Friday, October 16, 2015

Hydrangeas: Beauty, Pruning, Borers

“Each friend represents a world in us, a world possibly not born until they arrive, and it is only by this meeting that a new world is born.”  Anais Nin. 
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Hydrangea, friend.  We met in college, she changed every thing.  Not that I knew.  Her beauty, for sure, then realizing her ease.  Finally, understanding the unspoken.  This koan, a moment of intuitive enlightenment, in Earth time, for me, 2+ decades.
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The serpent enters.  Late frosts pale in comparison.
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Pruning hydrangeas had been talk of old wood, new wood, remontant, timing.  Now, enters, hydrangea cane borer.
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I've lost several hydrangeas due to, Hydrangea Cane Borer.




Hydrangea cane borers enter freshly pruned canes, tunnel down, and by the time you 'see' trouble, your plant is dead, or mostly there.






When pruning hydrangea canes, tip each cut with glue.  More, here.
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Garden & Be Well,    XO Tara
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Top pic I shot in Susanne Hudson's garden, bottom pics shot in my cottage garden.

4 comments:

Cyndia said...

It seems that all our favorite plants are being invaded by disease or insects. I read with such sadness your post about Suzanne Hudson's boxwoods. I've visited her garden several times for tours, and always felt so refreshed and welcomed by the lushness of those boxwoods and hydrangea. It had to be devastating to lose so many cherished friends at once. I myself felt the same when I lost nearly all my antique roses from rose rosette disease, brought in by one lone Knockout.

I hope a solution is found for all these diseases and insects, that doesn't involve massive spraying of chemicals.

Thistle Cove Farm said...

Oh I dearly love hydrangeas! Should I ever move, I plan on taking my "grandmother's" hydrangea with me. My last Grandmother was buried on my birthday and I was given a hydrangea plant someone gave the family. It's beautiful...a deep purple that is breathtaking in color.
Tara, thoroughly enjoyed this post. Hope you're settling in well...we had a hard frost last night and another expected tonight. All plants have been gathered in...and taking over the house!

Dewena said...

Tip each with glue? I never knew that,or about borers. I thought ours died last year because my husband pruned them at the wrong time. I'll pass the word along.

Kay said...

Sounds like how I treat my hybrid tea roses when I prune in the Spring. Each cut cane is treated with at dab of either glue or clear nail polish or else that black junk for treating cut limbs on trees. I've lost many hydrangeas myself to that cane borer and now am going to do the glue on each cut tip. The borers will kill them totally.