Spring Springing, Pruning, Shearing, Fertilizing

Dear Gardening Friends,

I hope that you have been enjoying the little signs of spring that are opening up all around. I particularly like the opening up of tree buds. Here is a picture I tool yesterday with my iPhone of a hickory bud opening:

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Kind of cool eh? Like two praying hands...

So, with warmer weather comes renewed enthusiasm for getting out into the garden. That enthusiasm includes a desire both to make ready and to tidy, both of which desires may involve getting out and cleaning off your pruners. A couple of eager folks with pruners all ready to go have asked when was I going to get around to the promised pruning articles! So here is the first one.

There is much to say about pruning, but just for right now, as spring erupts and your gardener juices start flowing again, and you want to know what to do or not do now, I have just a few thoughts...

((Side note 1: while pruning or talking about pruning I often think about the line in Bob Segar's "Against the Wind" that goes "what to leave in, what to leave out." A perfect pruning question! And then there is that other great line not really so applicable to pruning, but I just like it - "wish I didn't know now what I didn't know then." Seriously....OK if you now have that song in your head, click here to hear it.))

((Side note 2: in editing this before sending I realize that I have changed case throughout from third person to second person to first person and back again. My seventh grade grammar teacher at Crayton would cringe, and I apologize to her and all other grammarians. It offends me too frankly; I am rather ashamed. I'll barely be able to concentrate all day thinking of it. But I'm hurrying and don't want to take the time to fix it right now, and I just MUST get this out before Mr. Arbuckle mangles his azaleas.)

The most important thing when it comes to pruning is knowing the plants. Plants vary greatly from one another as to when they bloom, when they set buds, and how they respond to certain kinds of cuts, and so forth.

So on this beautiful early March weekend you are armed and ready with newly cleaned and sharpened hand pruners ....but you are unsure. Should I prune this plant now or later, and what about that one?

This is an important question, for in fact, some plants set their buds for flowering over the last summer or fall. These flowering buds over winter and are ready to burst out in early spring! If you prune these now you will lose your spring flowers. 

So which plants are on the "do not prune" list for early March? Here are a few - they should not be pruned until after they have flowered. Some of these flower quite early. This is NOT an exhaustive list. Please write me if you have questions about a particular plant.

forsythia

azalea

regular mophead hydrangea

mock orange

dogwood

red bud

fothergilla

quince

oak leaf hydrangea

camellia

banana shrub

rhododendrom

pieris

burning bush

sweet shrub

loropetalum

pyracantha

viburnums (with exceptions)

spring blooming spirea

weigela

sweetspire

winter honeysuckle

Note: almost all deciduous trees set flowering buds before winter. It is a fine time to prune out dead wood, or take wayward branches back to the truck or bigger branch junction. Unless you like killing branches NEVER EVER just randomly cut limbs back whether a few feet or leaving stubs on the tree. Tree pruning will be covered in a future letter.

There are a number of plants that set flower buds on NEW growth, and if you are going to prune any of these, the sooner the better. A few examples...

knock out roses (most shrub roses)

abelia

limelight hydrangeas

nandina

crape myrtle

beautyberry

althea (rose of sharon)

chaste tree

lantana

butterfly bush

clethra

oleander

wisteria

summer spirea

hibiscus

And then there are the myriad of plants that you are not growing for their showy flowers...but first, a third side note...

I am often asked whether a certain plant flowers. Well, most of the plants we are talking about are angiosperms, or flowering plants. In other words, they produce flowers, and after flowers fruit (OK, some plants are sterile). The question is do we care about the flowers they produce? Personally I love cherry laurel flower clusters but most folks hate the fruit that follows so if a cherry laurel needs to be trimmed back no great loss.. Same with ligustrum. Or cleyera. Cleyera, if allowed to grow up to its normal height of 15+ feet, with a 10-15 foot width, has lovely little flowers and wonderful little fruit. It's a really pretty plant. But almost no one plants cleyera where it can just be a cleyera (this is the number one pruning "problem" - wrong plant for the space - another letter).

Folks just don't grow cleyera or any number of other evergreen shrubs for the flowery show, because there isn't one, so these plants can be pruned now for general shaping and tidying, especially if you forgot to do that last fall.

cleyera

elaeagnus

boxwood

hollies

euonymous

yew

wax myrtle

pittosporum

fatsia

leather leaf mahonia

photinia

auvuba

barberry

harry lauder's walking stick

tea olive

Of course knowing what to prune when and knowing how to prune them are different things, and if in doubt please do write. I'll address some of the how to's in another newsletter.

Just in case you missed the memo....DO NOT SHEAR.  In fact put away your hedge clippers and electric or gas shearers immediately. Have someone hide them from you. And do not let your lawn service shear. I have an entire letter coming about the evils of shearing. 

I've been asked about fertilizing. The simple answer is wait. Wait a few weeks. No need to get the plants all hot and excited only to be cruelly killed by a late hard freeze.

Well, that should be it for now. More about pruning coming....