Solanum rantonnetii

Flowering for the first time? Really? LOL!

This plant becomes a very big shrub here and blooms heavily all year. It's a really good shrub for poodleing (I think I spelled this correctly) lol.

First time this year. I planted it out last year and basically I'm just pleased that it survived the (admittedly mild) winter.

What's poodleing mean?

LOL! We call it poodleing here becuase it's how poodles are cut. Cut like round balls or shapes in sections of a shrub or tree. I had seven branches with different size round-shaped foliage on top and you strip all the leaves below. I had a S. rantonnetii in the SF Bay Area which I shaped like this...it looked very good.

Here's an example. It's commonly done on Ficus and Olive trees here in California.

http://www.examiner.com/article/fruit-trees-for-desert-gardens-olive-trees

Ahhhh - what we call a standard. I loath them! Just look unnatural to me.

A standard here in one trunk, not multiple trunks or branches.

The poodleing technique is widely used at amusement parks like Disneyland.

Sounds more like cloud pruning to me....very skilled and costs a fortune...

Dottydaisy2:

Yes, it's also called cloud-pruning. I think Solanum rantonnetii looks very good pruned this way because it's an extremely fast, gangly-grower to 20' (6m) tall and almost as wide. I think this plant looks awful when allow to grow in every direction. There's one a block from where I live which is much taller than the house and is growing in every direction. I think it looks ugly even though it has a million flowers on it.

I much prefer the natural look...................

I don't think you would say this if you saw how large and gangly it looks. It looks so much better when pruned and shaped.