Coming to you from Studio A here at Proven Winners Color Choice Shrubs. It's time for the Gardening Simplified podcast, radio and YouTube show with Stacey Hervella, me, Rick Weist, and our engineer and producer Adrianna Robinson. Well, today we'll talk about pruning. And wow, what a topic. It's an element of no maintenance landscaping. And when I say no maintenance, I don't mean an oh, I mean k now, cause it really pays to know what you're doing. And it's
a stimulating topic. Did you see what I did there?
Yes?
Okay, so let's dive into it. You know, we'll cut off over the years. Very good, That is well done. I set you up there. Okay. So the questions I get throughout the years about pruning, many of them center around lavender, cutting back your ornamental grasses, spring bulbs, bud lea, hydranges, bramble fruits, rhododendrons, and azaleas.
Would you agree definitely, hydrangeas and lavender those are the big ones. And yeah, buddleia gets in there as well. And I think there's just a lot of things that people wonder if they should prune. Yes, And I want to say, right, off the bat to everyone listening that pruning is not necessarily a sign of a good, well maintained landscape. You know. I think that people tend often to prune things because it makes it look like they're
taking care of their landscape. It's like I'm showing that I care because I went out and I meet bald these poor you know, yellow privets and red barberries at the gas station landscape, you know, and that they're like, Okay, now it's maintained.
Now you can tell that I care.
So you feel like you need to do so.
Some people, Yeah, but I don't think that that means just because it's maintained and pruned within an injury's life means that it's a good landscape, a healthy landscape. People, I think generally over prune. But maybe that's just my own personal No.
I agree. I'm not into the meatballs in tuna can look, I really am not. So it's interesting. And you know, when I think about one of the first things I know i'm cut off here, Stacy, but one of the first things that pops into my mind when we say we're going to talk about pruning is shoplifting.
Oh oh, like proplifting when people take plant parts from the store to them.
When I ran a garden center, it was the number one shopliftable item. Pruning shares.
Yeah, that's that makes it. And they are expensive.
They're expensive' pracy. But the point here is, here's the reason I bring it up. It is worth it to have good quality pruning shares, good sharp, clean bypass pruning shares. Saw. If you want to do good job, you got to have good tools.
Got to get bypassed pruners. And that's the thing I think. And I made this mistake when I was new to gardening and I was a poor student. The anvil pruners were much cheaper than the bypass pruners. So the anvil prunters have a blade that comes down on a plate like sshers yep, and then the bypass pruners are like scissors where the blades bypassed one another. I didn't have
a lot of money. I just saw the pruners. I was like, these are cheap and in my budget, and I bought them, and that was my first pair of pruners. Is embarrassing as that is to say, but anvilprunters are really only good for cut flowers. After you cut them off the plant and you're arranging them. Or I hear a lot of forestry people using because they stay sharper longer, but not a great choice around the land home landscape.
I agree spring for the bypass pruners. You'll be glad that you did in selell your hands.
Yeah, exactly. So when we talk about pruning, one of the first things we have to do is ask why, and we prune to maintain plant health, remove dead or dying branches, disease branches, to train a plant shape or height, improve the quality of the foliage or the stems or the flowers, because many times pruning will induce that on plants, restricting growth hazards, safety, first fruit production, rejuvenation of an
old shrub, that sort of thing. So there's a bunch of reasons why you would permit it.
You know. I have given so many pruning talks in my time, and the number one thing that I say right off the bat, besides pruning does not equal a good landscape, is that you should always have a reason why you are punting. It might be multiple reasons, but every subsequent decision that you make about pruning, timing, how much all this other stuff depends on the reason why you are pruning in the first place. So if you don't have that reason good and fixed in your brain,
you can't move on after that. So if you find yourself going, what do I do, you have to go back and revisit that reason that got you out there with your pruning chairs in the first place.
