Easy Pruning Directions for Many Common Plants
Question from John:
Thank you Pat for all your wonderful help. I say again how much it is apprciated. Now I will spend another few hours surfing the internet to find out how to prune/trim all of the many remaining plants he planted and never retuned to show us how. to do
They are…besides already mentioned
1. Purple Leaf Plum tree…
2. Gardenia of which all 5 died
3. Rose: MrLincolon, Double Delight and Chicago Peace
4. Red Fountain Grass…now above the wall
5. Heliotrope
6. Westringer
7. Deiplodena red/pink
8. Diosnia
9. Greviloia somethying
10. Svia Indica, dark blue
11. Lambs Ear…we had to yank as it was taking over everything near
12. Status (?)
13. Leather Leaf Fern
14. Mondo Grass
15. Mother Fern
16. Creeping Blue Star or Sty Can’t d his writing
17. Baby Tears…
18. Ivy Gerraniums which we plan to yank as it too is taking over
19. Agapanthus I have no clue what he meant to write
20. Cordyline Palm, purple if its there I don’t see it
Fankly now that everything has grown in I think he has too many differnt plants
Again a huge thank you
Answer from Pat:
Your landscaper’s choice of plants is just fine. Minus the misspellings you have given me an excellent list of easy, colorful, disease-free plants that should be entirely trouble free. However, just reading between the lines of your emails I can tell you’re not having fun yet. I feel as if you’re not really enjoying this dream garden of yours. It is sounding a bit like a burden. My feeling has always been that folks who don’t like to garden shouldn’t do it. Instead, hire a better gardener or
tell the gardener you already have what to do. I am sure he would be only too delighted to do everything you tell him to do, especially the pruning. He just needs to be told.
Meanwhile, don’t look up pruning advice on the internet since you might accidentally come across some advice that is incorrect. Instead, purchase a pruning handbook as I’ve already suggested. Meanwhile, here are quick, easy pruning directions for the plants you mentioned. Every single one of these plants is easy to grow and should cause no problems. Only gardenias can be tricky if growing in the wrong spot. If you had begun with grafted ones they would have survived and if given full sun you would have been delighted with them, so go get some good ones and plant them in acid soil mix in full sun.
Here are the pruning directions:
- Purple leaf plum (Prunus cerasifera Nigra): Train when young as described before for young shade trees. Later only prune to remove dead branches.
- Gardenia: Little pruning needed other than removing faded flowers. Replace with grafted varieties from a good nursery such as Rogers Gardens in Newport.
- Roses: Follow the directions in the January chapter of my book and then follow further instructions given each month.
- Red Fountain grass (Pennisetum ‘Rubrum’), cut the whole thing to the ground in November after the first rain as described in the November chapter of my book,.
- Heliotrope, remove faded flowers, pinch tips to make bushy.
- Westringia rosmarinifolia: Prune in late spring or early summer (like now) by shearing all over once a year after bloom. (Blooms are insignificant.) If growing too large, shear more frequently to keep it compact. (Your gardener will love doing this!)
- Dipladenia: Pinch back in early spring to make it bushy if desired, even if there are flowers on the tips. Little pruning really needed.
- Diosma: Shear lightly all over after bloom to keep the plant compact. Don’t cut back hard.
Grevillea (shrub) probably Grevillia noelliae: No pruning necessary, unless you need to control its size. Best pruned after flowering. - Salvia ‘Indigo Spires”: Pinch back to keep compact. This plant can get rangy if not pinched back to control. Cut it back whenever it spreads too far.
- Statice, actually Sea lavender (Linaria perezii) Cut off dead blooms when they become unsightly.
- Leather leaf fern (Rhumohra adiantiformis). Remove any dead or unsightly leaves down to the ground. Otherwise no pruning. Easy and drought-resistant
- Mondo grass (Liriope): No pruning necessary.
- Mother fern: clip off any unsightly fronds.
- Blue star creeper: No pruning necessary except to clip edges if it strays.
- Baby tears. No pruning necessary. (Same as for blue star creeper.)
- Ivy geraniums: Don’t yank them out. Simply cut them back. Follow up with fertilizer and water. (Perhaps you are watering too much if things are growing this much.)
- Agapanthus. When blooms fade pull them out. (ie: Don’t clip off the faded flower stems, just yank them out.) Otherwise no pruning necessary.
- Cordyline australis ‘Purpurea’ or Cordyline baueri, which is very popular right now. This is not really a palm. It is a spikey looking plant on a trunk or eventually it will grow a trunk. You may think of it as a dracaena. You have a red one (kind of brownish, very pretty when the sun shines through it) : No pruning necessary except to pull off the faded leaves. (These are long and pointed.)
You do not have too many plants. Having too few plants would be boring. This is a good list of very easy plants.
Now I feel as if I have spent a lot of time trying to help you, and I feel you need to do something for me in return, so I have a request. Please send for a copy of my book “Pat Welsh’s Southern California Organic Gardening, Month-by-Month” (Chronicle Books, 2010) and start reading it every month. In this way you will repay me for my time and begin learning about all the plants you have and what to do for each. You might even get bitten by “the gardening bug.” Gardening is not rocket science, it’s just a matter of knowing what to do and either getting someone to do it or doing it yourself, if you enjoy it. (If you don’t like gardening, don’t do it!)
