2 ?'s Esperanzas & Thuja green giant

1) when to prune esperanzas?
2) i planted 5 thuja green giants and they are looking yellowish and light green. they don't look good.
i did the finger test and they are moist so i haven't watered them. what do i do?

i live in san antonio, texas (very hot!!!)

Esperanzas- Jerry Parsons, Texas A&M San Antonio, recommends pruning them back by about 40% in late July to get a flush of new growth for fall flowering. I tried that two years ago and it worked well. Here in Waco these plants freeze to the ground every winter. We cut them off at ground level as soon as that happens. Nine out of ten years they come back stronger than ever the next spring. Now and then we have a severe freeze that kills them. (In Dallas they are considered annuals.) If you have a mild winter there and the plant doesn't freeze to the ground, cut it back to the ground anyway in early March. The summer pruning is optional.

I had to look up thuja giant. The fact that it's a conifer scares me. WEBWORMS and SPIDER MITES in our hot climates. Plus, fast-growing trees live fast, die young, and may or may not leave a beautiful memory. Was this a mail-order plant? I suspect this is something that would have a better chance in Colorado or New Mexico. Did you buy it locally? There's no one tree that makes a good screen for all the 48 states, as advertisers would like us to think. I certainly wouldn't water wet soil. Good luck with them, and keep us posted!

thanks for the info.
the thuja i bought at a local nursery. i did buy them for privacy. i hope they don't die i paid 25.00 each. i guess i could always plant red tips.
gosh i would be afraid to cut the esperanzas at the bottom. i have 3 in front of my window in the front yard. beautiful flowers but boy they are getting so big. so your saying i can cut them now? like top them off?? oh is it true if you pull off the buds it will bloom more?

Hi- I don't want to sound bossy, but rather than take my word for it, call Shades of Green and ask the owner about red tip photinias. There is a terrible fungal disease killing them all over the United States. Or do a Google search for "red tip photinia disease" or something similar to that. The old CHINESE photinia makes an even better screen and they are tough and not bothered by that disease. They get big as trees, and are very dense. Also good choice would be Nellie R. Stephens holly. BIG. WIDE. Maybe these thujas will do fine. I just don't know anything about them. Since they are in the ground, all you can do is wait and see.

Esperanzas- yes, cut them back now, but probably not by more than half. Don't flatten the top like a hedge. Round it off a little toward the top. Use an all-nitrogen fertilizer on it, granular, preferably. It will look somewhat ragged for a few weeks, but the new growth will be spectacular with blooms up until a freeze, if you have one. I take that back to some extent. When the days get shorter in late fall, there will be less sunlight and they won't bloom as profusely. But you'll love their performance in Sept. and October, for sure.

If you will do some research (here again, don't take my word) the best thing you can do for your esperanzas in late Feb. or early March is to cut them clear back to the ground. They will come back gangbusters- more branches, all new wood (of course), and they will bloom better next summer than ever before.

at home depot today i bought some evergreen fertilizer sticks. maybe they might help.
i will have to look up the chinese photinia.
do you suggest any other type of tree or tall shrub for privacy?
oh about the buds on the esperanzas? will they bloom more if i remove some?

APRILMAEMAE
You are going to want to quit reading what I say, but fertilizer sticks concentrate the fertilizer in one spot. It's much better to spread granular fertilizer around the entire plant. That way it can be taken up by more roots, and the likelihood of burn is less. Also, there's no such thing as an evergreen fert. stick, even though the package said that. The plant only knows that it is getting a certain amount of nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium. Those sticks are a good marketing tool but that's about all.
There's a difference of opinion about removing the spent flowers on esperanzas- whether that makes it bloom more or not. I myself do it because the plant looks nicer. In theory, at least, some of the vigor of the plant will go into trying to made seed where the flowers were, so removing them would direct that vigor to new growth and new blooms. If you keep up with it, it only takes a minute or less. (for one plant) Just snap them off- no need to get the pruner.
Beside the Nellie R. Stephens holly and Chinese photinia, Little Gem Magnolia is a small tree and very attractive. I don't guess you have room for Lacey's Oak, a small beautiful oak with grey-green foliage. Native in Big Bend area. Even boring old wax-leaf ligustrum makes a good dense hedge.

