PRIVET

PRIVET

The wild type that's growing everywhere (at least here in my neck of the woods) 

OMG ! 

 If you are an allergy sufferer you probably know exactly what this stuff is, and absolutely despise it's existence as much as Ragweed.

  I live in the country surrounded by woods, so there is a lot of Privet scattered along the woodline of our "yard".  We live in a log home with no AC unit. We like our windows and the nice airflow coming off the hills around us. I have never really had "allergies" but it didn't take long for the Privet to start having a really bad affect on me. What to do..... you cant' hardly kill this stuff and in such a large wild area there are runners and seedlings to no end. My first thought was kill me now! I needed a remedy that was easy, cheap and lasting.

 If you cant' beat it,  join it!

  Privet flowers on new growth and is an evergreen. It also grows fast. It likes sun so it will be leggy and not flower as much in shaded areas. Pulling it all out was impossible because roots would reshoot if left behind and trimming just seemed to speed up the growth (cut 10 branches 30 or more new ones would result)  After much trial and error I have come to embrace our Privet.

  The scraggly Privet takes longer to come back and it is located in the shaded woodline. I cut these down to the ground and the mower takes care of the new growth. For the larger and fuller ones I cut everything off leaving the thicker trunks bare and all at different heights. Yes, a 3 inch diameter trunk will sprout new growth but it is slower. We lost two very large trees in our yard that had Privet growing at their bases. We always mowed it down so we actually "forgot" it was there. The tree stumps were left behind and the Privet shot up like mad (full sun now). "Well, it hides the stumps," I thought, so I let it grow. As it all got 3' tall panic set in.

Oh, all the pollen that would produce! WHACK! off came the tops and I slid my hand down each little trunk wiping off all the little sideshoots, all the way to the ground! Now, I had bare sticks! LOL It didn't take long for shoots to sprout up on  the top all the way around it. Looked good to me, except the legs needed to be wiped clean again. Imagine topiary or a Crepe Myrle, thats what I did anyway.  Lookin' good, but I wanted them to get bigger  and thicker on those tops, so.... WHACK! straight across that new growth about 2" from its starting point. Even more shoots popped out resulting in much thicker bushier tops.

 As proud as I was about my new "friends", all this trimming was alittle much for this lazy gardener and became work I didn't want to participate in.  I finally figured out when to trim (once I got them to the size that I wanted) so there would be no blooms.  Spring would be a hard trimming to whatever shape I wanted and late summer to mid fall would be a light trim because I want it to look good for the winter. No blooms! As an evergreen this is a wonderful plant for a focal point. It sways in the wind, has nice texture, shape how you want, can be a thick or thin as you want, you decide the height (1' to 15').  For me, all the little leaf shoots that pop up on the legs slow way down or stop completely after regular wiping off. Personally, I like clean legs for visual effect and I get to under plant them with flowers. Also, by letting this plant grow, it slows down and/or stops most of the suckering from the roots. I guess its too busy feeding the larger plant. 

In the end, I now have a plant that I love and it loves me back. My "Soon-to-be" thinks it is funny to act like he is going to mow over a section of suckers that I am letting grow bigger to divide into indivdual plants for using in more desirable areas of our property. 

GO FIGURE!  

For those of you who are not bothered by the pollen.... if you want the flowers and the resulting berries you need to trim once in early spring. If it gets too big, whack it hard, every other year it will come back. It may still bloom that year if you do it early spring. I was getting rid of bloom so can't say exactly how to do that, other than it will come back!

Hopefully, if you have a Privet problem, my experience and remedy will help you to embrace it.

Good Luck!