I agree, and so you'll hear these general rules of thumb, like the one third rule. You know, cut back guy one third. I use a budgeting analogy. Think of it this way, and this drives me crazy. Stacey is and I see it in landscapes, in homes everywhere. And that is let's say, for example, you're having problems with your personal budget, and so you need to do a little pruning. Don't spend as much money. You can't go in there
and just cut ten percent off of everything. You can't decide I'm going to reduce my mortgage or my rent by ten percent now, or my insurance because you're not gonna get away with it, so you're gonna have to pick other things and reduce them further. So what I see is I see topping or snipping. So pruning is a lot like watering. If people are indecisive as to what to do. Then they decide to do just a little bit based on a schedule, and that's a big
mistake because it creates real problems. Take a look at your pruning, step back from the plant and decide, well, you know that stem's coming out completely because it's a crossing or a weak branch, That one's going to be cut back by a third, That one I'm going to leave alone. I really believe selective pruning is important, but understandably there is so much confusion because there are different
rules for different plants. Again, if I go back to hydranges, you created demystifying hydranges for that purpose because there's just so much confusion there is.
And you know, hydrangeas are a special case because you talk about hydrangeys as a monolith. They're all hydranges, but when it comes to pruning, there are different guidelines for
the different types of hydrangs. And even though you love them all together at the garden center, even though you might say I love hydranges and mean all of the hydranges that we grow in our gardens, when it comes to pruning that it's not a one size fits all approach, and that is a little bit different than pretty much any other group of plants. But once you have understood sort of that key difference, it all kind of falls into place, I think. But yeah, you do need to
know what you're doing. Again, if you don't know what you're doing, you can't do any of the following steps. You just can't do it because you don't know how much to cut off. You don't know when you should be pruning it. You know, it's so important, and I think so many people again they prune because they think they should not because they have a specific goal in minds.
At the same time, there's real benefit in pruning. So when we use the example of hydranges, there's benefit to pruning, for example a smooth hydrangea or a panicled hydrangea, and so learning the difference between the hydranges is important. Another one that we get asked about a lot this time of the year, staceye is bud lea. And again, give the plants a chance to start up in spring before we start hacking away, and then make a decision that's
based on why. And with a bud lea, many times they'll bloom better if you do a good pruning, but you don't have to do it right away.
Right Just because you're pruning everything else in your garden at a specific time doesn't mean that that is when you should prune the budlia. And yeah, I do always recommend to people. Budley is especially hard because on some plants, when you're pruning, you can very clearly see where the leaves are emerging or will emerge. Those buds are very clear. On a budlia, it's not necessarily so clear, especially on
the main trunk. I remember this is something I encountered, like in my first week of horticulture school, and they were like, prune this budley, and I was like, God, I don't know what to do because you can't see you know where the growth is going to come from.
So you can always wait. You know, if you give.
Yourself time to wait, you can research it, you can reach out to proven winners and we will help you with that decision. There's lots of other ways. That's why I always say when it comes to pruning, when end doubt, don't.
Agree, and I always say that try as much as possible. If you need to prune, do it after blooming. Obviously not before pruning, particularly with spring blooming plants. I like dormant pruning because you get a good look at the shape of the tree or the plant that you're pruning. And you also prune to open up a canopy. It allows more light into the canopy of the plant, and it allows air movement. So again, many different reasons to prune.
And we're going to move this conversation into segment four because there's so much to talk.
About it, as I think we're pruning in every segment today standing and maybe not every question in mailbag, Plants and trial definitely about pruning. At least one question in mail bag very much about pruning, as well as a little bit of relationship advice that I think we're going to have to excellently to keep the peace there.
But I love that because again you talk about lavender or things like tomatoes or flowering shrubs, there are so many pruning rules and things that can apply. I'll end this segment with a pruning limerick. I wrote for you that shrub in my yard is ballooning. It needs some serious grooming. Just how do I decide my spouse is petrified? I'm holding a shears and assuming the fallout may be stark. If I cut and miss my mark, it's a pruning job, gaff.
Everybody's gonna laugh. Maybe I'll wait until after dark. It's just gonna ramble on. I'll shape it to a palm palm. Maybe no one will notice I've hacked my stephan notice by morning light, I'll be gone. There's an approach plants on trial coming up next here on the Gardening Simplified Ship.
Beautify your home and community with proven Winner's Color Choice shrubs with over three hundred and twenty five unique varieties to choose from. There's a flowering shrubber ever Green for every taste and every space. Just look for the distinctive white container your local garden center or learn more at proven Winner's Color Choice dot com. Reading's gardening friends, and welcome back to the Gardening Simplified Show. Where it is spring.
