For:
By: Daniel E. Mullins
Extension Horticulture Agent
Give Landscapes a Chance to Recover
The hurricane obviously damaged most landscapes in the area to some degree and gardeners are busy helping them to recover. Before work begins, residents should be observant and make some well thought out decisions. Don’t give up on shrubs and perennials just because they are wind blown and broken. They are more resilient and capable of recovery than we give them credit for.
There is a natural tendency to return things to normal in the landscape as soon as possible, but don’t overreact by removing and replacing all damaged plants unless a redo was already being considered. Following are some tips that will hopefully be helpful to those who are working to repair storm damaged landscapes.
■ When cleaning out perennial and shrub beds avoid the urge to rake and remove all debris down to bare soil. By exposing the soil beneath the old mulch some damage is done to shallow roots. Instead, remove only the coarsest materials such as tree branches, while keeping a two to three inch deep layer of fallen leaves and twigs as natural mulch. More formal gardeners who consider such mulch crude, can leave a two inch layer and top it off with an inch of commercial decorative mulch.
■ Prune to remove broken branches from shrubs, cutting into green wood just below the damaged areas. Do not severely prune shrubs at this time of year unless the entire top portion has been killed. Heavy late season pruning results in a flush of growth that is susceptible to cold damage. Such severe pruning also removes stored energy that will be needed for the spring flush of growth and recovery next growing season.
■ Even homeowners whose landscapes were
flooded with salt water should give most of their shrubs and flowers a chance
to recover. Data collected after
Hurricanes Erin and Opal revealed that many species came back after being
flooded with salt water for several hours.
Most of the bulb producing plants such as Amaryllis,
were virtually unaffected, showing little or no ill effects the following
season.
■ Most landscape plants undoubtedly experienced root trauma due to being rocked and twisted by high winds. Thorough irrigation once or twice per week will help to fill resulting air pockets in the soil and allow the root system to begin recovery.
■ Though there is desire to see quick plant recovery, avoid the use of high nitrogen containing fertilizers this late in the year. Any fertilizer application should be limited only to those with relatively low nitrogen and phosphorus but high potassium.
Note: This will likely be the last storm related gardening column that I will write for awhile, unless readers would like more on the subject. I am ready to say goodbye to Hurricane Ivan, finish cleaning up the yard and start sprucing things up.
Question of the Week: My pear trees have suddenly started blooming – in October! This is very unusual. What could be causing this?
Answer: Plants frequently respond to stress by attempting to reproduce. Obviously, your pear trees experienced great stress due to the hurricane, and have gone into a reproductive stage by flowering. This is a complex chemical reaction and is interesting to study. There are many stories for example, of oak trees producing their heaviest crop of acorns the year before they die. I doubt that your pear trees are in danger of dying, but they are expending some stored energy that was to be used next spring.