Conifers: What are you growing?

I'd leave them be for now but don't go by what I say because I've only been playing with Conifers for a few years. This was the year I started my windbreak and I'm learning as I go.

I was an environmental engineer (graduated in 97) there, but didn't do much actual studying. Learning wasn't high on the priority list either.

Bill

taya. your pinus densiflora, oculis Draconis, Dragon's Eye (got that all written) looks nice and healthy, as others have said save the pruning until spring.

Now my sad story. I planted one of the above 10 years ago about 7 or8 feet from my lily pool, has grown nicely ever since until this year. It has just died. Was about 8 or 9 feet tall. We really had a weird year so far. I lost leaders on several of my shrubs and/or trees. Not from the winter persea, just weather in general I think. For instance last week we were having high 80s to low 90s daytime. Yesterday the high here was 65 degrees, the low this morning is 36 degrees, way lower than it should be. My gh is not ready for occupancy yet!!!!!!!!

Donna

thanks ! yeah its been such a weird season here too. and last summer was soo dang hot . i havent lost any thing but the roses seem to have a tough time when it gets hot again after such cool nights. my POD looked like it wasnt going to make it this spring . the colour is just what i want so ill try to restrain the scissor hands till spring ... thanks for the advice ... now if i could just get someone to tell me what to do about the cherries. did i post it in the wrong place ???
http://davesgarden.com/forums/t/651718/

(From 8 April)

There's 7 families:
1) Araucariaceae
2) Cephalotaxaceae (sometimes included in Taxaceae)
3) Cupressaceae
4) Pinaceae
5) Podocarpaceae
6) Sciadopityaceae
7) Taxaceae

Resin

Hi looking for help,

Don't fertilize after August first. (Your plant has no fertilizer demands besides).

If you want a fuller plant don't pinch the "candles"(new growth) until they've elongated. At this point, you could for astetic purposes pinch the top candles and allow the bottom candles to elongate fully (not pinching at all). The top ones you've pinched will set buds for next year on those candles and so will the bottom ones with the only difference being that the bottom of the shrub will eventually become fuller and catch up with the top.

Also, you can pinch as needed below to create more denseness, for example, meaning that you could allow the candle to elongate (I'm guessing that cultivar grows approximately 6" per year) to say 2-3 inches then it will set buds like previously mentioned and by doing so, it will start to "bush up".

Hope this isn't too much jargon for you.

Dax

are you telling me those lower branches will amount to something?

Unless you want it to look like a parasol, I would leave the lower branches for now. And yes, if they get enough sun and if the humidity that close to the ground is not too high, they can amount to something. Anyway, you can always remove them later. I would let your tree become better established (2-3 years) before removing much of anything.

Guy S.

okokok il put the loppers away! for now!
thanks so much
taya

I agree with Guy certainly, this species doesn't at all like humidity. Real good point.

Dax

dont like humidity??????????? when i did the original research on these i thought that i read that ecergreens suffer in dry summers?????? it was grown in oregon which i thought was humid....theres so much conflicting info online it s frustrating when you want something unusual sold by a local nursery

Most of Oregon has pretty dry air in the growing season, when the needle fungi roam like street gangs looking for a victim. And most of the hard pines (2-needle and 3-needle) except for some of theso-called "southern pines" are adapted to dry conditions. But you can't do much about that anyway, so fuggedaboudit. Just sit back and let your pine do its thing.

Guy S.

i will thanks .i have a tough time removing things that are growing!
taya

See all those brown needles in the center of your pine?? Remove em! They harbor insects and also can literally choke a plant to death.

Dax

ok thanks!

Atta Boy Dax!
Giving Taya something to focus on to take her mind off the pruning!
Yoo da Man! LOLOL

Guy S.

ok ok i did that and holy @#$$$%*&^ there were those scary tbrown things with pincers in there! .. moved on to pruning the big scary roses i should have done a month ago! we'll see if they survive taya scissorhands ..i know my hands are now a bloody mess.. like that chinese torture "death by 1000 cuts"....

Dax is gone for a bit.

Doesn't take much to get rid of him, does it? I figured he'd hold out for at least two bits!
Hee-hee-hee!

Taya, I think we need to fix you up with a big, honking chain saw!
Double Hee-hee-hee!!!

Guy S.

I scored a Serbian Spruce at Lowes yesterday--it's good to see whole tables full of such a nice plant--gallons were $3.33!

I gotta go to Lowes now that I have one only 15 miles aways from me!

equi ... its good yours is so far away ,i live about 1/4 mile frome a despot AND a lowes and if you cruise them regularly they have some unusual things sometimes ..and good deals .. i just paid 100 each for something i got at lowes in the spring for 25... stinks !sometimes ya just gotta have it.! last month they had a whole bunch ofdifferent kinds of gnarly contorted evergreens .i dont need any but they were interesting
t

There there there greenobsessed, you will soon learn that this need to acquire is part of the disease. I think these threads are littered with people who suffer from OC disorder and now you have officially joined the ranks.

Whatdidya buy last spring for $100 each? Come on now, share with us. We understand, we feel your pain. You are amongst friends.

Shopping at the big box stores is analogous to growing invasives and zoned-out plants, isn't it? You know better, but you still gotta have some of the stuff. I just picked up a couple of nice tropicals at K-mart last night. They would have been tossed soon if I didn't rescue them. Right? Hmmmm? Anybody care to reinforce my rationalization? And I wasn't even intending to go there. I had to stop at the hardware store next door, and just was drawn over there by the siren songs.

Kneevin, if you get a chance, please grab me about $10 worth of those Serbians. I have a place that needs a few more.

No, on second thought, don't do it -- I don't want to patronize them instead of my local true nurseries.

Yeah, do it anyway! Nuts!!!