It is in full swing. The weather is maybe kind of sort of starting to cooperate here in Michigan and feel a little bit springy, although I have to say it has not really stopped people from working in their yards too much. I've seen a lot of people out there shivering, but I'm out there, but out there I've been out there a little bit doing all the perennial cutback and all of that jazz. But of course, I you know, I like to leave my perennials as long
as I can. I don't want to wait too long because then everything starts coming up, and then you're stepping on all this soft and tender greenery as you're trying to take out your perennials. But of course I do know that a lot of insects and so forth are burrowing in there and waiting for their opportunity to emerge. And our conversation with Mike from Honeytree Nursery the other week definitely inspired me to make sure I'm protecting all
those little guys. So I just pile everything up into a big cut off plant, part burrito burrito for a couple of weeks until they emerge. But yes, I have been out there, and I know a lot of people start to wonder about pruning. And if you have like a mixed border like I have, and you have where you have a mix of shrubs and perennials, it's really easy to just get in there and prune and prune and prune and prune, and then you're like, oh, crud, that didn't feel the same way. I don't think that
was a perennial. I just cut one of my shrubs.
You know that that happens.
Can make that mistake. You know what drives me crazy is when I go through a neighborhood weeping trees. Weeping trees do not prune those things to look like it's the beetle's haircut from the nineteen sixties. You see them everywhere, a nice weeping cherry or something like that, and it looks like the beetles stepping off the airplane in New York in the nineteen sixties.
You've seen those, Oh I have seen them too many times.
Oh man, Yeah, it's.
You know, it's so unfortunate because those plants could be so cool. You know, there's nothing wrong with having a weeping plant that covers the trunk completely and makes a magical, unique little space in there instead of yeah, the the Dutch boy Bob there, you know, like the Bob haircut. But yeah, that's why do you have a weeping tree if you're going to just give it that silly little haircut.
Well, I think again, it comes down to the fact, like I said in the first segment taking the approach where you treat everything the same and cut it straight across, like when I was a kid and my mom would put a pan on my head and yeah, exactly right, because I've got pictures. Not going to show them to you, but I got pictures.
Yeah.
So lots going on right now with the pruning. And of course, so today's Plant on Trial did have to speak to this issue of pruning. And today's Plant on Tree Trial is perfected Mundo double purple reblooming azalea.
Interesting, but I'm glad you're bringing up the reblooming topic.
That's exactly it now, I will say right off the bat, you know, I wouldn't spend a whole whole lot of time talking about the perfected Mundo azaleas.
Even though I love them.
They're absolutely gorgeous, they aren't exactly hearty for us here in Michigan, out here in West Michigan. They do survive, but typically what happens is the winter was harsh enough that the plant lives, but the spring flower buds got you know, hit by all that ice. So you're kind of like, what is this thing doing when it's not
even going to flower? But This is a reblooming azalea, and reblooming azaleas are very much a thing, but that surprises a lot of Midwestern gardeners because we don't have them here. All of the genetics that imbue that reblooming ability belong to species of azaleas that are much more tender than can grow in these climates. So Ever, since the first reblooming azalea was introduced, you know, twenty or so years ago, they have been largely considered warm climate plants.
I would say, like mid Atlantic, say Virginia on down all the way through the South, You'll have no problem growing them down there. But I'm bringing this plant up because it is a great example of what it means to be a reblooming plant and how you prune reblooming shrubs. And we have a lot of reblooming shrubs, so there was a lot that I could have chosen, a lot of them that I've already covered. We've got our bloomerang, reblooming lilacs, we have got our sonic bloom whigela, and
of course we have these perfected window azaleas. So reblooming plants, as the name implies, bloom alongside their conventional counterparts. So in the case of the perfected window azaleas, they are going to bloom in spring when other non reblooming azaleas. What In the case of the sonic bloom wigela, they're going to bloom in late spring when other Whyjeela do bloomerang lilac blooming in about mid May just like other ones.
And all of that.
First bloom on these reblooming plants is on what is known as old wood. Now I see a lot of people online get really confused by this. Every plant has old wood. It's just wood that was created in the previous season or several previous seasons before. But the question is not whether the plant has old wood. The question is where does it set the flower buds. And generally speaking, the earlier a plant flowers in spring, the more likely it is to have created those buds the previous season.
