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evergreens

Time to Maintain: Pruning Evergreen Shrubs

March 5, 2018

Do you have boxwoods, cherry laurels, or other shrubs with evergreen leaves in your yard or landscape? Late winter and early spring are the best times to prune these and many other leafy evergreens in your landscape.

Aucuba (Aucuba japonica), boxwood (Buxus sempervirens), cherry laurel (Prunus laurocerasus), and osmanthus (Osmanthus sp.) are a few of the many shrubs grown for their evergreen foliage rather than their blooms or fruit. Often serving as foundation plants and hedges, such shrubs have a variety of leaf shapes and leaf variegation (different colors in the same leaf) that make them welcome in the winter landscape.

Spotted Laurel, Aucuba japonica_J Maughn_CC BY-NC 2.0_Flickr
Aucuba (aucuba japonica) or spotted laurel
Boxwood hedge_spring garden_Ken Dodds_CC BY-NC-ND 2.0_Flickr
Boxwood (Buxus sempervirens) hedge
Osmanthus_leaves and budding flowers_Homer Edward Price_CC BY 2.0_Flickr
Osmanthus or tea olive, budding flowers

Do you need to prune?
Although the title of this blog post is “Pruning of Evergreen Shrubs,” of all the plants in your landscape, evergreen shrubs require very little annual pruning! They grow into desirable forms by themselves and only need an occasional helping hand from you. When you do prune, keep the following in mind:

  • Always carry a sharp pair of hand pruners in your hand or a leather scabbard on your belt when working with the evergreen shrubs in the yard.
  • Be on the lookout for dead or broken branches and remove them promptly.
  • Remove any branches that are crossing over each other as they can rub the bark and make the plants more susceptible to infection.
  • Prune back branches that are growing onto driveways, sidewalks, and patios. When pruning, be sure to cut back to a branch or node that is pointing in the direction that you want it to grow.
  • When you shear hedges, remember to leave the bottom of the plants a bit wider than the tops to get light to the lower limbs, keeping them lush and green.
  • Prolonged use of electric hedge shears will result in a very small veneer of leaves just on the outer surface of the plants. If part of a continually sheared plant dies, the inner leaf buds will not develop and you will be left with a “hole” in your hedge. Take a look inside your hedge, and if you do not see leaf growth along the inner branches, you need to seriously consider using hand pruners to thin out portions of the plant canopy so light gets into these inner areas and the secondary buds have a chance to develop.
Topiary at Pearl Fryar Topiary Garden, Bishopville, SC
Topiary at Pearl Fryar Topiary Garden, Bishopville, SC

Some of these plants (such as boxwood or Japanese holly) can be pruned into fantastical shapes in topiary form. Plants shaped this way bring to mind animals, ships, and buildings. Forming plants into topiaries requires a tremendous amount of time and pruning effort to maintain their shape—almost constantly pruning off the stray branch or leaf—but the reward is a uniquely personal landscape.

 Cultural considerations
Evergreen shrubs are relatively disease- and insect-free and can be remarkably winter hardy. The fact that these plants keep their broad leaves throughout the winter, however, makes them particularly susceptible to winter desiccation and damage. You can avoid this by choosing the correct varieties for our area—pay strict attention to the hardiness zone when purchasing shrubs. Western North Carolina is generally in the USDA Hardiness Zone 6 or 7. Keeping a layer of mulch around the base of these plants will help to conserve moisture and minimize winter damage.

Caution! Know your shrubs!
Now is NOT the time to prune evergreen shrubs that you grow for their flowers! If you are uncertain, the Extension Master Gardener volunteers of Buncombe County can help you identify the plants in your landscape.

  • In general, shrubs blooming before June bloom on old season’s growth and you should prune them directly after blooming. Examples of plants in this category include azaleas and rhododendrons (both are Rhododendron spp.), as well as Japanese camellias (Camellia japonica) and mountain laurel (Kalmia latifolia). We will discuss their care in a future blog post.
  • Shrubs that bloom later in summer—such as hollies (Ilex spp.) and Pieris spp. (commonly known as andromedas or fetterbushes)—bloom on new growth so you can prune them before growth begins in the spring.

Article written by Bob Wardwell, Extension Master GardenerSM Volunteer.

Learn more
The Art and Science of Pruning
by N. Jordan Franklin, Consumer Horticulture Agent
Clemson Cooperative Extension

Pruning Trees & Shrubs: General Pruning Techniques
by Barbara Fair, Lucy Bradley, and Anthony LeBude
NC State Extension Publications

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Categories Seasonal Chores Tags evergreens, pruning, shrubs

Gardening on Slopes: Solve Problems with Plants

September 14, 2016

Sun. Shade. Wet. Dry. Tall. Short. Spreading. Contained. Don’t be intimidated by your steep slope. Start with your objective, identify any gardening problems you need to solve, and then select your plants. With thousands of plants to choose from, you’re bound to find the right ones for your space.

