RIP ceanothus

I had this lovely ceanothus for about 8 years. It's survived snow before but I suppose this last winter was too much as it just curled up its leaves and died! So it's gone to that great compost heap in the sky.





Of all the plants I thought would succumb to that winter, my Californian Lilac wasn't one of them.

Is this a familiar story to anyone else?

 

That's a real shame - beautiful plants, but I've read they can be very tempermental.

I lost a Rosemary this winter. It too survived the snow, but the prolonged winter has done for it, leaves went brown and it shrivelled up and died :(

 

Shame to loose a mature plant - but you can always see it as an opportunity to try something else!

Thankfully my Ceanothus survived, I think the varieties vary a lot in cold tolerance and it also depends on the micro-climate of the planting position. Mine is against a south wall

 

Yep - but there's such a BIG hole left where it was!

 

Lovage - you are right about micro climate.

I lost most of my Ceanothus, and I have been cutting it back today. All the exposed part is dead, but the part at the back next to the fence is still alive. Does anyone know if it will sprout again at the bottom from a part that is still alive but has no leaves for several feet?

Daisees - so sorry to see you lost it. When I first posted I saw the healthy plant picture after the winter picture and without reading the post properly I assumed it had survived.

 

i really feel for you daisees, its horrible to lose a well loved plant and as you say such a big hole - esp with the height softening the wall behind - will you put some climbers in?

loopy

 

It will if you are lucky. The first year I planted a Ceanothus against the south facing wall - shame on me I was very inexperienced then - and it did survive an extremely mild winter even in here, and sprouted from the very bottom. I potted it up, but I wouldn't leave a C. arboreus 'Trewithen Blue' outside if the temperatures fall below -10C°...

C. repens can survive harsher winters with a lot of mulching, and C. 'Henri Desfosse' is said to be the most winterhardy of all the varieties - it can tolerate temps as low as -15C°.

And, most surprisingly, from the pink Ceanothuses, C. pallidus, 'Marie Simon' survived the below -20es as well with some twig dieback...

 

Thanks Agatha - thats interesting about the different species. Mine was a discreet cutting from a petrol filling station - but they didn't have a label saying what species it was. :D

I would have imagined a pink Ceanothus was less hardy - but 'Marie Simon' looks worth looking out for.

If my Ceanothus dies I am already growing a hardier replacement - Caragana microphylla. It hardy to below -40C!

 

Unfortunately my experience is that ceanothus can be fairly short-lived even under the best of conditions. It seems to be the price it pays for being so fast-growing. Mine survived for ten years or so before giving up the ghost for no apparent reason - no hard winter, no change in growing conditions, no nothing. I've noticed that formerly splendid specimens in other gardens often do much the same thing. Much as I miss the large splash of blue, I've decided not to plant a large variety again. Hacking down dead specimens and digging out the roots is hard work and I don't think I'll be able to persuade my husband, who thinks of gardening as a form of torture, to get rid of another deceased shrub. I might try one of the dwarf varieties, however.

 

ceanothus dieback.
In our garden we are also currently experiencing what appears to be dieback of our gorgeous 12 year old ceanothus. My husband has spent a long time today cutting out dead wood stems. They are not just the ones most exposed to the weather. A lot of them are central, protected stems. Some of these stems are 3 inches in diameter but they are brown all the way through instead of green like the healthy ones. We dont know if this will do any good but fingers crossed. Whats weird though is that other parts of the plant have healthy buds which look as if they are going to flower. We also have a younger ceanothus which has brown dead leaves and stems on one side but loooks green and healthy on the other. It also has healthy buds on the green side. Just as strange, the side which appears to be dying is the one protected most from the winds. If there's anyone out there who can suggest anything else we can do I'd much appreciate their advice.

 

Dig it out I'm afraid. It may struggle on for another year or two as ours did but it gave up the ghost in the end. Twelve years is a fair age.

 

Looks like it's doomed then. I am going to leave it as long as possible and then I suppose I will have to accept the inevitable