On 01/01/2014 13:08, Nick Maclaren wrote:
Impulse purchase for a gap, where I have failed with a few more
exotic plants :-)

My question is how happy they are to be pruned back to the ground
(i.e. will they reshoot from the rootstock or only the stem).
From the ones I have seen, I suspect that they will be happy,
but those might have been multiple plants, planted deep.


Regards,
Nick Maclaren.




I didn't do very well with mine by treating it that harshly as a young
plant. I have read that the better treatment (esp if you want to
maintain a show of red stems) is to leave it unpruned for the first
2-3yrs in order to gain a bushy plant, then subsequently prune out older
wood, leaving the younger, redder growth as your display. Even within
that regime, it is worth pruning out dead and diseased wood so that it
is healthy and looks attractive.

What I'm not sure of is whether or not it is stem-rooting, which would
allow deeper planting and, probably, more stem production. Does anyone
here know?

--
Spider.
On high ground in SE London
gardening on heavy clay