Ground Breaking Banter - Rick
Plant spacing – the distance between each plant when you plant multiples – confounds plenty of gardeners and home owners alike. But the secret here is that spacing is largely subjective and can be used more like a guideline – especially when it comes to annuals.
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As much as I like to joke that “life is too short for proper spacing,” when it comes to shrubs and trees, proper spacing is important, for three primary reasons:
- These plants tend to be more expensive than perennials or annuals, so spacing and placement mistakes are costly.
- These plants aren’t as amenable to pruning for size – especially when it comes to width.
- These plants tend to be very long lived, so you have to envision them far into the future.
Now, that doesn’t mean you can’t fudge a bit here and there where necessary, or accommodate a tree or shrub’s increasing proportions by removing herbaceous or less valuable neighbors when the time comes. So overall, yes, you need to look at and carefully consider plant spacing with woody plants. However, you needn’t necessarily see that as a limitation, because thanks to plant breeding, there are tons of options out there of space-saving versions of your favorite trees and shrubs.
One way of doing this is to look for fastigiate plants. Fastigiate is derived from the Latin word for “high or lofty,” and basically just means that a plant grows with a narrow, columnar habit instead of a wide one. There are lots of examples out there – you commonly see fastigiate English oak (Quercus robur ‘Fastigiata’), and we have lots of space-saving fastigiate shrubs in the Proven Winners ColorChoice line up too: Pillar roses of Sharon, Glow Stick and Sky Box Japanese holly, Fine Line rhamnus, our new Yardline viburnum, and today’s plant on trial, Stonehenge yew, Taxus × media.
Here in the US, yew, or taxus, is almost a punchline of Suburban landscapes – not unlike when we were discussing dwarf Alberta spruce in a recent episode. It’s tame, predictable, boring…but it’s evergreen and very shade tolerant so makes a good go-to for contractors that need to put in some quick landscaping and move on. But in Europe, they become absolutely massive, epic, legendary trees that their North American cousins wouldn’t even recognize. One of the oldest yews in the UK, the Fortingall yew, had a trunk circumference of 52’ at one point in its life. Its height is unknown but yews in the UK have been known to attain heights of 65’ and beyond.
Stonehenge yew, though, is much more landscape-friendly. It reaches just 8-10’ tall (and can easily be maintained shorter through pruning) and 2-4’ wide. That makes it perfect for a space-saving specimen or hedge; it’s also great for screening off air conditioners and the like, and of course, its narrow, columnar shape is also perfect for lighting up at the holidays. Its narrow growth means it never needs pruning to stay within its parameters, making it a truly low maintenance plant.
You can see Stonehenge yew in action in our recent winter garden tour video to get a sense of how it looks in the landscape. As we say in that video, it’s hardy down to USDA zone 4 but heat tolerant only through USDA zone 7 (beyond that, look for a Cephalotaxus for a similar look but better heat tolerance). It can grow in full sun to part shade and anywhere in between (hence its ubiquity in North American landscapes…) and is not particularly fussy about soil as long as it is well drained; established yews, including Stonehenge yew, are drought tolerant. We also mention in the video that it is very much not deer resistant – they will not only destroy it but since yews are fairly slow-growing evergreens, it will take a very long time to recover. Yew in general are extremely toxic plants – if you grew up with them along the front of your house like I did, hopefully your parents put the fear of god in you about eating those red berries, and hopefully that taught you that you should never go around eating plants willy-nilly.
If you’d like to add Stonehenge yew or any of the 320+ Proven Winners ColorChoice Shrubs – to your garden or landscape, you’ll find a list of local retailers here.
Gardening Mail Bag - Stacey
While we’re on the topic of spacing, I did want to share this tidbit: when you see a range of sizes on a plant tag, like in the case of Stonehenge yew it says 2-4’ wide, that usually means that its going to be on the smaller side in colder climates and on the wider side in warm ones. So you can choose which direction to go based on that, or just average it out to the center if that’s best. It’s also a question of personal taste: if you like your plants to touch and provide coverage, opt for the smaller spacing. If you don’t like them to touch or are trying to stretch your budget, opt for the wider one.