Because you know, think about it when I said this when we had show off Forcythia's our plants on trial a few weeks ago. You know, right now, the weather's still quite cool. The plant would not nearly have enough time in Michigan to create flower buds to open in a few weeks. Instead, they're making them last summer, overwintering them and then opening them as soon as the going gets good in spring. So that's what it means to
flowers on old wood. The flower buds were created on the wood from last year and stacey.
Perfect examples would be like lilac or magnoli or as yep.
Definitely those earlier it blooms, the more likely it bloomed on oldwood. But the difference with re blooming shrubs is that they bloom on oldwood with those other ones, but they also have the ability to bloom on new wood. And plants that bloom on new wood. Basically, what that means they didn't have any flower buds on them over winter. Once the going gets good in spring and they start leafing out and growing, then they create their flower buds
for that same season. So examples of some shrubs at flower on new wood. Roses are a great example. Roses flower on Newood's why you're able to prune them in spring and they'll go on to bloom by about June. Panicle and smooth hydranges of course also bloom on new wood. So again this type no flower buds through the winter, and once it gets nice in spring they'll actually set
those flower buds. Reblooming shrubs do both, and so what that means for pruning is that if you want to prune them, you're going to do so immediately after that spring bloom. And pruning them accomplishes a couple of different things. So number one, it will take away any seed that might have formed. This isn't usually a huge issue, certainly
not on the azaleas. You're not going to get a lot of seed production, but it's one of the reasons why I do recommend doing this on bloomerang lilac because they do quite a lot of seed, and then that's just the plant putting a lot of energy into maturing seed that you don't want and probably won't even grow anyway. So it kind of refreshes them, reshapes them. And the key to reblooming shrubs reblooming well is that they have to put on a lot of new growth in between
those two bloom times. And when you prune something and I know, record you've got this on tap for later today, When you prune a shrub branch and you take off that tip, that tip has it's like a hormone factory. That's just producing these growth suppressing hormones for all of the leaf buds below it. So if you don't prune it,
you've got one stem growing up all season long. If you prune it, now all of a sudden, all of those lower buds are released, and now you have six or eight or more growth points from that same branch. And now instead of just having one branch that's going to produce a flower cluster, now you have six or eight. So you're increasing the amount of growth that can set
these new wood flower buds. And when you prune a plant, especially if it is established, you are actually going to encourage it to regrow because it has all the energy of its root system down below to recover from that pruning. So those two things combined mean the plant is going to put on a lot of new growth. And the more new growth that plant puts on in that window of time, the better your rebloom is going to be. So this is a case where pruning is not necessary,
but it definitely is beneficial. And it's a situation too where if you don't have time or you forget to do it, not the end of the world, but if you really want the best from your plant, this is a very easy practice. It helps to keep the plant in control, keep it having that nice tidy look that people like, and you're just going to get the best flower set as well.
And the benefit you have here is you're suggesting Stacy to prune in spring after it's done blooming, and that's what we're going to do with the spring bloomers anyhow, that's when we should be pruning them.
Yeah, so a lot of people get confused, Oh, I don't want to mess up the rebloom. Now, if you don't prune these reblooming shrubs, you will actually get them
to rebloom a little bit sooner. The pruning does delay that rebloom by a few weeks, but in my experience, it is more than worth it, yep, the amount of flowers that you get and the longevity of that rebloom because it doesn't kind of gas out, you know, in a few weeks, it's gonna by the time it recovers from the pruning, the days are getting a lot shorter, the nights are getting longer, it's getting a little bit cooler, and that will help the rebloom really bring it home
and look its best. Absolutely, So all of that for perfective Mundo double purple reblooming azalea, but also, like I said, a stand in for whatever reblooming shrub that you might have. And we have a lot, but there are other ones out there on the market. And you know, this is an important breeding goal for us because who doesn't want more flowers?
Correct, it's fabulous and and the number of cultivars now that are available, it's stunning to me. I mean, the benefit is fabulous.
If you're going out shopping this season looking for some new shrubs, definitely consider some of these reblooming shrubs. And now you know how to take care of them, and you know it's dead simple, so you are set to go for the season. Of course, visit your local garden center for perfect Mundo double purple or any Proof and Winners reblooming shrubs or evergreens or any of our flowering shrubs.
