Wisteria on Notice.

5-6-08 SHORT HILLS: Sunny and warm with a gentle breeze—what more could one ask? Yesterday I root pruned the remaining wisteria, also non-blooming, and advised it that the other two had been severely cut back and it was in jeopardy. I used a spade to sever all roots in a circle around the vine about two feet in diameter. I transplanted another burning bush, growing in an andromeda, to the site where all the rhododendron died.

Today I planted a southern magnolia, Magnolia grandiflora ‘D. D. Blanchard’, near our existing southern magnolia. I gave all the chlorotic looking azaleas some ammonium sulfate for acidification. Chlorosis is present when the new leaves are yellow with green veins instead of a uniform light green. The cause of chlorosis for foundation planting is alkaline soil near the foundation. That happens because the concrete foundation, composed of calcium and magnesium carbonate, leaches into the soil and raises the pH. Most evergreen foundation plantings need an acidic medium.

I also planted packasandra cuttings in that spot near the elm tree where grass won’t or can’t grow. I took the packasandra from an overgrown path.

New blooms: another viburnum, burning bush, leucothea, wood hyacinth, sweet woodruff.


Azaleas are positively lurid.

Redbud flower open. It's quite a complex structure for a tiny bloom. Each tree has thousands in clusters.