But gardening can be fun when you know how. I believe in organic gardening and encourage everyone to garden this way, but if you are not an organic gardener and don’t want to become one then please get yourself a copy of my earlier book: Pat Welsh’s Southern California Gardening: A Month-by-Month Guide, Completely Revised and Updated (Chronicle Books, 2000). You can find used copies on the internet. This one follows integrated pest control, but none of the plants you have are troubled with any pests. Purchasing my books and reading them and giving copies to your friends are the best ways to thank me because i wrote these books to help folks like you.
I thought you were just a nice lady who was willing to help me . When you mentioned Roger’s Gardens I thought perhaps you were from Ca and maybe even Orange County so I did what anyone else would do…Google “Pat Welsh”
Boy was I ever surprised. I congratulate you on all that you have accomplished. I stand in awe. and feel nothing but pleasure to have talked to you and perhaps someday I ight even get to shake your and thank you in person.
Eager to read everything you have written I just ordered both your books but will probably lean towads the information in the Organic Gardening book.
Thank you very much.
I live in Newport Beach & would like to know when to prune & feed my fuschias. Thank you very much!
Cut back fuchsias in November along the coast and mid-February inland. If you cut back fuchsias in November then fertilize them year round. (Since they grow year round we should feed them year round.) If you cut fuchsias back in February, however, then you can let them rest without fertilizer during the three coldest months, November, December and January and resume fertilizing after cutting back in mid-February. Fuchsias bloom only on new growth thus unless they grow they cannot bloom. Therefore, always fertilize fuchsias with a complete fertilizer especially for growth (with nitrogen) and also for flowers (with phosphorus and potassium.) Never feed fuchsias with fertilizer that has more phosphorus and potassium than nitrogen since that is meant just for flowers and when fed to fuchsias will slow down growth and thus result in mighty few flowers—the exact opposite of what one might suppose. Newport, where you live is in a mild, largely frost-free coastal climate. If you live in Newport you are either in Sunset Zone 24 (close to the ocean up to the top of the mesa) or Zone 23 (on top of the mesa and slightly inland.) Gardeners in these locations can cut back fuchsias in November and allow them to regrow throughout winter. If two or three miles further inland you would be in Zone 22 and in that case mid-February is the better time to cut back fuchsias. However, in your case since you did not do the job last fall and now is January I would wait until mid-February to cut back your fuchsias. If you cut back now and we happened to have a sudden and unexpected cold snap the plants might die. If you have large old fuchsia trees growing in the ground or in large pots, do not cut these back all at once. Cut back one-third, allow that to regrow. Then cut another one-third and so forth until you have cut back the whole plant. If you were to cut back a very old, woody, standard shrub all at once it might die. But if the plants you are cutting back are hanging baskets then, regardless of age, you can cut these back to pot level or 4 or 5 inches from the top of the soil mix in the container. Simply cut off all the foliage and all the twiggy growth leaving the woody plant with several branches at that level. Then tip the container on its side and with a gloved hand clean out all the dead leaves, debris, and any dead bodies of slow-release plant food and discard. Also dig out a few inches of the spent soil and additionally take your clippers and cut off some of the old roots. Throw all this away. To prevent a carry over of pests and diseases it’s safest to bag this and send it to the dump. Then set the container upright once again and refill with fresh soil mix, pressing it down. Then hang the plant back onto it’s hook and water it well. After root pruning be sure never to let the roots dry out or the plant may die. One week after cutting back resume fertilizing with a complete organic fertilizer containing both growth and bloom ingredients. Here is a tip: You can grow wonderful fuchsias by fertilizing them every two weeks with fish emulsion diluted according to package directions. Another easier way is to feed once a month by placing one tablespoon of 14-14-14 balanced slow-release fertilizer such as Apex Blue 14-14-14 on top of the soil mix of every hanging basket. The plant will be fed every time it’s watered. Apex Blue is not an organic fertilizer, but I am not a total purist and using a little slow-release fertilizer for a few fuchsias is not going to cause any devastating harm to our planet. I repeat to emphasize this point it is important to feed fuchsias continually for growth so they continually grow new tips that will bloom. As soon as you have cut back your fuchsias begin weekly pinching them back to make them bushy. Each time the plant puts on two sets of leaflets, pinch off the top pair off thus making the plant branch and grow twice the number of tips. When the plants have grown another pair of leaflets and these, in turn have put out a new stem topped with little leaves, pinch again and the plant will branch again. If you feed continually you will need to pinch all the plants once a week. When you have created a completely bushy hanging basket or standard plant, that’s the time to stop pinching and let the plant bloom. After you stop pinching the plant it may take six weeks or even eight weeks before it will resume blooming because it will take it that much time to grow new tip growth that can bloom. This is why when I grew masses of fuchsias I always used to cut my fuchsias back in November. I pinched back all throughout November and January (a total of 12 times at least.) Then plants were getting ready to bloom during February and March they would burst into full magnificent bloom in April and stay in bloom until November when once again I cut them all back. I watered daily with a drip system, dead-headed weekly, fed monthly with one tablespoon slow-release fertilizer on top of the soil, and kept them in full bloom until November when it was time to cut them back again. Please note: This plant is spelled Fuchsia, not the way it sounds (fuschia). This is a common spelling error but one will never forget if you recall that this beloved and magnificent flowering shrub was named after a famous 16th-century German physician and botanist called Leonhart Fuchs. Leonhart Fuchs is thought of as one of the three fathers of botany. He was especially interested in the study of herbs that might be useful as medicines for healing his patients. From studying herbs he then became interested in all plants and how they are constructed.