Hello Everyone. I live in central Ohio and recently moved into a new
home that has a large row of American Cranberry Bushes. It appears
not to have been trimmed in quite some time. It is about 10-12' feet
tall and about 6' wide.

Ideally I want to keep it at about 8' tall and as dense as possible,
for privacy. But I do not know when to cut it back and when I can
thin it out. I am not an expert gardner by any means, so I don't know
what to do with it and when.

One thing - It is starting to lose some leaves - they are turning
brown in sections and falling off. Other sections look fine with
green foilage and red berries, others just have berries with no
foilage, and others are not looking so good at all. It been dry here
lately and the first thing I am going to do is water it thoroughly.

Can anyone offer any pointers? Or point me to a good website?

Thanks, Joe

Xref: kermit rec.gardens:249682

On 16 Sep 2003 18:48:17 -0700, (Joe) wrote:

Hello Everyone. I live in central Ohio and recently moved into a new
home that has a large row of American Cranberry Bushes. It appears
not to have been trimmed in quite some time. It is about 10-12' feet
tall and about 6' wide.

One thing - It is starting to lose some leaves - they are turning
brown in sections and falling off. Other sections look fine with
green foilage and red berries, others just have berries with no
foilage, and others are not looking so good at all. It been dry here
lately and the first thing I am going to do is water it thoroughly.

Can anyone offer any pointers? Or point me to a good website?

They really enjoy watering....not as much as their lowbush bog
relatives but they enjoy some. Give them quite a lot, they will
recover quickly as long as the deer don't browse them.

Dan

Joe wrote:

Hello Everyone. I live in central Ohio and recently moved into a new
home that has a large row of American Cranberry Bushes. It appears
not to have been trimmed in quite some time. It is about 10-12' feet
tall and about 6' wide.

Ideally I want to keep it at about 8' tall and as dense as possible,
for privacy. But I do not know when to cut it back and when I can
thin it out. I am not an expert gardner by any means, so I don't know
what to do with it and when.

One thing - It is starting to lose some leaves - they are turning
brown in sections and falling off. Other sections look fine with
green foilage and red berries, others just have berries with no
foilage, and others are not looking so good at all. It been dry here
lately and the first thing I am going to do is water it thoroughly.

Can anyone offer any pointers? Or point me to a good website?

Thanks, Joe

OK, wait until you've had an hard frost and all of the leaves
have gone. Now, you're going to be doing a modification of
something known as 'stumping' the bushes. Stumping is where you
cut the whole shebang back to a 2-3' maximum stump, and let them
try again. It doesn't sound like you need to be that drastic.
So, what you do is cut every major limb back to 18-24", maximum,
and the overall height of the bush back to about 6'. Clip off
half the length of every single terminal twig that is left. Next
spring, you will get a burst of new growth from everywhere, with
lots of branching. No earlier than Memorial Day, and by
Midsummer's Day, you want to trim off half the length of each of
these new terminal branches. The following year, repeat the
early summer pruning. Keep this up until the bushes are as large
as you want them to be; then shear off most of the new growth
every year. They'll be full, vigorous hedging for a loooong
time.

Chris Owens




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Joe wrote:

Hello Everyone. I live in central Ohio and recently moved into a new
home that has a large row of American Cranberry Bushes. It appears
not to have been trimmed in quite some time. It is about 10-12' feet
tall and about 6' wide.

Ideally I want to keep it at about 8' tall and as dense as possible,
for privacy. But I do not know when to cut it back and when I can
thin it out. I am not an expert gardner by any means, so I don't know
what to do with it and when.

One thing - It is starting to lose some leaves - they are turning
brown in sections and falling off. Other sections look fine with
green foilage and red berries, others just have berries with no
foilX-Mozilla-Status: 0009t looking so good at all. It been dry here
lately and the first thing I am going to do is water it thoroughly.

Can anyone offer any pointers? Or point me to a good website?

Thanks, Joe

OK, wait until you've had an hard frost and all of the leaves
have gone. Now, you're going to be doing a modification of
something known as 'stumping' the bushes. Stumping is where you
cut the whole shebang back to a 2-3' maximum stump, and let them
try again. It doesn't sound like you need to be that drastic.
So, what you do is cut every major limb back to 18-24", maximum,
and the overall height of the bush back to about 6'. Clip off
half the length of every single terminal twig that is left. Next
spring, you will get a burst of new growth from everywhere, with
lots of branching. No earlier than Memorial Day, and by
Midsummer's Day, you want to trim off half the length of each of
these new terminal branches. The following year, repeat the
early summer pruning. Keep this up until the bushes are as large
as you want them to be; then shear off most of the new growth
every year. They'll be full, vigorous hedging for a loooong
time.

Chris Owens


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Great - this is perfect! Thank you so much for taking the time to do this.