Ceanothus Gloire de Versailles

This certainly IS one of the more commonly grown ceanothus in the
U.K., available from nurseries all over the country,including the
north, so it will certainly stand a wide range of conditions and,
particularly, a good deal of cold (not that that's Susan's problem!).
I grew it myself in an earlier garden on a Derbyshire hillside several
100 ft up - admittedly against a sheltered wall - and it took even the
really sustained hard winters we regularly experienced there. If roses
are thriving around it, I don't imagine that the problem is excess
heat as such or surely the roses would be suffering - sooner and worse
than the ceanothus, I'd have thought. What do our Californian members
think? Is there some sickness/bug/pest peculiar to ceanothus, or some
particular soil-condition to which they're averse, which might be
causing the problem?

As far as pruning is concerned, my own book-derived notion/practical
experience with ceanothus has been that, if you want to make much more
than mere minor post-flowering trimmings, then it's best to think of
taking out a whole branch rather than just a substantial part of one
(the stump [a] looks ugly and [b] tends to die, anyway). I've never
come across the advice which Ray mentioned, Not to take out whole
branches. Certainly, I've done it often myself and never had any
problem as a result. With me, by the sea, it's usually the ENDS of
branches which get salt-scorched and, having been scorched several
times, think To heck with it and die right back so that I then have to
take out a whole branch. I've no personal experience of trying to take
out the middle of a bush and persuading the rest of the plant to
regrow to fill the gap but if it looks a mess as it is at the moment
I'd say - What have you got to lose? Get a few rooted cuttings as
insurance, then give it a go. The plant's got two choices, after all.
Tim Longville
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