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timeout

By Timeout

United Kingdom

how and when do you prune oleanders - is that how you spell it? ibought some last year and they never even flowered, after promising loads of mediterranean blooms!




Answers

 

Yes, that's exactly how you spell it.
As for pruning, they'll generally not need it and as for prolific blooms - you'll be lucky if you get them !

I've had one for 5 years, it's in a south facing border in my front garden and it's produced buds but never flowered, ever !

In this country we don't get enough consecutive hot and sunny days to allow the plant to produce the buds and ripen them - so they produce a lot of evergreen foliage but that's about it.

Mine is a beautifully healthy bushy plant, and it withstood minus 12 here 2 Novembers ago when we that early extremely cold weather, so at least i know it's hardy down to minus 12 now !

21 Jan, 2012

 

Assuming you mean Nerium, commonly known as Oleander, prefers hot and dry conditions to flower well. If you need to tidy them up, wait till spring starts rather than doing it now - careful of the sap, it can be an irritant to the skin. If yours are in pots, feeding regularly with something like Miracle Gro general purpose between April and end of June would be helpful.

21 Jan, 2012

 

Just agree with Louise1, if you're not able to give it plenty of hot sun it's unlikely to flower.

21 Jan, 2012

 

We are very lucky, we DO get quite a lot of hot sunshine, our oleanders DO flower, and I found out quite by chance that if you cut them back fairly hard after flowering towards the end of summer, you can control the shape, encourage the plant to put out more shoots and thicken up, and you can root the bits you've cut off and start new plants.
Well, be positive; you never know, the UK just might get a very hot summer this year!!!!! We get incredibly long, harsh winters, too, so that isn't going to kill them off.

21 Jan, 2012

 

Yes, gattina, you are absolutely right! Some years here in Uk they flower poorly, last year was a wonder (the midlands was hot and dry!) but I have always pruned back after flowering.

21 Jan, 2012

 

Oleander is used here along the central reservation of some motorways and is always a profusion of blossom in season, so assume they get any weather that comes.

22 Jan, 2012

 

We don't have flowery motorways in Italy (at least, I haven't seen any so far) but we do get brilliant displays of oleanders planted between dual carriageways, where they get incredibly polluted, filthy, dusty, hot air, very little water and are bashed about something rotten by passing traffic. There are smashed to pieces by the men with huge hedge-trimming machines each autumn, and STILL they come up smiling. I have a pot full of cuttings up in the loft, and I'm hoping to end up with a garden full of them within a year or two. Maybe a sunlamp would work, Timeout? :o))))))))

22 Jan, 2012

 

It certainly is a tough plant, i've cut this one of mine back hard and it always grows back strong and healthy. Just no flower buds ripening ;-)

24 Jan, 2012

How do I say thanks?

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