I planted about 10 Cape honey suckles and they were gorgeous all summer with loads of blooms, PLUS they grew to about 5 feet!
My DH (not so dear, perhaps), unbeknownst to me, turned OFF my sprinkler system this winter for about a month, and with our fairly dry winter, I hope they didn't die!
Other plants seem to be budding, but the h.s.'s still look barren (all leaves are off) and dead!!
Do they bud out late?
How do I break off a branch to see?
If they're dead, I'd like to get new ones and plant ASAP.
Thanks!!
Connie
Dead Plants?
Connie, I am not familiar with Cape Honeysuckle, but it I were you I would wait a while before taking them out.
You could scrape the bark a little where it is thicker and see if there is green underneath, and if the top is dead, they could also be root hardy, and come back from the roots, so waiting might be good.
Josephine.
I've found that Cape Honeysuckle is a really hardy plant (if you are talking about the same thing I had - orange flowers, bush). It would look dead and all of a sudden it would be green and blooming again. We finally managed to kill it when we moved away for awhile and didn't water but we were constantly amazed at how it would bounce back from seemingly nothing to a thing of beauty. I agree w/Josephine that scraping a bit to find green wood might ease your mind otherwise take a wait-and-see attitude and don't do anything hasty. Best of luck!
Ann
Thanks to both of you! I'm so afraid that our dry winter did them in, but tomorrow morning I"m going to do the scrape test!!! Then I'll certainly leave them in until about April and see if they come back from the roots.
This winter has been diff. than the last five or so because we had a really, really cold spell in late Feb. (well, for my area anyway) Most of my tropicals took a beating and they look oh, so bad. I am sure they will come back, but it is so yucky to see all that brown right now. I'm been spoiled by the mild winters we've had in the past, when hardly anything turned brown. Just lush green, green, green everywhere, sigh.
I'm glad that I am not the only one who says this winter has been so much worse than the previous ones for a lot of years. I've never had such brown and black stuff studding my beds. I thought that maybe because I had been physically unable to get to stuff that all my plants suffered so much. But, also, when my DDH went down toPalacios to our waterfront house and found everything so brown (and here we are trying to sell the place), he called the man who takes care of the place when we aren't there he said that the late January weather when the temp. went down to 28* for several hours everything got hit. So, back to pruning back hibiscus and bananas and even shrimp plant. Actually, when I think of this place in theKaty area and how everything was here when we bought about 2 years ago, I knew then and better now that everything was overgrown and not in the right place so if it has to go, it has to go and I have more of a clean slate to work with. I don't agonize over plants the way some folks do. I have very little that can't be replaced easily or not replaced at all. So be it. If it died, it died. Onward and upward...............
Ann
I'm hoping one of the side benefits of all this cold weather is fewer grasshoppers. Awww, It would be grand if there were none. Could you tell I lost a lot of plants to grasshoppers last year?
For me, too early to tell. But have y'all noticed the loropetalums? I've NEVER seen them so full of blooms!
Also, all of my Daylilies that are semi-evergreen died back entirely this winter. Now I see shoots coming up, hopefully much refreshed and ready to bloom like crazy.
Grasshoppers do better in fairly dry weather. And it looks like we're headed back to that, thanks to the curse of La Nina, who went away for the winter and then returned...sounds like a snow bird, doesn't it?
Personally, I'm grateful we had the wet and cool winter we had. We needed that rain and I just hope we have another wet summer. This is actually been back to normal weather for here; and everything looks a lot better and healthier, in my opinion.
I'm glad for any rain, but wish it had been in spring or summer. We didn't have a normal winter here. The ice storm was really bad here...never experienced anything that bad in all the years I've lived in Texas. We still have broken tree limbs (and even some broken and uprooted trees) all over this area...and a memory of something I believe I'll never forget...never lived in the northern U.S., but I got a slight taste of what people up there go through. Otherwise, there's just a bit more dead plants in the yard than we usually get in winter.
Connie....the Cape Honeysuckles are coming back from the roots, so don't throw them out yet. You may not see any green on the bark w/ the scrape test. Pull the mulch away from the crown and you'll probably see tiny green leaves poking up. Mine looked like they were dead, but I was too busy to remove them. Glad I waited, as the leaves are just now popping up. I didn't water them thru the winter and they were on the north side of the yard. Pretty good for $2. Lowe's sale plants. Hey,......maybe you can return them! Remember... they have a year's guarantee on perennials!
Sandi
You're right Linda...this past Winter was one of the more brutal ones that I can remember in a long time...and I'm a native Texan. That ice storm! Good lord.....My Senna Trees will never look the same...at least for a while.
Melanie
Sandi,
I went out today and did notice sprouts coming up from the base of the Cape Corals! Thank goodness! So should I wait to trim the tops until later?
Are you thinking of going to the Roundup in April to "meet Dave"?? I don't think I would go alone, but might want to ride up with a group...if my DH would not mind. He comes in for weekends, but has just changed to working only 3 days a week instead of 4....winding down for retirement!!...so he might not mind my going.
Connie
Okay...update!
The honeysuckles are large and blooming! Every single thing in my garden survived! I even have one purple fountain grass clump which is supposed to be an annual in Austin! It was right by a stone wall, which protected it, I guess. I tore out all the others...too soon perhaps.
Here is the area with the hs's...
I am happy to hear the good news. :o)
Really neat Connie!!!