![\"\"](\"https:\/\/whatgrowsthere.com\/grow\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/11\/Vitex-agnus-castus1-3.jpg\" "\\"Vitex")
<\/a>Chaste tree (Vitex agnus-castus)<\/p><\/div> All examples are summer bloomers on current season’s wood. Renewal pruning is easy to understand, essentially cutting a shrub back to 3-6 inches above the ground. There is no advanced waiting required before grabbing a lopping shears or chain saw to perform this task.<\/p>\n After pruning follow-up by feeding the cutback shrubs. Each shrub or tree should receive a heaping handful of 10-10-10 or equivalent granular fertilizer. Fertilizer should be spread 12-18 inches away for the crown (base) of the tree or shrub. One caveat<\/strong>: the shrub should be healthy before renewal pruning is tried. A weak plant is unlikely to survive this technique, but will likely grow and bloom poorly if you had not acted.<\/p>\n By mid-spring, many shoots are likely to grow around the shrub base. A follow-up pruning may be needed if you desire a taller shrub. Leaving many multiple shoots will reduce plant height. Also, the amount of sunlight penetrating the plant will be inadequate, resulting in poor summer flowering.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Some non-hardy shrubs can be treated as hardy perennials. Crape myrtles (Lagerstroemia indica) and chastetree (Vitex agnus-castus) may emerge in poor condition after an unusually cold winter. Shrubs like butterfly bush (Buddleia spp.), and blue mist (Caryopteris spp.) often emerge in a ragged state, but recover quicker if cutback near the ground several weeks before […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[963,696,914,774,630,7,1085,455],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/whatgrowsthere.com\/grow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5718"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/whatgrowsthere.com\/grow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/whatgrowsthere.com\/grow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/whatgrowsthere.com\/grow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/whatgrowsthere.com\/grow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5718"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/whatgrowsthere.com\/grow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5718\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6000,"href":"https:\/\/whatgrowsthere.com\/grow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5718\/revisions\/6000"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/whatgrowsthere.com\/grow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5718"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/whatgrowsthere.com\/grow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5718"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/whatgrowsthere.com\/grow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5718"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nSome non-hardy shrubs can be treated as hardy perennials. Crape myrtles (Lagerstroemia indica<\/em>) and chastetree (Vitex agnus-castus<\/em>) may emerge in poor condition after an unusually cold winter. Shrubs like butterfly bush (Buddleia spp.<\/em>), and blue mist (Caryopteris spp<\/em>.) often emerge in a ragged state, but recover quicker if cutback near the ground several weeks before spring bud break.<\/p>\n