Pruning

Last year I waxed poetic a bit about picking blackberries, but that is not my only meditative horticultural pursuit.

The truth is, we have several overgrown shrubs. We have four lilacs in the front of the house, and then in the backyard we have three butterfly bushes, and it looks like it’s four roses of Sharon, but really, the two on the right are a single entity that has spread. A lot.

The roses of Sharon had the added disadvantage that there were big evergreens on the other side of the fence that were crowding them out, so they have grown out as much as they have grown up. Otherwise, though, most of the issue is ignorance and neglect. Mom took care of the yard, but as she was losing her abilities to keep up with it, I did not immediately pick up the slack, and also, she did not have a lot of knowledge. I only know what things were specifically done wrong now because I found it on the internet.

Last year I started with the butterfly bushes. I did check out a book with general information on pruning, but I didn’t start looking up the specific species until later. What I did was not necessarily bad, but you can be a lot more severe with butterfly bushes, cutting them back to 12 inches if you want (after they have bloomed), and honestly, I think that’s what I am going to try, because those things grow like crazy. We found out after they were deeply rooted that they are considered an invasive species. They sure do work for attracting butterflies though.

One thing I have learned is that you are supposed to deadhead lilacs every year. That is when you cut off all of the faded blooms after they are done. If you don’t, the tree tries to grow bigger, and puts more energy into that instead of producing blooms.

It will not be possible this year. There are so many of them, and so high up. Next year I think we will be giving a lot of bouquets to people so there won’t be as much work afterwards. That would be nipping it shortly after the bud. One man did come one year and asked if he could use our lilacs for his daughter’s wedding, which was nice and kind of gave us a free pruning. I hope the guy who came and offered to prune this year did not want them for a sweet ulterior motive, because we said “no”. (It was Sunday, and it seemed like he was just looking for work.)

I do have some limitations. Pruning an overgrown shrubbery produces much more debris than you would guess just by viewing it unpruned. I generally fill up the debris bin in one hour, and it only gets emptied every two weeks. Therefore, I prune for about an hour once every two weeks.

There are some good things about that. Fighting trees does wear me out, so only doing it once every two weeks is probably for the best. More than that, and this is where I start getting philosophical, it is a project where you need to take the long view.

When I first started last year, I felt like it was going to be a three-year project. That is probably still right, but it could be longer. The first year was going to be thinning, so I could see what I had to work with, and then there would be shaping, and in all likelihood there would be more shaping as I saw how my initial shaping choices grew out.

I can see that a lot of the new growth, in addition to being too crowded, is very brittle. The tree was trying to do too much, and ended up not having enough resources. I see places that I know will need to be trimmed, but other things need to be clipped first before I can even reach that place, so it waits. Patience is required. Sometimes there are branches that are both good branches, but they rub against each other, leaving the chafed spot open to infection, and so you need to choose one to keep and one to let go. Those are all good lessons for me. And yes, a lot of times I end up lopping both branches off, but metaphors can only go so far.

It’s funny, because I used to hate yard work. I hated the feeling of dirt in my hands, and there was no comfortable position for weeding, and I would get little splinters from the bark dust (I hate bark dust), and so it still seems crazy to me when I dream about having a farm. But that dream is not all a response to reading “The Omnivore’s Dilemma”. Some of it is how much I have grown to love the work that I do outdoors now. It gives me a real sense of peace. Maybe I did not know how to value it before.

My appreciation for the current pruning schedule notwithstanding, I do worry about not getting to all the trees at appropriate times, so if anyone feels like they could use the leaves and twigs for mulch, just let me know. We’ll arrange a time for pickup and I will make time to give you as much as you want. Or, come pick your own dead lilacs. I will share.

Alma 31 – 33
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