Re: [SG] Daphne Carol Mackie

There are only two things that kill Daphnes such as Carol Mackie, somerset
and caucasica.  The first is drought.  They do not survive drying out.
There is no dying back.  As long as they are kept watered the do terrific in
zone 5.  I lost several 4" cuttings in pots last summer due to heat
stress/drying out but all of the Daphnes in the ground did great. They need
sun, do not treat them like a Rhododendrons!  They are lime lovers.  The
other problem is their brittleness.  They will get damaged by heavy wet snow
so they need to have their main stems staked.  Because of this I usually
expect them to live about 6 or 7 years.  The roots are equally brittle  Once
I was pulling up what I though was a tree root only to dicover it was a
Daphne root.  Pulling up the root caused it to strip the bark off of one
side on the main trunk, killing it.  This is ok because they get full grown
in 3 or 4 years and they are very easy from cuttings struck in September.
When one is about grown, I plant a replacement so I can have three sizes.
Caucasica is even easier since it has smaller branches and even the cuttings
in pots do not die of heat stress.  Caucasica started blooming in March and
still blooming strong.  It is normally in bloom untill Thanksgiving.
Instead of a total mass of bloom like somerset, it just has a cluster of
blooms at the tip of each branch.  The fragrance is there all the time
except it diminishes in extreme heat.  Daphnes are my second favorite shrubs
after Rhododendrons.  I wouldn't think of not growing Daphnes.  The virus
problems with Daphnes do not include these three varieties.  They are easier
to grow in the midwest than Rhododendrons.
If you buy a plant and it dies soon after without any growth, it was damaged
before it was planted.  I have never seen any large Daphnes for sale that
weren't damaged in shipping or damaged by being dug up.  It is possible to
get a cneorum to live but since they are field grown in clay with the roots
chopped off it has little chance of survival.  In the midwest they container
plants grown in Oregon clay do not adapt well without removing most of the
clay.   This is also a problem with mossy Saxifragas.  They absolutely must
be small container grown plants such as what is sold by Siskiyou rare plant
nursery or Mt. Tahoma nursery. This is why the are always so expensive, they
are almost always damaged in shipping
They are wonderful, very hardy shrubs that do great as long as a good plant
is purchased, it is kept watered and kept out of harms way.
I have a few pictures of Daphnes on my web site.  When I find some good ones
of the mentioned   plants I will put them on too.
http://www.geocities/RainForest/Vines/9701  I will get rid of the banners as
soon as I get a $5 a month site to replace the free one.  The address will
not change.
Frank Cooper
East central Illinois, zone 5
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