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Mock Orange
Betty Jenkins
Posts: 4
Hello I have a mock orange which I have had for about four years now but it has never flowered. I've read a little bit about them and I might be guilty of pruning too late(?)
I have always cut it right down in the Autumn to calf height and it grows really tall in the summer - loads of new leaves and like a giant beanstalk - but no flowers. It is currently around 8 ft+ tall. It is planted in front of a very tall privet hedge. Could the hedge be poisoning it?
I could leave it this Autumn to see if the late pruning is the problem - although it looks daft at such a height and might suffer if we have any storms.
I would really welcome some advice on what to do with this overly tall plant?
Many thanks in advance
0
Posts
It's nothing to do with the hedge - it's the pruning. Mock Orange (Philadelphus) flowers on wood formed the previous year and every year you've been cutting it off!
Leave it this year and don't prune until after it's flowered. This article explains how http://www.crocus.co.uk/features/_/articleid.975/ (scroll down a bit and you'll find it).
Hope that helps
Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.
Snap Verdun
Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.
I'll type very slowly because it's all I'm capable of...that and bad grammar!
When I moved in to this house my philadelphus was taking up half the county. It was full of bindweed and in a very sorry state. It managed about half a dozen flowers and the perfume in the evenings was glorious. Definitely worth saving whatever it is I thought to myself. It was a massacre and took about 3 hours to chop it to pieces this Spring. This Summer not a flower in sight but a well shaped healthy bushy plant and next year it'll be marvellous. I looked it up in my book of words and found that it flowers on the previous year's growth.
Bottom line....you need a book of words and next year your philadelphus will be brilliant!
if in doubt prune just after a shrub has flowered, otherwise you run the risk of healthy shrubs but no flowers!
Yes V. Exackerly! hellps wif da speling to!