Now that November, winds have shaken the last leaves from most of our trees. For the shrubbery, the heart of the broad-leaved evergreens gets the spotlight.
These attractive plants, with their broad foliage contrasted with the slender needles of pines, spruces, and junipers, play an essential part in bridging the long winter season from fall to spring blossoms.
Southern magnolia and the American holly are attractive as lawn specimens or in places where more height is needed than can be furnished by Japanese hollies, Mahonias, or evergreen Euonymus varieties.
Colorful fruits of hollies and pyracanthas now take the place of flowers.
Homeowners’ clamor for more broad-leaved evergreens has stimulated the introduction of numerous plants from the South.
Some of these, such as Euonymus japonica, wax-leaf privets, Chinese and English Hollies, cherry laurel, and Photinia serrulata, have failed in almost all plantings to make the grade.
Other comparatively new introductions of Japanese hollies, various Euonymus and Burford holly, which formerly were not considered very hardy here, have done pretty well and were planted with east or north exposures and given proper attention.
Will Broadleaf Plants Withstand The Weather?
We still do not have the assurance that all these plants will withstand the weather in this area.
Many broadleafs that may barely survive here in Kansas City do well about 200 miles south of here; they succumb sooner if planted 200 miles to the north.
Our average winters include long intervals of the bright sun during January and February, with days of cold drying winds and little snow protection.
Injury may result from sudden temperature changes from November to April or rapid alternate freezing and thawing just as plants begin to grow during February or March.
A sudden November freeze following mild growing weather often injures broad-leaved evergreens more than a 15° degrees Fahrenheit-below-zero temperature later in the winter.
Leaves of plants exposed to the sun while the ground is frozen will sunscald if the water intake by the roots is insufficient to offset the loss by transpiration.
If this condition continues, the leaves will dry, and tip growth will be killed.
Established plants with well-developed root systems will stand adverse conditions much better than young, immature plants.
Broadleaf Needs Protection
Most broadleafs should be planted with east and north exposure, where they will have protection from the winter sun.
A winter mulch of 3” or 4” inch deep sawdust, peat moss, leaf mold, or other suitable material placed over the roots, combined with occasional thorough watering, will help prevent winter injury.
Most broadleafs are remarkably free from insect pests and diseases, and little spraying is necessary.
The holly leaf miner and the euonymus scale require control. DDT at three pounds of 50% wettable powder per 100 gallons of water applied when the first flies begin to emerge (about May 10 in this area) will control this pest.
Euonymus scale over-winters as mature females. The pest sucks the sap from the leaves and stems and, if not controlled, will kill euonymus plants.
The adult female is pear-shaped, grayish-brown, from 1/10” to 1/16” inch long. The adult male is white, very narrow, and about 1/20” inch long.
The young emerge from eggs laid under the female scales, usually in about mid-May. A second brood appears in mid-June, and a third in late September.
Effective control is a spray of miscible oil, one part in 15 parts water after freezing weather and before new growth begins.
Liquid lime sulfur 1:9 as a delayed dormant spray is also effective.
44659 by Stanley R. Mclane