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Re: Sweet shrub (Calycanthus)

If any of you grow sweet shrub (Calycanthus), would appreciate if you would read the following post I received from a friend and suggest (off-line) how I should reply to her. I've not grown sweet shrub, so I can't answer her from experience.

Thanks, Lina


"My gardening dilemma is one of my sweet shrubs.  The previous owner 'pruned'
it every year by clipping off the top so it looked like a mushroom.  It
looked weird to me.  I read a bunch and saw that I needed to cut out the
deadwood (she never had) and to thin it by about a third.  And not cut off
the top.  So I did that.

"When it rains the tops of the branches fall over and splay out.  The first
time that happened, a gardening friend suggested I tie it up since none of
the tipped over branches were cracked.  So I did some of that but I only did
that around the worst of the splayers and not around the whole thing.  But
now it's raining again and more of it is tipping toward the ground and
splaying out.  There's lots of new growth (sprouts) coming from the center
of it.  I'm now thinking the splaying is because there are so few leaves
along the length of most of the branches and lots of leaves and new growth
at the ends (tops) and the heaviness of the rainwater is greater than the
branches can support.  To which I can say -- well great!  But what do I do
now??  I have two of these -- I only worked on one of them.  The other one
is larger and it isn't splaying like the one I 'helped.'

"Do you have any ideas?  I think I ought to do something, but I just don't
know what -- aside from tying the whole thing up.  I'm wondering if I
shouldn't cut those down and let it start over??  A friend said these take a
long time to grow though.  What to do?  What to do??"
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