Foundations for Great Pruning
Winter and early spring are the best times of year for fully pruning your trees and shrubs. When you prune in winter or early spring, you can see the whole structure easily because no leaves skew your view. This makes pruning easier - especially for your thorough restructurings we are talking about here. It's also easier on your plants because the energy/juices are still more down in the roots.
What Pruning Actually Does To Plants
Pruning cleanses a plant. It frees up where the structure has started to overlap in ways that slowly degrade the movement of energy, that in-turn suppresses outbound growth, and blocks the full range of flow that particular plant has.
Pruning Like A Pro - The Basics
First off: make sure all your pruning tools are clean and sharp before starting your project. This makes for the cleanest cuts and ease of cuts.
Start at the base of your tree/shrub, removing any suckers that may be growing there. Remove any debris or dirt piled up on the feeder roots at the base if they are buried too low.
Remember that trees and shrubs planted too low in the ground is one of the major causes of plant health problems. No amount of pruning, soil amending, watering, or fertilizing can fix this. Planting trees and shrubs is something that should be done right from the start to avoid this problem.
Next: work your way up pruning branch-by-branch, feeling out each cut step-by-step. If you are unsure about any cuts, stop and take a step away from your work and look at the entire tree/shrub so you can see the bigger picture before you make the next cut.
Check for signs of disease and pull off any moss as you are working your way to the top. The crabapple tree at the top of this newsletter, and the pink dogwood tree below are great examples of how a tree should look after being pruned.
Your goal in being a great pruner is to direct and shape the structure so it is balanced, open, beautiful, and supportive of the unique tree/shrub you are working with. You are crafting space for it to grow freely, both within its own system and in relational spacing to its neighboring plants and other physical structures like your house for example.
I learned how to prune by doing it, and seeing how the plant I'm working with flows inside of the unique ecology of each garden I work in. I go through the entire plant with care and precision, working with every branch within the context of the whole structure, and your unique garden and home layout.
You’re turn - happy pruning!
Featured Portfolio Pictures
Below we have a dahlia (tuber) flower, and the gladiola (bulb) flower. Both these plants produce outstanding color. Dahlias in particular have an awesome kaleidoscopic pattern, and the beautiful color of Gladiolas will make you GLAD you planted them.
Make sure you plant dahlias in a FULL sun area - they do best with zero shade. They also don't like cold soil, so good to wait until late spring to plant these. Irises are much hardier in cold soil, and will fare well even if you have some freezing. With dahlias you can plant when there is a freeze risk, just make sure you cover with mulch if you do.
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