Vas Sladek

Resilient Magnolia

I have known this one Magnolia tree for ten years. I still remember seeing it for the first time because there was an obvious wound at the base from mowers. Poorly trained landscapers refused to get off the curb and mowed in a straight line, hitting the tree once a week. Now, ten years later, we have lessons to learn from this Magnolia case.

Mowers and tree bark don’t mix

Your mower doesn’t have the right of way. I train my workers to avoid tree collisions at all costs because trees are more valuable than grass.

When you hit trees you stress them out. Now instead of investing resources into new growth, they have to work on repairs. When I look at the street I can see that the other Magnolias are bigger, probably because they don’t get abused by mower decks weekly.

Weekly injuries can kill the tree.

Are we done?

A few weeks ago I shot a video of my worker mowing around the tree, never getting close enough to injure it. See the video below.

And then it hit me: if you mow straight today you will probably not touch the tree because the gap at the base is large enough ten years later to allow the mower to pass by! That’s comical.

Why isn’t the tree dead?

Trees are resilient! This particular Magnolia is smaller than its cousins nearby but it’s still standing and producing flowers and seed pods, after ten years of abuse. So why isn’t it dead? Pure luck?

Not really. Trees can build different protective walls around wounds which protect the tree from decay, diseases and insects. I suspect that’s what this Magnolia used its precious resources for: building real walls, not useless walls like Trump’s border wall.

The technical term is “compartmentalization” which refers to trees sealing off the wound. In arboriculture we use the acronym CODIT for compartmentalization of decay in trees.

Conclusion

Keep your mowers away from tree bark. Period. No excuses. Make it a habit and train your workers well.

Repeated wounding can stress and kill your tree.

Learning about a new perennial

I’ve been landscaping for twenty six seasons and there is always something new to learn. Especially plants. And recently I’ve been running into a yellow-flowered perennial which we consider a weed on our strata sites because we don’t want it.

I have a client who struggles with this unwanted plant in his front lawn. Also, my commercial sites have the plant growing through my heather plants which makes it hard to pull them out. And even worse, workers send me pictures of it and ask if they should remove it. I even photographed the plant on my sister’s ranch outside Kamloops, British Columbia.

Since I had no idea what it was called, I had to look it up.

Red Seal Vas gets schooled

So, first, we have to identify the plant. Luckily, it shows up in my copy of “Popular wildflowers of BC and Vancouver Island” by Neil L. Jennings. It’s called Lotus corniculatus or Bird’s Foot Trefoil. Jennings tells us that this was a pasture plant in Europe. It’s a low-growing, sprawling, creeping perennial.

I don’t mind the look; I like yellow flowers. But it’s the sprawling, creeping habit that’s annoying because it’s hard to pull out of heather plants. Bird’s Foot Trefoil flowers from June to September and you can expect the flowers to turn into seed pods.

So is it a weed? Technically yes, if you don’t want it. Otherwise, it’s a decent looking perennial wildflower from the pea family. I got the worker who texted me about it to pull it out because it was smothering groundcover plants. If I find growing in open spots, I will most likely leave it alone.

And the next time my workers ask me about it, I will tell them it’s Lotus corniculatus and refer them to this brilliant blog post.

Conclusion

Learning never stops! I’m used to that but I’m not used to all of a sudden seeing the same unknown plant everywhere. I had to look it up this weekend.

So keep working on your plant identification skills.

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Watch it!

Last week we covered mistimed pruning on a Hydrangea paniculata and this week we cover the same topic but with a different shrub. Now, I’ve written about Callicarpa pruning accidents before; but I have to do it again because last week I witnessed a landscaper taking liberties with the shrubs.

It started very innocently: mid-season pruning is concerned with keeping shrubs in decent shape. Roses and dogwood shrubs definitely looked out of shape by July. With limited space in multi-family complexes, shrubs are often sheared into submission. And many can take the abuse because they push out new growth right away.

But you can’t treat every shrub the same way. Remember the Hydrangea paniculata from last week?

Beautyberry

If you move very fast it’s easy to move from a dogwood shrub to a Callicarpa and start shearing. Luckily I noticed the tiny flower clusters before pruning. So I did prune the edges of the shrub because the flowert clusters aren’t terminal. You see them one or two nodes down which allows you to reduce the shrub size slightly without losing any flowers.

The landscaper I witnessed shaved off a lot of flowers.

The common name beautyberry is a tip off: we’re not really worried about flower shows because the flowers turn into beautiful purple berry clusters. And those clusters persist into winter when all of the foliage is gone. That’s when they really pop: purple berries really stand out on an otherwise bare shrub. Personally, I love the look, so I try not to shave off any flowers in mid-season.

Conclusion

Get to know your shrubs and you’ll be rewarded, especially if you time your pruning correctly. Clipping Callicarpa into shape in mid-season isn’t worth sacrificing winter berries for. I love the way the berries pop in winter on bare shrubs.

