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"Rogueing"--what a great word, (even if it sounds like lurid novels with swashbucklers on the cover or running an Oregon river on a raft). It's a British word that means removing a plant from the garden because it's in the wrong place. Think of "digging up", "thinning", "weeding out" or "transplanting" as synonyms.
This process of elimination is vital to a healthy garden. Mother Nature does it in the wilderness, although in less aesthetic ways that of human gardeners. We see this in the trees toppled by recent windstorms, plants shriveled by drought or plants consumed by deer or other animals. The rationale is simple: make room for the best plants so they can thrive unhampered by competition from the less desirable species. You won't get a good crop of beets if the plants are too crowded--you must remove some of the seedlings in order for the rest to grow big.
For months, I’ve been struggling with a decision about rogueing out a tree. This is a mature ornamental that my children refer to as the "pink snow tree". It has a lot of sentiment attached to it--my mother planted it. My daughter climbed it. My cats play on it. And for a week each spring it is breathtakingly lovely. But the choice is now clear. It's got to go.
The problems with my cherry tree illustrate how much a plant badly sited can suffer as decades pass. Why cut down a tree? For starters, it was poorly planted, with a rootball that outgrew its pot long before it was put into the ground so the main roots circle instead of spreading out. It was put too close to the house. It was also too close to a copper beech that will, in a hundred years time, still be magnificent--just a little lopsided from being crowded by the cherry.
And the cherry, like many older ornamental cherries, has other problems. Twig dieback with brown leaves clinging like bats tell me there is fungal brown rot or a pervasive bacterial infection in there. Insects love this thing--if I have tent caterpillars anywhere, it's in the top of the cherry.
The roots (which are crowed against concrete and rock walls) have risen to the surface and are suckering throughout the shrub border. In short, for fifty-one weeks of the year, the pink snow tree is a problem. The garden as a whole will be better for its complete removal.
Sometimes rogueing means moving a plant to a better location. This is great fun for many people, whose gardens are merry-go-rounds of shifting plantings. It's easy to do with most perennials and shrubs where you can get a decent rootball to move. The time to move my cherry, however, was 40 years ago when it was small. Now the only solution is the expensive one of a saw and a stump grinder.
But you can prevent some of these problems through careful planning. Mother should have researched the mature size of the trees she was planting and not just looked at the pitiful twigs in their gallon containers. I guess they looked so lonely spread out that she just had to move them in so they'd have friends. Some friend! The trees have been competing for scarce water and food ever since and all of them are somewhat distorted because of it. In the long run crowding never pays.
Gardens are not for "now", they are for years to come and their
bones must be planned with longevity in mind. If the twig looks too bare, surround
it with temporary plants--short-lived perennials and annuals--until it has gained
it's footing and can command it's own site in the garden scheme. Planning ahead
means less work in the long run and much less guilt on your part. Trust me.
It's hard to rogue out a sentimental favorite. .
Hortsense: Managing plant problems with Integrated Pest Management