We're gonna take a little break. When we come back, We've got the garden mail bags, so please stay tuned at Proven Winners color choice shrubs. We know that a better landscape starts with a better shrub. Our team of experts tests and evaluates all of our flowering shrubs in evergreens, for eight to ten years to ensure they outperform what's
already on the market. For easycare, reliable, beautiful shrubs to accentuate your home and express your personal style, look for Proven Winner's Shrubs in the distinctive white container at your local garden center or learn more at Proven Winner's Color Choice dot com. Greetings gardening friends, and welcome back to the Gardening Simplified shoe. Word is our pleasure to help you with your gardening questions, quandaries and conundrums, and if you have one of those, you can reach out to
us at Gardeningsimplified on air dot com. There's a contact tab there, But of course I know at this time of the year, especially time is of the essence, you don't always have time to wait for us to get
to your question. So I know that you can also reach out to proven Winters dot com or proven Winters color Choice dot com if it is a shrub question, and you will get a personalized answer from a wonderful horticulturist who will be happy to help you in a more timely manner than we can here in our once a week show. But we do have a lot of good questions and I tried to pick some questions that I think are relevant to everybody at this time of year.
So what we gott in mambag.
Raven writes, my pencil hollies were doing great all winter. We had a little browning, but then a cold snap. These containers are in my driveway get a lot of wind. I'm wondering if too much wind, not enough root protection, not enough water, or all of the above. This will be the third year that they have been there, and Stacy, I don't know where Raven lives, but the third year, at least here in the north. The last two winters
have kind of been outliers. They have not you know, this has been a tough winter, but the two previous. So to get a little bit of browning on a pencil holly, I don't think is unusual.
Right, So I think a lot of people are seeing something very similar to what Raven is seeing on our pencil hollies. So if you're not familiar with them, pencil hollies are a broad leaf evergreen, not a needle leafed evergreen. And as we've talked about before, broad leaf evergreen so basically leaves that are not like a reduced scale on like a juniper, or a needle like on a pine
or a spruce. These are much more susceptible to winter damage because they have that big broad leaf that all winter long, the sun is taking effect on it and it's taking water away. Wind is taking effect on it, and it is taking water away. And if you live in a cold climate, and the ground or the container media, because these are in containers, and of course there'll be pictures of Raven's hollies on the YouTube version as well
as in the show notes. You know, they they can't take up water once that soil is frozen, so they're losing a bunch of water. They're not replacing the water. They can't replace the water, and as a result, these plants do tend to brown. And I think you have a great point, Rick, if this didn't happen previous years we have had more mild winters. But there are also are a combination of factors that will help prevent this
from happening. So mulch is a huge one. Definitely recommend a good two to three inch layer of shreaded bark mulch over the plant. Really all times of the year. It will be happy, but it's especially crucial in winter, and then making sure that the plant doesn't go dormant thirsty. Don't send it off to bed thirsty. Make sure that even if that means giving it a little water like Thanksgiving weekend or late in the season like that, it needs to be well high rated when it goes into
the winter or else this browning will occur. So really it's pretty minor on Ravens pencil hollies. But I have to say, once you see this kind of browning, it's not going to come back. That growth is not going to magically turn green. What can happen if the damage wasn't super severe is that even though they are evergreen, so they will drop those leaves and replace them with
fresh growth. So I don't necessarily recommend that you run out there right away and start pruning off the brown growth unless it's absolutely driving you crazy and it wasn't too severe. You know, there's enough of the plant remaining that it's going to be able to survive and recover if you can wait to see if it comes out enough.
You know, if the stem itself is very brown and withered, it's probably done and you can just go ahead and prune it but really, yeah, there's not that much that you can do in these situations except to remove it and then try your best to make sure that it doesn't happen in the future.
This can happen.
This happens really commonly with boxwoods. If you ever go to like any city in March, it's like brown boxwood City, you know, because so many people love them for like restaurants and that kind of thing. And you know, Raven, I've also found in my yard in the middle of winter, things might look totally fine, but then when spring comes along, that's when all of a sudden, that damn is just like, wait, where did that come from?