Guy S, member (and temporarily off the wagon again) --
Plantaholics Anonymous

Nope.

Ummm... I bought Annabelle Hydrangeas, a Sugar Maple, and numerous Virginia Sweetspires from my Lowes and the tags all had origins of Michigan and Indiana. I can still shop there without buying their scummy Calleryana Pears and Barberry. The plants I bought were in good shape.

Signed,
the Founder of Plantaholics Anonymous after buying 1400 native saplings in one year. Can we say eyes bigger than stomach all in unison?

Equil, 1400 saplings in one year. Yowsers. What do/did your hands look like? :)

Bill

That was the figure for just the native saplings. I didn't include all the native herbaceous perennials I ordered that year that started getting delivered round about the same time the bare root saplings started getting delivered. The numbers didn't seem so high given I had my trusty dibble bar by my side UNTIL I had to start getting them in the ground. And then it rained, and it didn't let up for what seemed to be an eternity. It was the year the Des Plaines River came up and enveloped us. Remember the photos of Lake County with people rowing to their front doors? That was the year of all years that I chose to go for it and just bite the bullet and assembly line style replace hundreds of the Buckthorns I had been removing by ordering hundreds of native saplings. Have you ever seen that movie, "Night of the Living Dead"? That's what I looked like, an extra in that movie. When one is extremely dumb, one pays. Need I say any more?

Did you wear a headlamp and plant at night?

Bill

No, but I was out there in a parka and I did once pull my car way up and had it lodged between piles of stuff pointing out into the woods once with the headlamps on. Didn't do that again, the car wouldn't start the next morning and my husband was gone and there was no way to get another car in close to the front of mine to jump it although my neighbor tried. I had to borrow the neighbor's pickup truck to get the kids to school and go to a meeting in high heels and hose driving his rusted out PU truck and let me tell you I was downright grateful to have it. That was special. All I could say when people asked what happened to my car was, "Don't ask". I did take the liberty of picking up top soil on the way home so I guess alls well that ends well.

Gosh, weren't you on Jerry Spring that year!

just Kidding.

Hey! Sometimes I don't even leave home when the symtoms start to hit me. Just Dial up on Ebay, and shop 'til I feel better. This week I bought three epies, one really cool elkhorn fern, a strange Aroid with palm frond like leaves with a climbing habit, and an Orchid on a stick. Those nauseating sewer problems just seem to melt away. AAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHH...

This message was edited Sep 21, 2006 11:55 AM

No, but I suppose I could have been. Does Jerry Springer pay well for appearances? Maybe if I had gone on his show I could have afforded support crews to help me get my saplings in the ground, mulched, and tubed. As it was poor Lucky got a very frantic call at work once the realization hit me that I was sinking like the Titanic. He bailed my rear out and told me what to do with them so I could take my time getting them in the ground.

You and Guy could have started fighting about the Albiza on Springer. Any bodies back there Equil, or should I not ask?

Bill

No, I didn't mean regarding provenance (although a Michigan nursery still might be using Tennessee provenance material, and Annabelles are a cultivar anyway). I just meant it's something we should avoid doing because we should be supporting the good nurseries instead, as we all said about the original incarnation of Heronswood. Oh, well, temptation rules. Hold a thin mint in front of Evil and tell her not to bite, and your fingers will still be history! Same with me and dark chocolate.


Would that be pay-for-view TV? Are there any rules, or is it like a knife fight? Can I use a chainsaw? I'd clean her clock, that little blonde pipsqueak!


Speaking of Lucky, where is Mr. Pecanhead lately? Why isn't he showing up over on that hickory thread?

Bill, I wonder what Springer would give for a peek at the upcoming Guys & Girls of Gardens calendar we're all working on . . .

Mike, I guess we've strayed a bit from your original thread, huh?

Guy S.

ohmg you cant make me laugh like that i have stress incontinence!!! hickory head pecan thread ..theres a pecan thread ????thalk about ocd .. i paid 100 dollars for a wichita juniper! boring thing .. but it was what ineeded an NOONE else had it of course i HAD to buy the contorted weeping something or othrerii .....you latino philes figure out what it was... ok ive had one martooni too many ... nooty naught ...OK WHAT WUZ THE QUESTION??? oh yeah .. obsession... who MOI?
tootles
tayatayaystatYAY!

This message was edited Sep 22, 2006 7:59 PM

what the are you arguing about albizias for ????there abou 3 in town here i want one too .... evil what do you have against them here???? theyre lovely ....invasive in warmer climes but ???
t

This message was edited Sep 22, 2006 7:58 PM

ok ive worke d about 20 hrs tobday and ive got a12 hour one coming at me tomorrow ... i made chicken soop for the fambily and the dang dawg ate the baguette... nity nite..all you latin shpeaking tree obsessed . zonally challenged ,morally evergreen people !
ayatay

and im feeling resentful that NOONE will say anything about my weeping cherry question???? whats up there .. yaaal chicken??

Somebody sounds upset that her blessed Frightening Illini REALLY suck again this year! Drowning your sorrows, eh?
Hee-hee-hee!

And hey, we did reply to your cherry question! I hope someone saves your four posts above so you can explain them for us once you're back on the wagon!!! (But about this stress incontinence stuff, I don't think I wanna learn any more about that part!)
;-)

Guy S.

hey until they give the frightening illini "chief "(white dude in a bad costume dancing very very badly) retirement i couldnt care less what they do! im a left wing er um aaah ... no you didnt reply to my chery question ˜http://davesgarden.com/forums/t/651718/ . no one loooooves meeeeee ! i get whiny after a toony or tooo.
t

Half in the bag, or not, shes got ya there Guy. No replies to her pruning weeping cherries. I'd reply, but that is like the blind leading the blind. This is a gardening forum, lets not go there with the chief. :)

Bill