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Thursday, September 14, 2006
Pruning Rose of Sharon
Oh, how the Rose of Sharon grow. Sometimes too fast for their own good, I say. Rose of Sharon don't require very much maintenance, save for the invasion of Japanese Beetles that attack them throughout the summer months. This very hardy shrub will bloom constantly throughout its growing season. And it draws lots of wonderful creatures, such as hummingbirds to your area. As far as pruning Rose of Sharon, it can be done at almost any time of the year, but the months in Fall are usually best saved for this maintenance chore. If you are training the Rose of Sharon in tree form, you'll need to prune any sprouts that come out around the trunk. This will take some judicious pruning. Rose of Sharon really seems to like being a shrub and takes every opportunity it gets to send out sprouts on the southern portion of the shrub. If you are an easy going type, then you can let your Rose of Sharon sprawl and nip and tuck throughout the growing season when a limb or two gets out of hand. If you want a compact shrub with sensational flowers, then cut your Rose of Sharon back hard in the Fall, Winter or early Spring months. I've never seen or heard of a Rose of Sharon that didn't bloom when cut back in this way. They seem to take it as a challenge, I guess.
2 Comments:
When you say "cut it back hard", do you mean to take it right back to the ground? My RoS has gotten too tall and very gangly. Flowers are few and far between. I would like to get it back to it's original form of a shrub but don't want to risk killing it as it has been in the family for 20-plus years.
7:35 PM
It's pretty hard to kill Rose of Sharon. I have several Rose of Sharon I have cut back almost to ground level and they started growing again the next year. They will be multi-stemmed plants coming from dormant buds low on the trunk when they flush back out unless you train just one leader and cut out side-shoots.
12:28 AM
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