Scottish Rock Garden Club Forum
Specific Families and Genera => Rhododendron and other Ericaceae => Topic started by: birck j c on June 06, 2011, 08:24:45 PM
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2 years ago this Fantastika was cut back (quite violent)
leaving only tree shoots to draw the sap.
(250) photo taken 4 weeks after cut back - note "sleeping eyes" come to live.
(630) 3 weeks ago - amazing numbers of flowers
(097) From today - looking new and well shaped.
jens
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A very good example of why Rhodos make such excellent garden plants. If they become too large or are damaged in some way, falling trees etc, they will almost always respond as Jen's plant has done... soon you will not know there was a problem and have a smart 'new' bush ;D
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What a beautiful rhodo, am so glad you posted this, I only have three and all are gnarly and leggy.
Is there a best time to prune like this?
Spring or could I do it after they flower?
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Well done Jens, a great success.
I think I'll go out and prune my Rhododendron barbatum back like that! ;)
johnw
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Our city council workers gave similar treatment to a stand of quite young plants where a motorway extenstion is now being put in. They were cut back maybe a year ago. Some were taken away and I don't know their fate, but only some of those remaining have grown away again. They should have moved the lot, being, as a long ago friend called rhododendrons, "wheelbarrow plants." She was continually digging them and planting elsewhere as her garden developed, and was always successful in their re-establishment.
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maggiepie when You describe your 3 rhodies as " all are gnarly and leggy"
then there is no problem trying to cut them back.
Live is too short to keep looking on these.
Failing would give You the possibility to buy some new ones - pleasing the eye.
Cutting back would give app. 50% success with hybrids and for species 10%.
Here (110) my Furnival's daughter cut back for the third time in a period of 15yrs.
Best cutting time would be just after flowering and before the new growth.
And to JohnW -- I think your NS winter will spare you the job. ;D
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Thanks for the advice, Jens, will cut them back after they flower.
I don't want to miss the flowers as I didn't get any last year due to a late frost.
The plants usually have around 4 feet of snow over them during winter which causes breakages and mishapen limbs.
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Cutting back would give app. 50% success with hybrids and for species 10%.
We've found rather higher success rates than that, Jens... but perhaps our climate is kinder.
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Cutting back would give app. 50% success with hybrids and for species 10%.
We've found rather higher success rates than that, Jens... but perhaps our climate is kinder.
I believe in drier areas it helps to regularly spray shrubs (and hedges) that have been cut back very hard into bare old wood, to encourage them to break into new growth. Of course with rhodos it would be advisable to use non-limy water.
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There are also some more gentle ways to reduce the size of your rhododendrons.
A. When the new growth is just full developed they are very brittle , like glass.
And very easy to break of. (001)(002)
Often the result would be 3 new shoots coming on with reduced length.(003)
B. Shave your bush, again just after the new growth is full developed.
Oreotrephes being shawed (004)
8 weeks later flower buds in great numbers (005)
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I have seen old and very large rhododendrons pruned in Mount Congreve with chain saws. They all come back to make lower bushy plants.
Paddy
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Cutting back would give app. 50% success with hybrids and for species 10%.
We've found rather higher success rates than that, Jens... but perhaps our climate is kinder.
I believe in drier areas it helps to regularly spray shrubs (and hedges) that have been cut back very hard into bare old wood, to encourage them to break into new growth. Of course with rhodos it would be advisable to use non-limy water.
I think you're on to something Martin. Here if we wait to prune elepidote Rhododendrons until they've flowered they - or at least many variety excluding the very early flowerers - oftentimes do not have time to develop new shoots especially if it is dry following. In wet summers things improve. In the southern part of NS where spring is earlier and summers moister with rain and more fog the rhodos have a greater propensity to be bushy and produce shoots wherever light strikes bark. Not so much up this way. A good daily spraying of the trunk and a weekly soaking of the rootball might just improve results.
In colder areas I'd say the earlier the better. Jens?
johnw
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I think sap flow must be at maximum to get the sleeping eyes to react.
And max must be when the new growth is developed
jens
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That's a fearsome set of pruners or "shavers" in pic 004. I can think of a few sets of dreadlocks I's like to use them on. ;D
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Shown 5 weeks ago, now sprouting for full. (200).
jens
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An untidy campylogynum show great improvements after cut back.
Note old branches in there.(204)
Seedlings of (campylogynum (yellow) x Tessa Dane) also an untidy bunch
behave very well after cut back. (206)
jens
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Now app. 3 month has gone since pruning
looking very good, even flower buds are coming!
jens
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11 month after the shave my oreotrephes look like this to day!
birck ;D ;D ;D
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One of the best responses to a haircut I have ever seen!
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Roger had a quite severe haircut on Friday but it only served to emphasize his bald spot. I'll show him this picture, to give him hope. ;D
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11 month after the shave my oreotrephes look like this to day!
birck ;D ;D ;D
After seeing that result my Rhododendron oreotrephes is getting a severe haircut after it flowers. It is getting very scruffy.
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This morning my McBeath's form of rhododendron Thomsonii was 7' tall and looking very shabby. Now it is only 2' tall. Time will tell if it survives.
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This morning my McBeath's form of rhododendron Thomsonii was 7' tall and looking very shabby. Now it is only 2' tall. Time will tell if it survives.
Crumbs! That sounds drastic, but I'd have high hopes for a good recovery Keep us posted.
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Roger had a quite severe haircut on Friday but it only served to emphasize his bald spot. I'll show him this picture, to give him hope. ;D
That's how it is! I can't understand why my wife always demands that I have to take a haircut :-\
However, I have decided to give some of my rhodos regulary haircuts.
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My rhodo matches my hairstyle perfectly now!
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Now after 3 years my Fantastika look like this
after the violent cut back.
(and a new fence!)
birck
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I guess when the plant was looking so good you had to give it a new fence to match it ;) ;D ;D
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Hej.
No one year later my Rh. Furnivall's Daughter look like this. (go back and compare the photos)
From the surrounding plants one can imagine how big it was before cut back.
Birck.