Daphne Handout

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Daphne by Cass Turnbull

I once heard someone in the audience ask transplant, but I thought it would be Marianne Binetti why their daphne, a long- different for me. time garden resident, suddenly died. Marianne responded that daphnes just up My Daphne o. looks pretty bad much of the and commit suicide every once in a while. It year, especially during the winter and on remains my favorite Mariannism. Yes, it’s cold spring days—her leaves are cupped true. Daphnes are a finicky lot. But they are and bleached. And in the summer too, as well worth the trouble. My own garden, there’s a bit too much sun. The entire shrub which started out 20 years ago with a is rather floppy. In a really cold winter, it semblance of grace and theme, has totally defoliates (but refoliates by degenerated into a hodgepodge of salvage summer). Still, D.o. enjoys ‘most favored plants and a collection of two genera— plant’ status in my yard. Hydrangea and Daphne. I can’t help it. In some yards that are suffering from Daphne odora (Winter Daphne) neglect and mal-treatment, including shearing, daphne does great. Other times, in That’s because you can’t beat daphne. My perfect conditions, she dies. To paraphrase front yard has many sweet spring smellers, Freud, “what does Daphne want?” We’re Daphne odora, Osmanthus, hyacinths, not really sure. Cultural conditions and Pieris. I needn’t have bothered with any but requirements of D.o. are said to be as daphne. Daphne o. easily wins the best follows: These plants are drought tolerant, fragrance awards, 1st, 2nd and 3rd place. and, in fact, they are prone to ‘water mold’. During bloom time, I can spot passers-by We should plant Daphne in a well-drained hunting her down with their noses, so soil, and give her 3 hours of shade in the heavenly sweet is she. And she lifts my summer. Daphne prefers a pH of about 7, so spirits every day for over a month, from in the slightly acid soils of the PNW, a little dreary February on into March. Now that’s lime may be in order. Reduce summer water a hardworking, garden-worthy plant. I’ve to a minimum. never had an employee who didn’t develop a crush on daphne. Pruning Daphne

Twenty years later, I’m still in love with I have resisted commenting on the pruning Daphne. She is my second Daphne o. The of daphnes, including Daphne o., since my first one died when I tried to move her. Of knowledge is incomplete. You may recall the course, I had been warned: Daphnes don’t last PlantAmnesty newsletter’s pruning

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questionnaire, to which I received zero have done it under certain conditions. responses, included a query on daphne. Daphne odora is generally 4’ tall x 5’ wide at (There were lots of requests for ‘Cass’s maturity, and you should count on that Most Useful Articles’ packet, though). when you site your shrub. But it will get up to 8’ tall and wide, and I have a client who complains that his D.o is swallowing up the yard. Most people would be gleefully beside themselves to have such a robust and healthy plant. But as it was engulfing a pathway and a little bridge, I did indeed press down hard, rather ruthlessly cutting back branches to side branches deep inside the plant, and even making some rather non-selective heading cuts. Happily, all of them broke bud like crazy and greened back up nicely. Hmmmm. It makes me wonder if such a shrub could be radically renovated. But as you will recall, I got zero responses How to prune Daphne odora -Remove from my pruning questionnaire. If you do branches shown in black have some experience, please write or e- I’ll clue you in to my current knowledge, mail me, okay? assuming that some knowledge is better than none. Given the touchy nature of the Daphne mezereum (February Daphne) beast, most people are afraid to experiment on their daphnes, as am I. In researching More than one D.m. has died in my yard. I the topic, I pass on my favorite quote from was relieved to the 1972 edition of George E. Brown’s The hear from the Pruning of Trees, Shrubs & Conifers: nurseryperson “Normally these shrubs do not require that they no longer pruning and their response if carried out is carry this plant so varied that the advice is, do not try it.” because it gets a deadly virus. So That said, from time to time, I do prune maybe it wasn’t Daphne o. using the ‘grab-and-snip’ my fault, after all. technique. I usually do this in spring to get On the other some flowers to bring inside. Also D.o. gets hand, I saw a lot of pretty floppy, so it is perfectly okay to cut these in Alaska, and rather large ones at off, or cut back to a side branch, a branch or that. So, is it a tough plant or a delicate two lying on the ground. And one can try to one? Well, it’s a daphne. I still really want perk it up by removing some of the longest one. But D. mezereum is definitely a plant branches flopping on top of others. Also, lover’s plant. That’s because it is basically although I always resist size constraint, I just a stick that covers itself in a purple