APRILMAEMAE, my cousin is a Master Gardener in San Antonio. She is curious where you bought the thuja trees. I was asking her if they are widely used there.

I bought the thuja from Fanicks.
off rigsby like south east of town.
where does your cousin work?



i'm going to trim the esperanzas tomarrow and take some of the buds off.
i guess i'm one of those suckers that believe everything they see. (evergreen fert. sticks)
i will take them back tomarrow and see about getting the granules. do you know if they sell them at home depot?
thanks

You're not a sucker. You're a learning gardener, just like all of us. Marketers are clever in getting us to buy whatever they sell. Home Depot will have a lot of different fertilizers. I'd get a bag of what may be labeled "lawn food" (but NOT WEED AND FEED. No pesticide or herbicide content. FERTILIZER ONLY). By law, the manufacturer has to label the contents. The first number is nitrogen, the second phosphorus, and the third potassium. It may contain "trace elements," which is ok. That would be iron, sulfur, etc. But straight fertilizer is best and cheapest. A soil test would guide you on what analysis to buy, but I'm sure you've not sent a soil sample to A&M to find out what nutrients your soil needs, so best to buy a 4-1-2 general purpose fert. or "lawn food." 4-1-2 could be 8-2-4, 20-5-10,or 12-3-6= you get the idea. The first number should be the largest. A bag ought to cost between $10 and $12. Be sure it's GRANULATED and not a powder, so you can lightly sprinkle it around your plants and water it in. The higher the numbers, the stronger the fertilizer, so the less you would use, and the less often you would apply it.
If you have trouble deciding on a fertilizer, just get a balanced one. 6-6-6, 12-12-12, 20-20-20. The analysis is not the best for the alkaline soils we have along I35 and west of I35, but it would be satisfactory. Again, if it says WEED AND FEED, stay away from it like it's radioactive. And, to repeat myself from an earlier posting, plants don't know if a fertilizer was labeled for roses, azaleas, grass, trees, evergreens, flowers, vegetables, hydrangeas, or what have you. You need ONE formula for your lawn and another for everything else. Isn't that easy?

My cousin is retired. She recommends these nurseries for accurate advice: Millberger's, The Grove, Shades of Green, Rainbow Gardens, Fannick's, and Schultz. They may charge a little more than the big box stores, but to be brutally honest, many of the employees at the box stores don't know one thing about plants. Their advice is off the top of their heads and you can throw away a lot of money if you rely on them to help you make choices.

gosh you know so much about gardening.
yes i love fanicks. i did think they were a little pricey but i liked what i saw. they had a guy there named ruben that helped out alot. he knew his stuff. i called the other day to ask him about the thuja but he wasn't there.

GEE i just fertilized my grass tonight!!!!!
i bought the scotts turf builder with plus 2 weed control. (we have bermuda)
now i feel like my grass is doomed!!!
so maybe from now on i will go to a gardening store instead of the big stores.that does make sence. and you know what come to think of it ihave never seen those scotts, vigoro at the gardening stores.
boy i'm glad i logged on here today. i thought i was pretty good at gardening. atleast my flowers and crape myrtles look wonderful! oh i also planted esperanzas in the back yard but i want to grow them to be a tree .
i bet your yard is nice!

about throwing alot of money away at the big stores been there done that!!

Hi, the weed control likely won't HURT your grass. It's just that the time to put out weed control products and fertilizer are different times of the year. And no one wants to put out herbicides when they aren't going to do any good. For instance, if dogs or children run and play on your grass they will pick up tiny amounts of that herbicide (weed killer) that was in that WEED AND FEED you used. This isn't the time of year to put out weed preventatives. In fact, if you don't have weeds, you never need to use them.
My yard looks OK. I'm learning as I go along. I've been serious about plants for about 20 years, though.
I don't like Scott's because they pressure the box stores to carry their products and nobody else's. That's like mobsters do.
I wish we could have esperanza trees, but as I told you it gets cold here and they freeze to the ground EVERY year. Maybe you can post a picture of yours sometime. I'm not sure I've ever seen one.

oh yes i'll post some tomarrow. i guess i'll post them on thisthread weve been on.
what kind of trees, shrubs vines do you have?