Well, and part of it is because it's not just wind damage, it's sun damage and winter also when the sun is low in the south, and so boxwood or pencil holly's that are on the north side of a house or the east side of the house that gets some structural shade tend to do better. If you're going to continue to grow these, maybe consider an anti desicate spray in fall on these plants. It's going to help.
Yeah, that's a good idea too. That definitely helps to prevent further water vapor from escaping the leaves.
So you have a letter from Jamie and some pictures.
Yes, so Jamie, you know, I wanted to answer her question because this is great. This is something that again I think a lot of people are dealing with. And also I don't want Jamie's relationship to be risked.
Exactly. I love this note, I really do. And I have some advice for the boyfriend and the uncle.
Oh okay, okay.
So Jamie says, Hi there, I have a limelight hydrangea that's about ten years old. I've never proved it, and my boyfriend been very happy with how it performs each year. I did a hard prune after a lot of research. Good for you, Jamie, Yeah, to go read me, she said. I did not wing it.
I swear. She said.
I wanted to correct small crossing branches. Plus it was getting too close to the house and it needed a refresh. So she had her reasons all in place.
Smart, very good.
Why she was pruning the limelight, she said, So he was fine with it how it was. I'm concerned now that I'm messed up and it will not bloom as my boyfriend and his uncle, who is a landscaper, said it will be sticks all year and not bloom sat crying face emoji. If that's the case, I will be so devastated that I ruined a plant that he loved and it produced. Well, here's a before and after. Could you give me insight on how you would have pruned
it and if I messed things up? But if all does look well, can I expect to see blooms this year and a healthy, refreshed shrub.
Absolutely, you're going to see it. Way to go, Jamie. I am so proud of you. You executed entremneurial savvy. Tell your boyfriend you're a genius. It's all going to work out, and you know, as Al Harris said in Apollo thirteen, I think this will be your finest hour. I think it, you know. And as far as your uncle is concerned, again, Stacy, you guys have done so much work on Hydrange's demystified. I would refer your uncle to those articles or websites.
Well, you know, I can't understand where they're coming from, because if you look at the before and afters of Jamie's Limelight Hydrangea, it was definitely really big and she reduced it quite a lot, and so it is a huge difference, and that is obviously a shock in and of itself after you've done that. So yeah, people might be a little bit dubious, but pannicle hydrangels can absolutely handle this and it will absolutely recover and grow well
and it will bloom this year. Now, I do want to caution you about one thing though, because this is likely to happen. I've seen it happen, especially with limelight, plenty of times. If a mature limelight gets pruned really hard like this one did, what often happens that first year after the pruning is it shoots up tons of branches. So I've used this analogy many times on the show. When you have an established plant like this, the root
system is basically an engine to fire growth. And when you have reduced you know, the plant that it was that it was fueling, Now all of a sudden you have like, you know, a five point zero liter engine in like an escort, a Ford escort, you know, something like that.
So it's a good analogy really.
So you have a small plant but a big engine, and so as a result, what the plant wants to do is put all of that energy into recovering from this pruning. So what can happen a lot is that it will put out really long stems with huge flowers, like insanely huge flowers, and that can make those stems a little bit floppy because the flower is so big. But this is a temporary thing. It's only going to happen this year, and as the plant starts to build up sort of a new you know, structure exactly, it
will be totally fine. And yeah, these big flowers are really amazing to see. It's it's actually kind of a fun thing to watch.
It is really cool and I love that analogy. And Stacey, the important thing for people tuned in or watching on YouTube is to go back to the previous segment and your conversation about plants that bloom on new wood. Yes, and that's what we have going here, right. That's so Jamie's going to be fine.
Yeah, I'm Jamie. You're going to be fine. You will have the last laugh. The flowers will be big, and if you like to do things with you know, big dried or fresh limelight flowers, you are going to be in heaven.
But yeah, don't worry.
You didn't do any permanent damage to your beautiful limelight and you can tell your boyfriend and uncle to call us. We'll yeah, if they don't believe it, we will with it. So thank you both so much for your questions. We're going to take a little break and then we're gonna come back and we're going to keep talking about pruning.
So please stay tuned.
