Plant of the Week
I am lucky enough to be able to stare at a fairly mature Live Oak from my less than aesthetically pleasing Florida rental, and it is making all right in the world again. Live Oaks, the Quercus virginiana, can grow for centuries and take up the space of city blocks. They host innumerable mammals, insects and birds. Majestic is the adjective you are looking for.
Angel Oak near Charleston, probably 400 years old.
Live Oak allee at the Wormsloe Historic Site in Savannah, GA.
MY Live Oak, outside the Plastic Plant rental. Brings me joy every day (the tree).
An accessorized and gravity defying limb of MY Live Oak.
Guest
I bumped into Kelly Lehman on Instagram a few months ago, and besides her enthusiasm and knowledge, part of what drew me in was Lucy the Bernese Mountain Dog (two of my grand dogs are Berners). Kelly and I talked about her social media presence, the growth of gardening brought on by the lockdown, and what a great community the world of gardening is.
We even found we have a common friend in Launceston, Tasmania, Julie Hart (Nanny Noo!) will be my guest next week!
Kelly, a plethora of Hydrangeas and dear sweet Lucy.
Kelly took our zoom chat and made a video out of it, which you can see here. Kelly put the work into making this, and it’s really helpful to see some of the visuals she put into the topics we discuss.
She may be onto something here, this YouTube thing. You should check out her channel— lots of fabulous information there!
Her many social platforms are linked below, and of special interest are
her flower courses she is offering through a platform called Retrieve.
Also have a look at…
Kelly’s Facebook Flower Tribe group
Whew! All those links practically wrote the whole blog!
Kelly and I talked about Hydrangea Pruning, and then I went on to a few more details on that subject during…
(OH! And the dwarf Hydrangea arborescens that I could not think of in the moment is the H. arborescens ‘Wee White’.)
The Play List
Rule #1 about Hydrangea pruning is that it never has to happen. But I love to check in with mine each winter and see how they are doing. A little shape up is often needed. In this episode, I introduce the basics of winter pruning of any flowering shrub and they are…
Sharp pruners are the way to go, and you know I love my Okatsunes.
Assess your flowering shrub— do you like the shape? Do you like the size?
Remove broken or dead branches. I like to get rid of any branches growing along the ground or crowding the middle. Yes, there are flowers on the branches I am removing, but I would never miss them because of where they are growing, and I like a little control!
More next week on specifically pruning Hydrangea macrophylla. Here’s a preview!
And, lastly, the promised link to the Gardernerd Tip of the Week podcast with Jeff Pierce— they one where he talks about the fact that the plant/soil continuum extends to the biodomes found inside of each one of us too!