Hi everyone, this is my first posting to this group! I live in
Newfoundland, Canada (zone 5) and have a question...

We bought a new house in December, so at the time couldn't see any
plants since they were covered with snow! To my delight, the garden
is coming to life before my very eyes!

I've always been an avid vegetable gardener, but have never had the
opportunity to deal with flowers before since I lived with my folks
before! I am trying now to identify some of the flora around our
house. I believe that I have a cotoneaster, but I'm really not sure.
I don't have a picture handy so will give a short description:

Right now (the snow is just finishing melting) it has a variety of
deep purple and green leaves. There are bright red berries on it in
places, I figured they were left from last year. It grows from one
central place and spreads over the garden, it seems to dig in wherever
it moves and is quite difficult to just lift the branches and move
them out of the way. They are all rooted into the ground!

It seems like it will soon become quite invasive to other plants in
the garden so I'd like to really trim it back, possibly grow some
plants from the clippings. I also wonder if it is possible to "force"
it to climb up the tall trees that are in our garden... I hope that
someone here can help me!

Thanks,
K

In article ,
(KR) wrote:

Hi everyone, this is my first posting to this group! I live in
Newfoundland, Canada (zone 5) and have a question...

We bought a new house in December, so at the time couldn't see any
plants since they were covered with snow! To my delight, the garden
is coming to life before my very eyes!

I've always been an avid vegetable gardener, but have never had the
opportunity to deal with flowers before since I lived with my folks
before! I am trying now to identify some of the flora around our
house. I believe that I have a cotoneaster, but I'm really not sure.
I don't have a picture handy so will give a short description:

Right now (the snow is just finishing melting) it has a variety of
deep purple and green leaves. There are bright red berries on it in
places, I figured they were left from last year. It grows from one
central place and spreads over the garden, it seems to dig in wherever
it moves and is quite difficult to just lift the branches and move
them out of the way. They are all rooted into the ground!

It seems like it will soon become quite invasive to other plants in
the garden so I'd like to really trim it back, possibly grow some
plants from the clippings. I also wonder if it is possible to "force"
it to climb up the tall trees that are in our garden... I hope that
someone here can help me!

Thanks,
K

Cotoneasters if not controlled do self-seed, & each plant has an extensive
root system. Nevertheless you should be able to dig out & discard any of
it that you don't like, & what you preserve will not be a burden so long
as you remove the seedlings. I have about 8 kinds of cotoneaster & nearly
all of them self-seed wildly. Sometimes I am grabbing whole fistfulls of
cotoneaster seedlings to toss. But I don't perceive them as a burden. Some
of the cotoneasters were here before we bought the place, & getting rid of
the ones that were allowed to take root for thirty years, THAT was a
struggle, but not one that need ever reoccur.

As for training it to climb, it's surprising what training & tying &
wiring can do, but cotoneasters are shrubs not vines & are by nature
neither creepers nor climbers.

To look its best, a good specimen of C. horizontalis should have room to
produce layers of herringbone "fans" & not be so crowding a path or
sidewalk or other plants that the gardener keeps hacking it back. It gets
uglier the more it gets pruned. There are strongly upright cotoneasters,
including upright cultivars of C. microphyllus, if you want a cotoneaster
that doesn't need to stick its wings out sideways. So save whatever of the
C. horizontalis really has room to be a fan-producing shrub, & remove any
that don't have sufficient room.

-paghat the ratgirl

-paghat the ratgirl

--
"Of what are you afraid, my child?" inquired the kindly teacher.
"Oh, sir! The flowers, they are wild," replied the timid creature.
-from Peter Newell's "Wild Flowers"
See the Garden of Paghat the Ratgirl: http://www.paghat.com/