. Pruning the trees often is vital since it reduces the chances of wind damage.
When Might The one-third Rule Not Be Enough?
If you neglect your shrubbery for too long, it might overgrow and get out of control. Normal pruning might not suffice. For such shrubs, rejuvenation pruning (a severe form of pruning) might work. While rejuvenation pruning will leave the shrub looking unattractive for a while, it allows it to reform itself into a better shape.
As long as you show your shrubs love, they will light up your landscape. Pruning ensures that you can shape your shrubs to fit right into your ideal landscape design. Consider using the one-third pruning rule to improve the appeal of your landscape.
Shrubbery Like Boxwood, Lavender, and Camellia
Adding shrubbery to your home’s outdoor landscape is a wonderful way to frame your garden and border a winding path. One particularly popular way for doing both, or either, is with evergreen shrubs.
Benefits of Evergreen Shrubs
Evergreen shrubs are shrubs that can be a permanent fixture in your garden thanks to the fact that they will last all year.
In fact, evergreen shrubs like fatsia, lavender, and camellia can create beautiful flower displays and perfume-like scents throughout the year, even when everything else in your garden appears to have fallen dormant.
Evergreen shrubs will often be naturally variegated and create a colorful cascade of colors over your garden. Some shrubs are like trees and come with needled or broadleaf foliage.
Adding shrubs to your property will beautify the landscape all four seasons and provide a smooth transition between taller trees and the groundcover plants lining your walkway or garden.
Shrubs can be used for a number of different purposes beyond lining walkways and framing your garden as well.
Shrubbery can provide groundcover on slopes, buffer ambient noise from entering your home, and provide a breathtaking backdrop for your garden.
Boxwood Shrubs
One of the easiest-to-work-with types of evergreen shrub is boxwood shrubbery. Boxwood is hardy to zone 6, which essentially means that it will maintain its integrity no matter what nature throws at it.
Boxwood also fits most people’s initial idea of a shrub – boxwood has tiny, glossy foliage that can be hedged by Xeriscape’s landscaping experts into just about any desired shape.
Most homeowners like their boxwood shrubbery to be a few feet in diameter but, left to its own devices, boxwood can grow up to two dozen feet tall! This is a hardy shrub that will grow well in moderate sun and ligher shade.
Lavender
Lavender is a drought-tolerant plant that is a kissing cousin to mint, and each has a similar fragrance. Lavender, though, is a perennial shrub that has a lot of different size and color options to match your landscape.
There are actually four main types of lavender that homeowners in North America typically consider for their gardens: English lavender, Spanish lavender, Portuguese lavender, and lavandin.
English lavender owes its name to the English lavender trade of the 1700s and the fact that it smells so wonderful. English lavender can furnish homeowners with those variegated colors alluded to above: purples, violet, mauve, and mixtures of all three are afforded by English lavender.
Spanish lavender will come with pink and purple petals and have a unique pine scent. Portuguese lavender (a.k.a., Broadleafed lavender), on the other hand, will have paler purple leaves that are slightly larger.
Portuguese lavender can cross-pollinate with Engligh lavender, and both types are used in aromatherapy. The camphor in Portuguese lavender is good for attracting friendly insects into your garden and lending a sense of exotic variety and soothing color.
Lastly, lavandin might be a fancy name in this context since lavandin only means a cross between English lavender and Portuguese lavender. Lavandin produces sterile seeds but can grow in hot, arid climates and live through periods of sustained drought.
Camellia
Camellia is also a type of evergreen shrubbery, but the flowers of a blooming camellia are truly unique in certain species. There are more than 300 species of camellia, and approximately 3,000 hybrid species. Some camellia flowers are double.
Where does camellia work? Woodland gardens with dappled sunlight or gardens with slightly acidic soil are especially promising foundations for camellia.
Ask Xeriscape about the possibility of installing camellia shrubbery around your garden because the flowers come in a variety of beautifying colors: pinks, reds, yellows, and whites are common. Contact us for more information.