Hi team! I look forward to your show every week! Question: I planted this Gingko 'Princeton Sentry' in my high desert zone 6b garden summer 2023. I noticed this funky growth down at the base of the trunk and am wondering if I should be concerned? The vertical lines may be from feral cats at the nursery. (According to the nursery gal who sold it to me). It seemed to do ok last summer—a little bit of new growth and some minor tip die off at the top. Signing off with a sassy wink 😉 - CJ
This ginkgo tree is actively girdling itself, and while it may not die in the short term, this is not setting it up for a long and healthy life. As such, it’s best to take action sooner than later to conserve your investment and give it a better chance at survival. The first thing we suggest doing is moving your drip emitters. Placing them so close to the base of the trunk like that doesn’t get the water where it needs to go, and could potentially be increasing the girdling effect. Instead, place them at the drip line of the tree: the outer edge of the foliage, where the rain drips off naturally. This is where roots grow and water is most needed. Second, you’re going to have to do something about the roots intertwining and spiraling. Since you just planted this about a year and a half ago, the best thing to do would be to carefully dig it up, remove any roots that are severely criss-crossed with pruners or even a small axe, and then replant it, taking special care to spread the roots outward when you do. This will set the plant back, and it will need some TLC through this season, but doing this now is the best thing for the investment in your time and money. If you absolutely don’t want to do that, you can take an axe and thoroughly separate the worst offenders from the tree. This is definitely going to be tricky, and I think is likely to cause more damage than digging it up and correcting it that way. Oh – and no, the lines aren’t from cats – that’s totally normal for young ginkgo trees.
Hello! Thanks for the show! I enjoy listening to it every week and have learned a lot! I'd like advice on what to do with my laurels. Last year a few patches started wilted and turning yellow/brown and now several of the shrubs are affected. I tried pruning out the affected branches and spraying fungicide, but it's just spreading. Do I need to remove the affected plants completely. Could I try cutting them back? I'd like to protect the remaining healthy ones if possible! Thanks! - Bethany
When plants start to decline like this, it’s common to think that it’s caused by an insect or disease. But the truth is that in almost all cases, this is a cultural issue: something about the growing conditions is causing the dieback – especially when the damage is concentrated in a specific part of the overall planting like this. And while it’s tempting to think something is going on with the foliage, the answer almost always lies below ground with the soil and roots.
The first thing that I do to diagnose what is happening is look for clues as to what could be causing the soil to be either really wet or really dry. And in this case, I see a big one – that white downspout behind the right-most plant. I suspect that the extra water that is delivering to the soil surrounding the first couple of plants is leading to root rot/lack of oxygen, and that’s why the plants improve as they get further away from the downspout. So check that area carefully – clear away the mulch and dig down to get a sense of the soil condition. I’d suggest moving the downspout end so that it drains toward the yard instead of into this bed, and that might be sufficient to solve this issue. I’m not sure if the plants are dead, it’s especially hard to say that with certainty in winter when broadleaf evergreens aren’t always looking their best anyway, so I wouldn’t do anything rash. You can remove the obviously brown stems, as those won’t come back, and removing them helps get light and air to the remaining foliage to help it get healthy again (hopefully). Then I’d give this several weeks into spring to see if new growth begins to emerge on the branches – that will be the best way to gauge their ability to recover from the water stress.
Do you have a question for us? We’re happy to help! E-mail us or use the contact tab above. Due to high volume, we may not get to your question, so if you need an answer quickly, please reach out via the Proven Winners website.
Branching News - Rick
The Great Backyard Bird Count is February 14-17, 2025, so we invite fan favorite Birdman Bill Stovall to the show to talk about this yearly event and other avian aspects of the season. Check out our whole conversation on YouTube or your favorite podcast platform.