Diverse planting of conifers on slope
Diverse planting of conifers on slope.

Conifers
Low maintenance, erosion control, and all-season interest—especially during winter months—are typical gardening goals on slopes. Our acidic soils and a sunny hillside make an ideal environment for conifers. Nurseries will present you with an almost unlimited variety of conifer shapes, sizes, and colors from which to choose—spruce, cypress (Chamaecyparis spp.), pine, hemlock, arborvitae, and juniper. Conifers require little—if any—pruning, and typically are disease and insect free, making them well-suited for low-maintenance hillsides. Just know the natural growth habit of the variety you select. Is the conifer you choose a tree, shrub, or groundcover? A Norway spruce (Picea abies) can grow into a 90-foot tall tree, while a dwarf globosa blue spruce (Picea pungens ‘Globosa’) will remain a compact shrub, only three to four feet tall. While the variety of junipers can be mind-boggling, there’s nothing better to cover and hold a dry, hot slope than a spreading juniper (Juniperus horizontalis). Just be sure you have enough space because some junipers like ‘Shore’ and ‘Blue rug’ will spread ten feet or more.

Nellie R. Stevens hollies
Nellie R. Stevens hollies hide retaining wall. Daylilies outline path and camouflage lower holly branches.

Hollies
Hollies (Ilex spp.), like conifers, suit our WNC environment. They come in a vast variety of shapes, sizes, and colors. Some are evergreen; other are deciduous. ‘Nellie R. Stevens’ hollies are workhorses and provide outstanding privacy screens. There’s nothing prettier in the winter than the native winterberry holly (I. verticillata) covered with red berries—‘Red Sprite’ is a great cultivar. If you’re looking for an evergreen holly that thrives in moist soils and sends up shoots from root runners to hold soil on steep slopes, try the native inkberry holly (I. glabra). Japanese hollies (I. crenata) are often the perfect size for foundation plantings, but are highly susceptible to diseases, including root rot in poorly drained soil.

Moisture lovers
Shrubs that like wet soil and work especially well near the bottom of a steep slope or in an area that takes lots of stormwater runoff include sweetspire (Itea virginica), summersweet (Clethra alnifolia), and red twig dogwood (Cornus sericea). Plant these, give them lots of room to grow, and ignore.

Ornamental grasses
Ornamental grasses are excellent choices for dry, sunny slopes and they mix well with other shrubs and perennials either in masses or as individual specimens. Your ornamental grasses will need maintenance in the late winter—namely climbing your slope to cut them back to near-ground level just before new growth emerges. For shady spots, think ferns and hostas.

Shrubs for flowers and fall color
Shrubs such as hydrangeas, viburnums, and fothergilla add colorful interest to your slopes. Again, know the growth habit of shrubs you choose. Some viburnums can reach 12-feet tall, hydrangeas may need staking on a steep slope when their spreading branches are heavy with blossoms, and Fothergilla major tops out at 10 feet, but dwarf Fothergilla gardenii is a modest 3-feet tall at maturity.

Perennials and annuals
Speaking of staking—do you want to grow perennials or annuals on your slope? If so, be sure they have sturdy stems or plan on staking them. Tall flowers flop, especially after a heavy rain.

Ground cover: Green-and-Gold (Chrysogonum virginianum)
Green-and-Gold (Chrysogonum virginianum)

Groundcovers
We often want low-growing groundcovers to hold the soil on our slopes and carpet the ground beneath shrubs and trees. I’ve already mentioned creeping juniper for sunny, dry slopes. If your hillside is part sun to shade, try pachysandra—either the native Allegany spurge (P. procumbens) or the Japanese variety (P. terminalis). At less than six-inches tall, spreading, and evergreen, pachysandra makes a pretty groundcover summer and winter. Or you might cover your slope with low-maintenance creeping red fescue—a fine-bladed grass that stays green in winter. Other low-growing choices are green-and-gold (Chrysogonum virginianum) and creeping St. John’s wort (Hypericum calycinum), although both brown out during the winter. Perennials such as dwarf crested iris, catmint, stachys, and ajuga all make good groundcovers on slopes.

Avoid bullies
Warning! Never plant invasive species such as English ivy or periwinkles (Vinca major and V. minor) as a groundcover. And beware other aggressive groundcovers such creeping raspberry (Rubus pentalobus). While only English ivy climbs and helps kill trees, you’ll need to dedicate many gardening hours to pulling trailing vines to keep any of these plants in bounds.

Analyze your site, have a plan, install your hardscape and access paths, and spend time thoroughly researching your plant options. You will then be ready to select the right plant for the right space on your garden slope.

Article written by Beth Leonard, Extension Master Gardener Volunteer.

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Categories Landscape Design Tags conifers, evergreens, flowering shrubs, garden planning, groundcovers, hillsides, holly, invasive plants, landscape planning, ornamental grasses, planting on slopes, slopes

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