Harry Lauder's Walking Stick Pruning,
Propagating,
General Care
Copyright © 2009 by
Michael J. McGroarty, McGroarty Enterprises Inc.
Botanically known as Corylus
Avellana Contorta, Harry Lauder's Walking Stick is one of the most
interesting interesting plants you can put in your landscape, and probably
one of the least understood.
This wonderful plant with
it's array of twisted and contorted branches will happily grow in zones 4
through 8 and is one of the few plants that really has no serious disease
or insect pest problems. The biggest problem with these plants to date is
the amount of suckering that grows up from the root stock. However,
today through means of creative propagation more and more of these plants are being
grown on their own roots,
and this completely solves the problem of undesirable suckers.
On this page you will
discover an interesting technique for propagating Harry Lauder's Walking
Stick.
Wanted!
People who would like to work at home
making and selling rooted cuttings.
Harry Lauder's Walking Stick
is truly a plant lovers plant. Many people at first site are
repelled by the appearance of this plant. Why, I'm not sure, it has
been one of my favorites since I first laid eyes on it.
Yeah,
I'll admit that the big crazy looking leaves don't exactly jump out at you
and say; "Wow! Look at me!" But we have enough
plants clamoring for our attention during spring and summer. Harry
Lauder's Walking Stick is at it's best during the winter months after the
leaves have fallen off. See the above winter time photo to see what
I mean.
Again,
a summer photo of Harry Lauder's Walking Stick and a winter photo.
But with a "twist" pun intended. Typically this plant is
grown in shrub form, and occasionally you'll find one that has been
grafted onto a straight root stock, which really baffles me because the
crazy twisted branches on top of a straight stem clearly look like a
mismatch to me.
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So what
I like to do is get the plants when they are small and train them to grow
as single stem plants with no grafting involved. That way the stem
is also twisted and contorted. I simply select the strongest branch that I
can move into a vertical position and train it to grow upright by tying
it to a plant stake. When that single stem reaches a height of about
50 or 60 inches I clip off the top so it will quit growing upright and I
allow the side branches to grow out. As the tree starts to develop a
pretty good head I start removing the lower side branches until I have a
single stem Harry Lauder's Walking Stick like you see in the above two
photos. It's important not to remove the lower branches until the
tree has an adequate number of leaves up top to support the plant.
Remember, plants need good leaf structure for the process of
photosynthesis.
As a
side note you can way train a lot of other shrubs into single stem plants by doing
the same thing that I just described. It's a lot of fun and you end
up with some really interesting plants.
I
took the above two photos when this tree was quite young. I originally
grew the plant in my nursery, then moved into my the landscaping at my
nephew's house. They sold that house but I go by it all the time and
long for that tree. To see it now, years later it is
absolutely the most cool looking plant you've ever seen. I am
in the process of training a couple for my own landscape.
For
years the propagation of Harry Lauder's Walking Stick was an involved
process that required first the growing of a Filbert to use as a
rootstock, then the Walking Stick was grafted onto the Filbert. It
was a pretty slow process. Today many of them are grown on their own
roots, and one of the most reliable ways to root them is through the art
of layering.
What
you see in the above photo is a very young Harry Lauder's Walking
Stick. This specimen was actually propagated via Grafting.
I have to brag and tell you that I bought ten of these from one of my
customers on the Backyard
Growers Message Board for $4.50 each. These plants
typically sell in garden centers and on the internet for $79.00 or more
for plants in two gallon containers. I love the Backyard Growers
Message Board! What we do there day in and day out amazes me.
I also bought about 20 rare Japanese Maples to add to my collection from
two different customers of mine.
When
I started selling my Backyard
Growing System it never dawned on me that I'd end up buying
plants from my own customers. To me that is really, really
cool. I am very proud of what those folks accomplish.
This
is a rather unique method of propagating Harry Lauder's Walking Stick, but
it works really well. Notice in both photos that I've twisted a
piece of twist tie material around the stem right below the bud
union. This twist tie should be quite snug. The restriction it
creates actually assists in the formation of new roots when the plant is
layered. Bud unions are the little bumps along the stem of a plant
where new buds are about to emerge. Notice that I put the twist tie
below the bud union so as to not damage the bud union.
After
doing this I planted the roots of the plant in the ground, then I bent the
top over and buried the section of the plant with the twist tie in a
separate hole several inches away from the roots, leaving part of the stem
exposed and out of the ground. Then I bent the very top of the
plant back up and out of the ground. This method of propagation is
known as Layering,
and there is more information and diagrams on this page.
Now
I will tell you a little secret. If you were to get really good a
propagating Harry Lauder's Walking Stick using this method you would have
no problem selling all of the plants that you could grow this way.
On the Backyard
Growers Board alone you could probably sell all you could
propagate. It's amazing how many plants our members sell to each
other in a day, week or month.
Recently
a member found a deal on large lot of rare Japanese Maples and offered
them to the board members for $11.00 each. Some of the really rare
ones went for $13.00 each. He sold somewhere in the neighborhood of
$20,000 worth of those Japanese Maples in just a matter of days!
People are still asking him for more and are asking to pre-order for next
spring.
I urge you to
join our group. Right smack in the middle of the recession many of
our members are having their very first plant sale and posting sales
figures of many thousands of dollars for just a one or two day sale.
Click
here to see one of our plant sales!
We
sold over $25,879. worth of our
little plants right from our driveway in a
matter of about six weeks!