hard pruning banksias

[leamos]

my coastal banksia has been going backwards over the last month, suffering from sunburn and dying out, I recently moved and my plants now reside on a north facing balcony all my other plants, ficus, juniper and tridents have been fine but the coastal hasn't. I was planning on cutting it back this coming month but as much of the leaves and branches has shrived i decided to do it this week. I cut it back to dorment buds and left the remaining healthy growth, gave it a feed on powerfeed and moved it onto the shade to recover. My question is will the banksia recover from this hard prune, period of drought and do banksias bud back well on older wood?

[leamos]

Here are a few pics post chop

banksia prune.jpg

banksia chop.jpg

[NBPCA]

my coastal banksia has been going backwards over the last month, suffering from sunburn and dying out, I recently moved and my plants now reside on a north facing balcony all my other plants, ficus, juniper and tridents have been fine but the coastal hasn't. I was planning on cutting it back this coming month but as much of the leaves and branches has shrived i decided to do it this week. I cut it back to dorment buds and left the remaining healthy growth, gave it a feed on powerfeed and moved it onto the shade to recover. My question is will the banksia recover from this hard prune, period of drought and do banksias bud back well on older wood?

Check the wood on the trunk. Is it still green underneath and when you cut it did it look alive where you did the chop.

If it is still green under the bark and was when you gave it the chop then it will probably be OK and could start budding back on old wood immediatley.

Probably no need to have left the remaing healthy growth as it should stay alive OK and be forced to bud back agressively.

Grant