Gardening Bytes

Posts Tagged ‘Pruning Shrubs’

Guest Article Author: Neal Klabunde

Fall closes the garden year.

Spring brings forth new life.

This simple haiku puts the autumn in focus. The gardening year is rapidly coming to an end and the time to start preparing for next year’s garden is upon us. Successful gardeners are always looking towards the future and planning their next step. Hopefully you have kept a garden journal that chronicles your hits and misses.

The following tips will help you to prepare for next year’s garden so you will be able to hit the ground running next spring.

Cleaning up the garden beds should be first on your list. Remove any dead plants to the compost pile. These should be only the remains of healthy plants. Any diseased plants should be put in the trash. There are always a few green tomatoes left on the vines. The tomatoes can be left on the vine and brought into the garage and hung until the tomatoes ripen, or there are recipes for cooking green tomatoes.

Root crops can be left in the ground and covered with straw bales if you want to keep them there. Many gardeners cover the carrots with straw bales. When you need some, just go out to the garden and tip the bales over and dig up fresh carrots.

Take the compost that you have been making all summer long and spread it on the garden beds. Even if it isn’t completely decomposed, work it into the soil and the worms will do the rest.

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Climbers and shrubs can be propagated by layering a branch of the plant to the ground, fastening it with a metal peg or fastener sitting over the branch or stem, then mounding dirt over it. Keep the mounded soil and soil around the layered plant moist. Over time the branch or stem will take root, creating a new plant from the original plant. When growth is apparent and of decent size, separate the new plant from the original plant and plant out in the garden. Climbers and shrubs that respond well to layering include clematis, ivy, lilac, akebia, campsis, and winter jasmine.

As your hydrangea flowers fade and turn brown, remove the flowers if they become unsightly by cutting the stem back to the first pair of buds below the flowerhead. New growth will begin in spring, encourage this growth by cutting out a third of the oldest flower stems just above ground level. Dead stems should be removed from hydrangeas every year at the base of the plant. When hydrangeas reach at least 5 years old, you can remove one third of the older stems down to the ground each summer, which will revitalize the shrub.

Heaths and Heathers are sturdy sun loving, acid soil shrubs that add structure to gardens year round and, depending on the variety, provide beautiful blooms and vivid leaf color in different seasons all year long. After your heaths and heathers finish their bloom the flower buds brown and fade, which is the ideal time to prune back the shrubs. A neat trim below the flower blooms and cutting off bare stems above the main portion of the plant will help shape them for continued healthy growth. In the colder climate zones, prune heaths and heathers in the spring. If you do not trim back spent heath and heather flowers the shrubs may become spindly looking with sparse leaves as it grows. Trim back farther to regenerate the shrub when it is growing poorly. Do not trim back too far into the main woody portion of the heather shrub because it may not regenerate new growth.

Learn more about pruning heaths and heathers here: Heaths and Heathers Nursery

The Butterfly Bush is a large shrub with over one hundred species. The majority of the species are shrubs that can generally grow from 6 to 10 feet tall, while tree varieties can grow up to 30 feet tall. My Butterfly Bushes grow rapidly from 8 to 12 feet tall after pruning and grow well in my coastal climate as well as in hot climates in the U.S.

Pruning is very important for Butterfly bushes since they can become gangly and tall, and yearly pruning helps encourage flowering on new wood. Prune Butterfly Bushes back in Spring past danger of severe frost to 3 to 4 feet tall. When pruning cut the branches back to 2 inches above a new bud. Young plants should be in place a year or two, developing a sturdy woody trunk before you begin pruning the shrub.