Thanks for listening to the Gardening Simplified Podcast, brought to you by Proven Winners Color Choice Shrubs. Our award winning flowering shrubs and evergreens are trialed and tested by experts with your success in mind. Learn more at Proven Winners color Choice dot com.
Welcome back to the Gardening Simplified Show, where today we are on the cutting hedge. We're talking pruning, Stacy. I was thinking cutting your grass in spring is a form of pruning and you get those I think they call them glv's and I have it right here, green leaf volatiles. Which is that aroma you get when you cut the grass.
Yes, that's yeah.
I used to have a fresh mowing grass cologne that I would like that. Yeah, I had to get rid of it. I was getting looks when I would grow up. But you know, as it as it relates to pruning, people tend to ignore trees until there's a problem like a storm. Pruning super important in trees again, opening up the canopy, taking care of problem limbs. We prune all
kinds of stuff when we garden tomatoes. When you look at an indeterminate tomato, a tomato that doesn't set a terminal bud, pruning indeterminate tomato so the plant puts more energy into the fruit. We allow more light into that plant, better air movement. I personally believe that that's really really important, and it's something that we haven't talked about yet today, Stacey, but that would be for people to look up or to understand. Terminology called apical dominance.
Correct very very important.
And so if a plant again is producing that bud at the tip, once you prune it back, as you noted, it's going to force some outward growth.
Yep.
And that's something that we call apical dominance. So you know, a pinch to grow an inch. As far as annuals are concerned, I love pinching annuals perennials, cutting them back, and don't cut back perennials in the growing season too soon. Maybe the plant is done blooming like a peony. But if the plant is healthy. Again, remember the foliage is absorbing sunlight the process of photosynthesis, you're going to have a healthier plant as opposed to just because it's herbaceous, hacking it to the.
Ground, right for sure.
Perennials are definitely a plant that you know you can cut off any dead parts in spring, but after that you usually don't want to be pruning them unless you're doing something like a lot of people will pinch flocks yep to keep it shorter and stronger, these summer flocks. The Chelsea chop yep, famous Chelsea chop of course, Mom's classic choice for people to pinch in you And I've mentioned this on the show before, but you know, I know books are kind of like going out of style.
People don't really invest a lot in books, even gardening books anymore, because I just figure you can find it all online. If you are going to invest in a single gardening book for your library, it should absolutely be The Well Tended Perennial Garden by Tracy Di Sabado Oust. If you have perennials. Of course, if you don't have perennials, this book we'll do you no good. But if you do have perennials. Honestly, this book is amazing. You will
learn so much. And she spent years literally pinching and pruning every plant in her garden at different times, recording all of the results. And the cool thing about implementing her techniques and findings is you can actually completely change
your garden. You can delay bloom times so different things will bloom together, and you can eliminate the need for staking on some things because when you prune them again, the plant has all that energy of its root system, and if it's putting it into less of the plant, what will typically happen, especially with perennials, is everything just gets beefier stockier. Chuck, So that is such a good book and we'll give you so many great ideas on
how to maintain your garden. That is like the pruners the Perennial Pruner's Manual of Love that book.
And upright setums are another.
Oh yeah for sure, Yeah, definitely.
Yeah. So that's a great way to go. Look up Chelsea Chop also bulbs, cutting them back, tulip, staffodils, these various plants when they're done blooming, leave the foliage on for a little while and allow that photosynthesis to take place with the bulbs before cutting them back, you can plant annuals in between and get them off to a start.
House plants, The best time to prune houseplants, I believe is in spring, when there's plenty of light to fuel recovery new growth, and you can take them outside if you live in a cold climate, So houseplants in spring vines, many vines benefit from root pruning if we look at with sterias or trumpet vines again showing that vine whose boss may get the plant to produce some blooms in lieu of producing even more growth.
Yeah, some people do claim that on wisteria, which of course can be notoriously hesitant to flower, and definitely as a plant that can appreciate some restricted root room. But mostly I find that wassteria needs to have its its length controlled. Yes, you know, because it just wants to grow and grow and grow, and like, yeah, I don't need to produce any flowers. I'm I'm good, gotta show it exactly.
Yeah, of course questions about grapes. With grapes don't be timid. We prune them in the dorm late dormant season January to March cane and spur pruning, pruning bramble fruits. It's important to understand that essentially they're going to fruit on canes that live for two years. The roots and the crowns are perennial, so you get the new canes and then you get the second you canes called the floracanes.
