3 part hack - part 1

Radio silence

Not a lot of writing last year, but not a lot of gardening either. Sometimes life clubs you round the head & you have to take time out.

Some folk find gardening helps when they're low. Not me, unfortunately. I tend to hermit myself away to get better. Sadly, neglecting the garden becomes just something else to get anxious about. However, I know I'm coming out the other side when I find myself pulling on my boots & grabbing the secateurs...
 

Pruning

It strikes fear into the heart of the dabbling gardener. The nemesis of many. The TV experts smugly smile as they assure & reassure us that pruning is easy; nothing to worry about. But that's why I started this blog - I've a 50:50 success rate with things like pruning. It seems no matter what I read before I cut, I always find out, when it dies, I had the exception (I'm looking at you, Hebes...)

But I try to be brave. After all, if we don't prune here, our garden will become part of the woods & the lawns will be reclaimed by brambles.
 

Reigning in the brutes

In the mature garden that came with this house, many shrubs have romped. With each one there's the task to identify what it is & then decide what we want to do with its shape.

Typically, the plant most in need of a haircut remains an enigma - still no idea what it is. But it overhangs the drive & gets bashed by delivery vans.

Pruning issues unpicked

Unpicking what I've read about pruning over the years, I suspect the reason the advice seems so complex is the experts are addressing several issues at once, without telling us they're doing that. From what I can see, it breaks down like this:

1. Will I kill it?
1. Will it regrow from old wood?
2. If I prune it at this time of the year, will it be more vulnerable to disease/attack/weather?
2. Will pruning lead to a better plant?
   More fruit, more flowers, more manageable/attractive shape.
3. Will it look bad this year?
   Losing this year's flowers/fruit.

I've ordered these from Crisis to Is That Even A Thing. When you're unsure what you're doing, the key issue is the 1st one - the others are just laughable whimsical luxuries; potentially so ludicrously expert considerations they're not even on the radar.

Most of my pruning still focuses on Question 1.

Will I kill it? Old wood or green wood

This is the big one. The plant can probably recover from any other pruning mistake.

Some plants you can scalp back to the ground & they'll happily throw out new shoots from the base. Anyone who has tried to prune a privet to death, & failed, has experienced this.

However, some plants can only produce new shoots on green wood - this or last year's growth. Cutting too far into the old wood is how I've killed at least 2 Thymes. I've also seen plenty of conifer hedges trimmed back into the old wood that never green up again.

If you don't know what's right for your plant, definitely look it up. If you can't find the info, err on the side of caution.

Will I kill it? Making it vulnerable

Dormant
For most things, the advice is to do major pruning when the plant is dormant, which usually means in Winter.

If you hack at it in the Summer, when the plant is in the middle of its big number, it risks throwing its sap everywhere & not having enough leaves to feed itself. This probably won't kill it, but it'll put it under a lot of stress, which can be the shoo in that attacking insects & fungi are waiting for.

Frost damage
Pruning in Winter can leave the plant more at risk from Jack Frost nipping at the cut ends. However, this isn't usually a death sentence. The damage tends to only be 1 node's worth - it'll just mean it'll re-sprout a little further back from where you pruned. Besides, the plant is used to a bit of Winter battering - that's why it does the dormancy thang in the first place.

Disease/attack
Just like us, when a plant gets a cut, that cut can get infected. If the sap is flowing, it can be party time for insects such as aphids. Also, if there's fungal spores around the cut, there's a risk that the sap will take them into & around the rest of the plant. These risks are minimised when you prune a dormant plant.

Summer trims
All of which makes it sound like you should only prune in Winter, but that's not strictly true either. It's often fine to do small trims in the Summer - you can see the final shape better when the leaves are on. Plus, dead heading is a pruning job & that can encourage the plant to produce more flowers for longer. Just leave the big hacks 'til the plant has had its Winter general anaesthetic.

Tell me I'm wrong

So if you're more expert than me (not hard), & you're reading this thinking "Well, that's wrong, & that's total horse", please let me know & I'll correct it.

An experiment

So, given all that, I'm at step 1 with the leggy shrubby drive-side thing - trying not to kill it. Last year I tried a light test prune: if I chop it back into the old wood, will it regrow from just behind the cut?

The result: a bit meh. It put on new growth (yay!) but it was a bit pathetic (boo).

We'll have to take this gently then.
 

Working with what we've got

Hacking it right back I suspect will just kill it. But leaving it fairly big is not all bad - the leaves are now mostly about head height, revealing some interesting branches below.

Interesting stems

I've heard about 'lifting the crown', often used to give a more architectural shape to trees & big shrubs, so I think I'll try that.
 

A prune in 3 parts

For less vigorous plants, I've read that pruning in 3s is less traumatic for the plant - take out a third in the 1st year, another third the next year, & the final third in year 3.

This is my plan.
 

Before & after

Apologies for poor pics. My vision's starting to change, so it's getting hard to tell if I've taken a decent photo :/ plus I'm impatient...

A little off the top

Thinning out the sides

It really doesn't look like much does it? But the clippings filled the dumpy bag* to over half way.

* The huge sack you get when order sand or gravel in bulk.
 

I did prune, honest

Doing the heavy lifting

Off to the tip with trimmings, & I was a little nervous. Last time I went, the staff just about barged me out of the way to tip the clippings into the skip. I fucking hate that. It may take me a little more time (a whole minute), but I will do it myself, & if I need help I will ask. What strength I have will evaporate if others do the all heavy lifting for me. It's a fine line between politeness, micro-aggression & overt sexism.

Fortunately this time they didn't spot me til I was all done :)