Training beautiful flowering bushes into unique ornamental trees

There is nothing more beautiful than a flowering shrub in full bloom, except perhaps a flowering shrub in full bloom that has been trained to grow as a single-stemmed tree. Imagine having a fragrant viburnum tree next to your patio or outside your bedroom window, waking up to such a wonderful scent.

Do not confuse what I am going to explain here with the common technique of grafting flowering shrubs onto the tall stem of some type of rootstock. Grafting is very effective, but not so easy to do. This is much easier. Not only that, when you train the shrub to grow into a single stemmed tree, you can end up with some very interesting plants.

Training a flowering shrub to grow into a single stemmed tree is quite simple. The younger the bush you start with, the easier it will be to train. I have a friend who grows thousands of tree hydrangeas a year and this is how he trains them. The variety he grows for this purpose is P.G. Hydrangea. (Hortensia paniculata grandiflora) This is the one with the huge white snowball flowers.

It starts with rooted cuttings and lines them up in the field about 30 "apart. The first year allows them to grow intact as multi-stem shrubs. Being a fast growing shrub, they generally produce 3 to 4 branches that grow to a height about 3 to 4 'that first season The following spring he goes to the field, examines each plant and selects the stem that is the straightest, and is likely to grow directly from the roots if tied to a stake.

Then cut off all the other branches as close to the main stem as possible. Then drive a stake into the ground as close to the main stem as possible and cut off the tip of the single remaining stem. This forces the plant to place the side buds just below where it cut the top, rather than keep growing upwards. These side shoots will develop into branches that will form the head of the tree. Then tie the stem to the stake.

As it begins to grow, the shoots that appear below the top group of shoots are cut back to maintain the single-stemmed tree shape. That's all about it. You can use almost anything as a stake and simply tie the stem to the stake with a piece of cloth. I also secure the plants to the stakes with a single wrap of duct tape. I find that if I only wrap the tape once, the sun will dry the glue and the tape will fall off on its own in about 12 months.

You can do the same with an older established bush if you can find a branch that can be tied to a vertical stake. The stem is likely crooked and not too smooth due to the wounds where the branches were removed, but that doesn't mean you can't create an interesting plant. Some of the shrubs that make beautiful and unique ornamental trees are many varieties of Viburnums, Burning Shrub, Winged Burning Shrub, Red and Yellow Twig Dogwood, Weigelia, Mockorange, Rose of Sharon, and Flowering Almond.