STACHYURUS QUESTION

(Sharon)SouthPrairie, WA(Zone 7a)

I have a S. Preacox (?) that is several years old which I have kept pruned to a quasi-weeping form. Every spring it wants to send out new, straight shoots that look like they should be below a graft but which really don't appear to be. My question is should I keep cutting the shoots back or let them go? I doesn't seem like that part will bloom this year............Help, please.

Beautiful, BC(Zone 8b)

I have always liked Stachyurus but when you mention it to staff at gardens, they dismiss it. That's probably for the same reasons you mention. The water shoots you mention get quite tall and eventually bend over. I think this plant is used to sending out these shoots tall enough so they eventually lay over other plants. Have you tried pruning the shoots at 5'? With the blooms the plant is best in the foreground but with the growth, it is a background plant. I honestly believe it is best mid-way amongst other evergreens where the shoots and blooms arch out from the other shrubs instead of on it's own or an embankment. Such a nice shrub.

This message was edited Feb 5, 2010 10:35 AM

Thumbnail by growin
(Sharon)SouthPrairie, WA(Zone 7a)

growin' I saw your pictures in the plant info files and thought "wow is that big." That may be what mine is striving for and what I have prevented thus far. I will take a picture this weekend to post to see if I am really on the right track here. I do have it in a mid range location so should probably keep up my pruning methods as it does seem to weep pretty well with this approach. The shoots do seem to resemble those that a pear tree puts out every spring.

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