Permission to prune
Gardening
A happy day starts with a cup of coffee in one hand and pruning shears in the other. I have started the new season of Permission to Prune, roaming (not the Rogers kind) the neighbourhood looking for shrubs and trees to shape up.
This week’s venue is the lovely garden of friend Kathy MacFarlane, where I have been granted an all access pass. The garden is small, and most important it is flat. Why you might ask, am I working in other people’s gardens when ours could use attention? Our garden has the topography of a ski jump. Working in it is best done in mountaineering gear.
So it’s a joy to work on the level. Today’s assignment is a spring cleanup and I am working with my friends James Honey and Alex Stewart of The Honey Project (www.thehoneyproject.ca). They are doing all the hard work and I have skimmed off the prestige job of pruning two Japanese maples. This is a job I love because the trees are just about my height. No bending, stooping, crouching involved! One of the maples is an upright type, perhaps a Bloodgood, the other is a lacy, weeping variety.
When to prune? That is the question. Timeless advice is to prune when the shears are sharp, when you have time. In an excellent article in Fine Gardening magazine about pruning Japanese maples, late winter or summer are the recommended times, but light pruning can be done anytime.
These two trees don’t need major work, they are just coping with the classic garden dilemma: too many plants in too little space.
We all do it — cram trees and shrubs too close to each other. We just can’t believe the sticklike specimens lugged home from the garden centre will actually grow and mature.
In this garden, the upright Japanese maple is being pushed around by a Rose of Sharon. The side by side pairing is like a pickup truck next to a Porsche. In addition to rubbing branches, the Rose of Sharon is steal-
ing light from the maple. I would be tempted to remove the big thug from the garden, but instead James cuts off some of the bigger branches and reduces its height.
The Rose of Sharon is also crowding a nice trio of cedars. That’s bad. You don’t want the cedars to be shaded and start developing holes — that’s a path of no return. Think of plants in terms of value; the Rose of Sharon has a few weeks of interest when it flowers, whereas cedars and Japanese maples have three to four seasons of interest in the garden. They are the priority.
The weeping Japanese maple is big enough that it now shares space with a garden shed. The shed isn’t going anywhere, so the only choice is to prune some of the branches that are scraping against the structure. The Fine Gardening article suggests the goal in pruning Japanese maples is to separate the branches into overlapping layers that don’t touch each other. To be avoided is a weeping Japanese maple that looks like Cousin Itt from “The Addams Family.” Use discretion and don’t cut too much at once.
Another gorgeous shrub in this garden has developed its own
beautiful, layered branching structure. It is a pagoda dogwood called Golden Shadows. The form is like a wedding cake, and the leaves are variegated gold and green. It is difficult to grow. I have one and it looks nothing like this beauty because it doesn’t like the soil or location in my garden.
In Connon Nurseries’ plant finder (www.plants.connon.ca), it’s described as gorgeous but fussy. It likes acidic soil and dislikes urban pollution. In its secluded spot in my friends’ garden, it thrives. If you can grow one, do it.
Pruning, planting, edging, mulching, it’s all rewarding work. This garden is small enough that we can chat and work, discussing the wonderful birds in the yard, Orchard orioles, sparrows, blackbirds and cardinals, and admire the emerging spring plants.
Back at our house, and packing up tools, James points out that the yellow and red tulips in the front yard smell like orange peel.
A delightful surprise.