Those are the ones that are going to produce the fruit, and those are the ones that we're going to prune back hard after they've fruited. So spring is a time to do a lot of your pruning. But again you have to apply these principles as Stacey basically of timing is everything, as we've discussed today, And some people would say, well, okay,
but what about the evergreens. Well, yeah, you know, there are evergreens like ewes or taxes or boxwood that people traditionally prune into shapes and you could prune pretty much anytime you wanted to, whereas other evergreens or conifers, it is easy to make a pruning mistake. And here's where I apply Stacy's rule. Don't I mean, would you agree that if you prune a conifer and you do it wrong Stacey, that it's gonna take a long time, if ever, for it to recover.
Yeah, you can definitely screw things up pretty badly. But that said, you know, I do want to say when when we're talking about something like that. First of all, always if it's a safety issue, please put the plant
health out out the window. Don't worry about when is the best time to do X, y or z. If a branch is dangling or threatened to dangle, or something's growing, you know, like a like a rose or something growing into your front walkway and the mailman's getting caught on it every time they walk up to your house, just cut that thing back, don't you know. Let's do safety first.
But the other thing is also if you're taking out entire branches of a tree, that's also a different situation than when you're just cutting into.
The actual growth.
Yes, but you know, generally speaking, yeah, people should not assume that that more doing more is better for the plant.
There.
It's not necessarily that it is extremely complicated or extremely mystifying, as we might imply with hydrange is demystified, but that you know, you need to know the consequences of those actions and how it's going to affect the plant. And you know sometimes that you just need to do a little research first and not go out there and be in the moment and just keep pruning and then go what have I done?
Don't don't do that.
That's exactly it. The landscape evergreens of course, like I mentioned, hemlocks, box would arbor viti use. I think summer is a good time to do that, or early summer it's going to stimulate some new growth. Don't do it just before winter. You're going to get some die back at that point.
So I really believe early summer on those, if they need some shaping, would be the time to do it, and then stay see a lot of confusion with people on clematis or clematists, however we want to pronounce it because people people will read about group one, group two,
group three, clematis get totally confused. It's part of the reason I love cultivars like Happy Jack or Sweet Summer Love because essentially with them you cut them back to about two or three feet above the ground in spring when everything's looking dead yet and just step back and enjoy. I mean it's amazing, Yeah, it really is.
And you know, it's a great example of what I was saying about the root mass functioning as an engine to grow, because people might say, well, geez my, you know, Sweet Summer Love Clemenis was twelve feet tall, twelve feet long last year. Now I'm going to cut it back to two feet. How is it going to get back to twelve feet? Well, again, it's the answer is in that root engine, and by cutting it back, you are
basically resetting that growth point. If you didn't prune something like a Sweet Summer Love or Sweet Autumn Clemenist, what's going to happen is the growth is going to start from all of those buds that are way up on top, and eventually when it flowers, it's going to flower less and the flowers are going to be way up in the tree tops. So this is a case where pruning helps you to have the best look. And the thing about clematis is that as long as you leave something
in the ground, you know something to grow. The worst it's going to happen is you get a year without flowers. So generally speaking, I would say I hear from a lot of people who don't know what group or what type of clematists they have, and they don't know what to do so when in doubt. If you can find a name, you can probably look that up. If you don't know, split the difference, do the two foot thing. If you have few to no flowers, well you know you have to prune a little lesser at a different
time next year. But at least in that case, even though clemitis can be very sensitive, as long as you're leaving something for the plant to recover with a good two to three feet from the ground. Again, the worst it's going to happen no flowers, disappointing, but at least you didn't lose your plant.
So on this topic today, to cut to the chase and sorry and the lawn and short of it is, people like Stacy and myself or other gardeners or garden center people or experts. This is an area where we do a lot of marital counseling. So educate yourself and try to work it out. Yes, because this has created a lot of upset through.
The years, and it's only plans, and it's only plans.
Thanks Stacy, it's been fun. Thank you, Thank you Adrianna, and thank you to you. Thanks for watching The Gardening Simplified Show on YouTube or listening on podcast or radio, have a great week,