Pruning your Alyogyne Huegelii
How to Prune Alyogyne Huegelii and other Australian Native Plants.
From time to time I get emails about pruning Australian Native Plants and the feeling I quite often get is that there are many gardeners that have a misconception that Australian Natives don’t like to be pruned.
And this really couldn’t be further from the truth. Banksias, Grevilleas, Eremophilas and even Alyogynes all respond really well to a regular prune but I suppose for some gardeners it can be a daunting task as some are reluctant to go ahead and take the secateurs to a plant, just in case it doesn’t grow back.
Well I suppose the first thing to consider is that some plants should only be pruned lightly and not below the previous years growth. While others can be pruned back to bare wood if need be and they will regrow again. So knowing which of these groups a particular plant fits into can be very important if you want get the most out of pruning your plants……….. and probably the best way to find out is this………..
Eremophila "Winter Gold" is one Australian Native Plant that responds really well to harsh pruning.
Alyogyne Huegelii 2 months after a light prune. It is regrowing well down on the branches that are over 2 years old.
Alyogyne Huegelii in late December after it's finished flowering and ready to be pruned.
Alyogyne Huegelii after a light prune. If I wanted to I could have taken much more off but in this case I was happy with this amount.
Alyogyne Huegelii in late Feburary growing back into a nice compact, dense shrub that will continue to regrow into autumn and then start to form flowers in late winter.
Just as your plant is coming into it’s normal growing season (spring in most cases) cut back part of the plant (maybe at the rear) right back to some bare wood and then just wait and see if it starts to sprout some new growth. If it regrows you know you can then prune it back really hard if need be and if it doesn’t you know you need to be a bit more conservative with your pruning.
Alyogyne Huegelii is one plant that will respond really well to harsh pruning and will regrow from older bare branches. Pruning this plant back really hard is a great way to rejuvenate an older shrub that has rarely been pruned in the past. It will also transform it into a more compact, denser shrub that will flower much more prolifically the following spring.
If you prune regularly though, then you may just want to prune it back somewhere between a 1/3 to 2/3 depending on your preference. I prune my Alyogyne Huegelii each year after it finishes flowering which is normally in about early summer.
Because of this I normally only have to prune off about 1/3 but if I wanted to I could have taken off quite a bit more.
So if you’re not sure how much you can prune your particular plant back then experiment. All plants are different when it comes to how hard you can prune them but once you work out what’s best for a particular plant then you can go about it more confidently and as a result you’ll end up with a much more compact plant that will look more attractive, will most likely be more wind resistant, may even live longer and best of all will flower so much more prolifically the following year.
And finally remember this, when you do prune your plants they can look a little bare for a little while afterwards (something like when you get a bad hair cut maybe?). But most Australian Natives will grow back fairly quickly so when it comes to the decision of whether to prune or not to prune, I can only say this…………
I always prefer a plant that will look a little strange for a month or two and then look fantastic for the rest of the year as opposed to one that’s not pruned at all and just looks average (at best) for the whole of the year.
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Garden Plants
Over the last ten years the types of plants that I’ve been interested in has broadened and developed. The part of the world where I live has now been in drought for about the last 12 years. Now when I use the word drought I use it in reference to the fact the our average rainfall has been significantly less over this period to the extent that most of our lakes, dams and water storages are now at an all time low.
Over the years the gardens in this area have been planted out with plants that relied on the availability of the water that comes from the garden tap to keep them alive during a hot Australian summer and as such most gardens up until just a few years ago were full of these types of plants. These days though the water isn’t as available from our mains water for the garden and as a result the type of plants you see in new gardens these days is slowly changing.
For my way of thinking I think that this is fantastic. I was lucky enough right from the start to be attracted to these plants. I refer to them as drought tolerant plants and there are so many of them out in the nurseries today that gardeners now have an unlimited amount to choose from.
When I first started gardening, I became instantly interested in plants that were rarely seen in most gardens. The plants I initially took a liking to were Australian native plants such as Grevilleas and Banksias as well as the Proteas from South Africa and more recently Eremophilas. Over the years though, I have broadened this interest, and these days anything that is a little bit different, interesting and obviously drought resistant, can become a welcome addition to my garden.
Over a period of time I’ll write some posts on most of these plants and hopefully introduce to you some great new plants you may not have heard of before.
The way I’ll classify these plants is the same as I classify most of the plants that you see in nurseries these days.
The first group are the plants that have been there for years. They’ve been there for years because they’re good looking plants, they obviously do the job well in the garden, are proven performers and gardeners obviously like to grow them. You probably won’t hear about them in here too often though as most gardeners are already aware of them and I’d just be going over old ground.
The next type of plant that you also see quite a bit of in the nursery is the type of plant that looks great in a pot, has a really colourful label and then goes on to under perform when you plant it in your garden. There are heaps of these in nurseries. They’re there because they sell really well and because they look great in a pot and as a consequence sell for a few dollars more. Another thing about these plants is quite often they require very specific growing conditions which in most cases, are never on the label. Some of these plants I’ve got in my garden and I’ll be exposing them for what they are.
The third type are the ones that I’d describe as Gems. These are rarely found in most nurseries, they quite often suffer from the ugly duckling syndrome when in a pot and as a consequence most nurseries that are interested in just selling stock don’t keep them. I’ve got lots of these in my garden and I’ve found that the best places to find them are at smaller specialty nurseries and also local markets. I’ve bought lots of plants from markets over the years not only because you save a few dollars but also because they can sometimes be a treasure trove for someone trying to find something a little bit different.
