Plant of the Week: Heptacodium
Heptacodium or Seven Sons tree is an under used small tree for the garden. It offers multi seasonal use with flowers in late summer, colourful pink bracts, yellow fall foliage and peeling bark on an open frame for winter interest. Bees love it and hummingbirds flock to the small flowers to fuel up for their winter migration.
What to do in the Garden now:
Now is the time to split and transplant perennials such as irises and hostas. Just make sure to give them 6 weeks of growing time before the first killing frosts in your area. Cut back your irises to about 3″, check for borers, throw out any damaged rhizomes, and replant the fans in groups of 3 to 5 in full sun and well drained soil. Dig deep enough to tuck in the roots firmly and leave the top of the rhizomes just above ground level. Use a sharp spade to divide large hostas into two or three clumps and replant in a shady spot and water well. Hostas are very forgiving to abuse and only susceptible to slug damage. Certain perennials like lavender cannot be divided as the plant grows from a single stem from the root ball like a woody shrub.
Any perennial that forms a clump or grows by aboveground/underground runners can be divided to create more.
Herbaceous paeonies should be cut back to a couple of inches above as the leaves yellow. They can be dug up and divided now as well. Split the rhizomes carefully into clumps with at least three eyes and make sure they are planted no more than 2″ below ground level, otherwise they won’t bloom.
Happy Gardening 🙂