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sweater of sweet-smelling flowers really, to 4’ tall and wide, looses it leaves in the really early in the year. The rest of the winter (though the books say it’s a semi- time it is pretty unremarkable. Oh, I guess evergreen). It has pretty little nosegays of I should say it has some nice red berries sweet smelling white-fading-to-pink later on -which, by the way, are very flowers later in the spring and again in late poisonous, as are all parts of daphnes. If summer. It turned out to be the perfect this plant survives, it gets to be about four plant for the spot at the base of my feet tall. It is a deciduous shrub that wisteria. I had been looking for something Sunset describes as having “rather gawky, that didn’t get too big, to act as an anchor stiffly twigged, erect growth”. For pruning and counterpoint to the mega-show that instructions refer to George E. Brown’s my wisteria puts on. They bloom at the quote above. same time. (Other good companion plants for wisteria are Ceanothus and ‘London Daphne cneorum (The Garland Daphne) Pride’ saxifrage). It’s nice to have some shrubs that are smaller than rhodies and Daphne c. (pronounced knee-or-um) is a camellias, and pieris and, well, just about low, ground hugging mat that almost everything. And with smaller leaves too, always dies, which is why, I guess, the for more contrast in our yards. A Daphne x books refer to it as a ‘choice rock garden burkwoodii in one customer’s yard is doing plant’. I never plant it any more. If you are well where other plants fail to thrive, that tempted to try it, I’ve found some is to say, under the canopy of some cherry interesting advice on its maintenance. I trees. It is holding its own against the life- quote from my Sunset-Western: “A noted sucking mass of cherry tree roots. rock garden authority recommends throwing rocks at your D. cneorum: the For pruning instructions see Brown’s rock bruises the stem and holds it against advice above. But I will confess to a the soil in a layering process.” pruning experiment perpetrated on my own plant last year. As the shrub was Daphne x burkwoodii getting a bit too big and a bit too leggy for its spot, I, well, I sheared it mid-season. Daphne x Yes, I did. I just wanted to see what would burkwoodii, happen. It’s part of my job description to including the test for pruning information. My D. nice variegated burkwoodii branched out at each cut end form ‘Carol and was bushier and shorter and tidier. So Mackie’, is one far, so good. Then the leaves fell off in of the lesser winter and I could see all the “hydras” at daphnes that each cut end (which had collected a mess are becoming of those dead leaves). It looked like heck. more and more common. And we are all It’s not like I don’t know that one of the glad to see it. It has small leaves, grows 3’ criteria for a good shear plant (hedge

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plant) is that it is evergreen so that the daphne, and see if she likes you. ugly heading cuts are never seen. Duh! Can P.S. If she doesn’t make it, don’t take it one radically renovate this shrub with any personally. luck? I don’t know. Cass Turnbull 2006

Daphne laureola Daphne retusa This is the “wild” Daphne that seeds itself around town. Some people think of it as an invasive, but really, it’s just sort of a nuisance in some places. The main reason is that even as a tiny two-inch seedling, it is almost impossible to pull up! What roots! I have to use pliers to get them in yards where they have made themselves too comfortable (and for holly babies too). But D.l. can live where other plants die from lack of sun and water. So, I leave it in those places. It has very nice dark, blue-green healthy whorls of leaves—interesting to look at. The flowers are so inconspicuous I can’t say I’ve ever seen them. The berries are black and unremarkable. Still, my philosophy is ‘no bad plants’, just plants in the wrong place. I get a kick out of one that seeded itself just inside the perimeter of my Daphne o. I bet it’s trying to pass itself off, so I leave it there. For now, anyway.

Other Daphnes

I see that there are other kinds of Daphne now making their way into the nurseries. I don’t know much about them, or how to prune them. But what I can tell you is that I already want some for my yard. In fact, I recommend that everyone try a Daphne ‘Reginald Farrer’