My hedge is really pretty this year and the blooms are huge. The smell is out of this world. Like being in a perfume factory!
Oh Capt, I just love Mock Orange! I bought one last fall and I really hope it gives me a least a few blooms this year.
I have been considering buying a few of those for my garden,looking at yours makes me want to run out and buy a few. Your mock orange is beautiful
My mock orange has already flowered this year and all the blooms have died. Yours is really lovely CK - maybe I'll buy a few more now that I've seen yours.
The secret to having nice Mock Orange is to trim them back, AFTER they bloom. They bloom on new growth. I will cut them back to about 3 ft. tall sometime in June after the flowers have died off. Since they are about 7 ft tall that is a severe trim, but they will come back in a matter of weeks and next spring they will be a lot fuller. The parent shub of all of those is the very first one on the left. They root very easily and propagate well. The history of my land shows that the property was first recorded with the county in 1836 and on the description of the property it mentions a mock orange bush at the corner of the homestead. I found the old , rock lined, basement of the cabin. And the mock orange was right where it was described as being in relation to the cabin. So that would make the parent plant 171 years old. It was neglected for probably 100 yrs. or more. But in the past 20 yrs. I have trimmed it and dug out the old dead wood and brought it back. It is quite fun to trace the lives of plants. I also have a Burr Oak tree that I had dated and it is estimated that the tree is almost 200 years old. The guy beleived that it was a native oak, not a replant!
Thanks CK. I'm of to the garden with my secateurs!!! How do you root new plants - from new growth cuttings? It would save me quite a bit of money if I could propagate my own.
You can do it with new growth cuttings and put rooting powder on them. Or you can do like me, they tend to put up some new shoots off to the side of the parent plant. I let them grow a while until I figure they have developed a root system and then dig them up and transplant them. That's how I did the hedge off of the parent plant. And the hedge is about 100 ft long.
OK I've done both!!! I'm going to plant them (if they root) between the box's I have in the front garden. They should make a lovely display next year. Thanks for the help CK.
Not only are they easy to propagate, it is almost impossible to kill them. When I trim mine, I use a chain saw because I have so many. I counted the individual shrubs today and I have 35 all planted in a row. The parent shrub has stalks that are about 2 inches thick. But it keeps putting out new growth every spring. That is quite amazing considering it's age.