For me a garden is all about the plants. The plants are the main feature for me. I’ve often looked at a garden as a zoo for plants. But having said that it is also important to group plants not only for practical purposes but also so that the garden looks great as a whole. There as so many great plants out there that most regular gardeners don’t know about so hopefully I’ll be able to introduce a few here and hopefully make them a bit more popular.
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- Banksia Oblongifolia
- Banksia Seminuda Flowers
- Pruning your Alyogyne Huegelii
- Growing Agave Attenuata in a Pot
- Eremophila "Big Poly"
How NOT to Transplant your Plants
How close can you go to killing a plant without actually killing it?
Before I actually wrote this article I thought long and hard as to whether other gardeners would actually believe my story or if I should try to change some of the detail to make it sound more believable. In the end I decided to protect its integrity and just tell it as it happened.
It was a hot summer afternoon in the middle of December which had been preceded by a winter and spring with well below average rainfall. You’d have thought that transplanting a semi established shrub would be the last thing a gardener with any ounce of credibility would consider on a day like that.
Well in this case I’m not sure if I had a moment of madness or I was suffering from a bout of extreme optimism but I still look back today and find the story I’m about to tell quite amazing.
Caloundra Gem Flower
The shrub in question was a Grevillea Caloundra Gem (G. Banksii x ‘Coochin Hill or so the label said) that I’d planted right at the front of the garden bed just two years earlier. It had grown to a height of about 2 m and was doing quite well. The problem for me was that despite the lack of rainfall it was doing just a little bit too well and was starting to hide the slower growing plants behind it. So the only solution for me was to shift it to another place alongside a fence where it would serve much better as screening plant.
Now I’d transplanted a few Australian native plants before and had a fairly good success rate but I’d never tried to transplant one that was this well established. I’d also never tried this exercise before without any prior preparation and especially on a day that was so unsuitable it wasn’t funny. At the time though for some reason I didn’t even consider any of this and just launched straight into the task. The only preparation I’d done before hand was to dig a new hole for around the other side of the house and enlist the help of my father to help carry it to its new home.
Before I knew it I’d dug a ring around the shrub about 50 cm in diameter and managed to cut through some fairly sizable roots in the process. As a result when I looked up at the foliage it was all now drooping rather alarmingly at the ground. All of a sudden it hit me exactly what I was doing. I was killing a perfectly healthy plant and all because I didn’t like where I’d planted.
Anyway not one to give in easily and having decided that I’d passed the point of no return (which I probably hadn’t), I decided to continue. As I kept digging the circle around the plant it was becoming very obvious that the sandy loam that it was planted in was very dry and crumbly and the size of the rootball contained within the sandy loam was getting smaller and smaller. As I tried to lift the rootball out of the hole more and more of it kept breaking away. In the end I got to the stage where the size of the rootball was only about 30 cm in diameter and even this looked like it was ready to break off.
Despite this though, the only option was to continue. While all of this was happening my father had been standing back watching. He must have been wondering that if by the time I was finished there was going to be anything left to shift.
As I lifted it gingerly out of its hole my father supported the other end and we slowly carried it around to the other side of the house to its new home. Just as I was placing it into its new hole (grave?) another piece of the rootball broke off. I couldn’t believe it. Surely this was the final nail in its coffin.
What was left in the hole was a semi circle about 20 cm in diameter and looking back now as to why I just didn’t give up there and then and just throw it in the compost I’ll never know but for some reason I decided to continue with the original plan. I then got 3 large garden stakes and drove them into the ground around the plant, got some garden twine and tied it to each of the stakes for support. This held the plant into position quite nicely. The next step was to back fill what was left of the rootball and buildup a small bank around the top. I then mixed some concentrated seaweed solution into a bucket of water and then slowly poured it all around the rootball. This I kept doing until the soil was so sodden that it took quite a while for it to drain away. The idea was to saturate what was left of the rootball with the seaweed solution.
The job was now finished and standing back looking at the final result I couldn’t help but think of the 101 ways I could have done it better. The transplant was now complete and there was nothing left to do but to sit back and wait.
The next day the weather was a bit cooler and the Grevillea seemed to be holding its own. The foliage was still pointing at the ground but it didn’t seem to have gotten any worse. This to me was no consolation as I knew that when most native plants die (for whatever reason) the foliage won’t show any signs of distress until long after the roots have died, so for me I knew it was just a matter of time.
Despite this though, I continued to keep watering it with the diluted seaweed solution. The next couple of days the weather remained cooler and every day it appeared to be holding its own. Then a few days later I came out to water it and I thought that some of the foliage was actually starting to sit upright again. I wasn’t sure if it was my wishful thinking but it actually looked like it had recovered a little. The next couple of days though told the story. Slowly but surely it was starting to look well again. It was actually starting to recover. As summer turned into autumn it slowly started to put on some new growth and flower again. I left the stakes in to support it for about another year and now about 6 years later that Grevillea Caloundra Gem is still growing in that spot. It’s now about 4m tall, and flowers for nearly all of the year.
2009. About 4m tall and still going strong.
Why and how it managed to survive that shift I suppose I’ll never know. Over the years though I’ve heard many a gardening expert say that you can’t transplant Australian natives but I’ve successfully done it many times for one reason or another. On this particular occasion I did almost everything wrong but when you go about in the proper way most of the time you should have success. I’ll write about this in another article.
If you were to ask me as to why it survived, I can only say that it is testimony to the resilience that most Australian native plants have and the effectiveness of that seaweed solution.
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