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Time your pruning correctly

It’s important to time your shrub pruning properly, especially with showy specimens like Hydrangea paniculata. When this hydrangea blooms, it’s an awesome show with white panicles covering the shrub. But you have to make sure the small, developing flowers don’t go missing when they’re still inconspicuous.

I witnessed one such accidental pruning earlier this summer. Dudes were talking and snipping shoots that looked out of shape. But they failed to notice the small developing flowers. By the time one of the owners noticed the deed, it was too late.

Oh well!

Now, luckily the lady was good about it. “It happens” attitude is nice to have but as a landscape manager I want my crews well trained. The lesson here is that Hydrangea paniculata should be pruned in fall, winter or early spring before flowers start developing. Once you see flowers, the shrub is off limits. Leave it alone and enjoy the show from mid-summer on.

When I examined the shrub, the developing flowers were still green and not easy to spot so the workers need to know the shrub and correct pruning time. That takes time and repetition.

I got to see the shrub in late July and, from a distance, it looked ok. But up close, you can see the incorrect cuts up top where the growth spikes would have attracted landscapers bent on controlling every shrub.

So, it’s not a complete disaster but the show is slightly diminished, which is unfortunate.

Conclusion

Be careful when you prune! Carefully consider your targets and ask yourself why you’re pruning. When you see a few spikes on top of your shrub, relax, and examine the shrub for flowers. This should be easy to do in your own garden because you know your shrubs well.

If you do mess up, then learn from it and do better in the following season. It probably isn’t a huge disaster.

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House for sale

As a landscaper running my own side-hustle operation, I get a lot of requests for help with houses going on the market. And very few of these houses have gardens in great shape. Usually, I see lawns that are weak and cut too short, with overgrown shrubs and trees; and you see large trophy weeds everywhere.

And after twenty-six seasons in landscape maintenance you would think that I have seen it all. Wrong! There are always surprises waiting for me.

A bamboo lawn?

It started out like a normal operation. The lawn in front of the house looked long and weedy, with sweetgum tree suckers poking out from Azaleas and the open spots had weeds. Nothing I can’t handle.

Then I dropped down a set of stairs to the back lawn and I was stunned! The lawn was covered in bamboo shoots too thick to mow over. So I had to charge the owner for removing the bamboo and then mowing.

And as I was bent over the bamboo shoots, snipping them off, I kept thinking about the poor new owners. How do you even get rid of bamboo which easily crossed over from the neighbour all the way to the patio. That’s a nightmare.

I was supposed to do bi-weekly cuts while the house was on the market. But since the bamboo grows fast, I suggested weekly mows so I could just mow down the bamboo shoots. Otherwise she’d have to pay for the extra removal.

Renters did it?

Now, it’s easy to pick on renters for failing to maintain the landscaping. However, in this case it’s the owners we have to blame. The neighbours live in Asia and rent out their house. Unfortunately, somebody planted bamboo along the fence and it obviously escaped. It crossed the lawn and reached my client’s patio. So be careful when you plant bamboo: pick varieties that don’t spread.

I have no idea what the new owners will do. They have to dig up the bamboo from their lawn and somehow block it from invading again. That doesn’t sound like fun and I won’t be doing it; even if it could put my kids through college.

Ruthless tree removal

Sadly, some poorly placed trees must be removed before they get too big. This is often the case with invaders like one alder tree I removed today. I was mowing near a patio when I noticed an alder tree growing in front of a window; it was also crowding out a hydrangea shrub. Alarm bells went off in my head.

Now, I love trees and I think we should be planting more of them but this alder didn’t have a future in its current spot. All you have to do is look into the nearby wild zone to see mature alder specimens. Left alone, this alder would eventually reach over the roof.

Knock, knock

Since you can’t eliminate the possibility of homeowner planting, I did what you should always do. I knocked on the door so I could speak to the owner. The last thing you want to do is uproot a tree donated by long-deceased grandpa.

And after a few questions it became obvious that this alder was a wild invader and it wasn’t especially loved. It was time to get a sharp hand saw.

Voted off the island

Every time I remove trees or seedlings I feel bad about it, but poorly placed trees can’t be left to mature and cause problems. So I grabbed my sharp Fiskars hand saw and I took the alder tree down.

It’s best to take it down in sections, starting at the top. Since this was a small tree, I took cut it down by half. One day we’ll go back and dig up the root base. I suspect we’ll see suckers sprouting out of the base soon. Alders are fast-growing, colonizers.

Conclusion

If you discover seedlings or small trees invading inappropriate spaces, take action. I absolutely detest removing healthy trees but in these cases there is no choice. It’s better to do it early on when there is little green waste generated and chainsaws aren’t required.

Remove the invading tree and plant something else. The bed I worked in has a hydrangea shrub which should benefit from more light. And there is plenty of space for other plants.