MÉLANIe'S GARDENS

About the timing of pruning, seasonal rhythms and long term thinking

It’s been a fragrant past couple of weeks in Grimsby.

A succession of fragrant shrubs have been in bloom, from Korean spice viburnum to lilac to the lovely dwarf Korean lilac. These early blooming shrubs are now approaching the last of their blooms.

Once the last of your Korean spice viburnum or lilac blooms fade, or any of the early blooming shrubs for that matter, including the earlier forsythia, now is a good time to prune.

Shrubs that bloom this early in the season did not have time to form blooms this year. Instead, they adapted to form blooms on last year’s growth. This makes the timing of your pruning particularly important.

It’s not complicated. It just means that the timing of your pruning will affect what your shrub will look like next year.

The easiest way to go about it is to remember when your spring shrub is done blooming. That is a great time to prune it.

Don’t wait until the end of summer. You’ll cut off all that new growth that would have been setting next year’s blooms.

A useful reminder is the natural act of deadheading. Once your blooms are finished, you may already be reaching for your secateurs to remove the bent brown lilac blooms. With pruners in hand, you can give the rest of the shrub a trim as well. Prune to size if it has overgrown its area. Prune to shape if you are looking for a different form. Or simply maintain its shape by adjusting where the new growth will appear.

This is also a good opportunity if you have an early blooming shrub hedge. Forsythia is a good example. Once it finishes blooming, which happened a few weeks ago, you’re good to hedge it.

There is an interesting effect that happens if you prune immediately after bloom. There will often be new growth, and that growth may overshoot the space you have available. Your lilac may put out shoots that extend beyond its current location.

That does not mean later trimming is forbidden.

I’ve noticed that shrubs that bloom on old wood will often still bloom even if you remove a little of that newer growth. You just do not want to remove all of it.

That becomes especially important in older hedges that are too thick to let sunlight into their interior, where new wood may already be struggling to set.

So if you’re wondering, yes, you can always chop a branch later. It’s not going to prevent the entire shrub from blooming the following year.

But if you give it a solid haircut late in the season, you are removing next year’s blooms.

Every shrub is slightly different. Some put out a lot of new growth from the base. Others continue mostly from established stems.

So even though the rule is general, and shrubs that bloom on old wood bloom on previous year’s growth, it helps to observe your own shrub and see what that means in your specific scenario.

Gardening is a practice that happens over years and features a lot of slow repetition.

If you’re new to gardening, know that pruning at the wrong time will not kill the shrub.

If you need to make an emergency intervention and remove half your lilac because it has overgrown its space and you have to do it in August, you may not have blooms the following year as the shrub recovers.

But the shrub is by no means dead.

That absence of blooms is often the feedback that tells you your timing was a little off.

You can adjust from year to year.

Most of our lives do not happen on such a long timescale. Gardening often happens in a single action repeated once a year. To make adjustments, you make that adjustment a year later.

Shrubs are not the only thing getting pruned right now.

As the weather has been good and we’ve had both a lot of rain and a lot of heat in Grimsby, perennials are racing towards the sky.

Some of the early blooming perennials, such as peonies, are now in full bloom.

However, your later blooming perennials, such as agastache, Joe Pye weed, Autumn Joy sedum, and perennial mums, are still mostly putting out foliage and have not started setting blooms.

If they are getting large and you would like to keep them a little more compact, or if you would like to increase the quantity of blooms, now is a good time for what some call the Chelsea chop.

In essence, this means pruning your perennial by about a third of its current height.

This encourages branching.

Where you make one cut, instead of having one stem continue, you may have two, three, or even five stems emerge.

Each of those stems may now set a bloom.

Depending on the plant, you may end up with more blooms overall. Some may be smaller, but the overall effect is larger.

Joe Pye weed is a good example. If happy, it often grows in whorls of five. Wherever you cut, you may get five new stems, each producing a bloom.

The trade-off is that the plant now has to gather resources and produce all that expanded growth.

In many cases, that trade-off is desirable.

Plants such as Autumn Joy sedum and mums bloom late already. Delaying them by a week or two can extend your bloom season significantly.

This matters in Canadian regions where bloom time is already limited and truncated by the arrival of cold temperatures.

Not all perennials respond equally well to the Chelsea chop. Some do not need it at all.

The four above are particularly happy with a good cut.

We have a large Joe Pye weed at home and last year I gave it a partial cut simply to reduce its size.

It responded very well. There were more blooms, and they appeared slightly later than the untouched sections.

This year I pushed the experiment further.

I left the center crown untouched.

Around it, I gave the surrounding stems a light chop.

Then the outer ring of the clump received a deeper cut.

What should happen now is three layers of bloom timing: untouched, shortened, and deeply shortened.

Because the clump is circular, I’m curious whether they will all bloom together a little later, or whether the bloom will stagger between the different layers.

I’m looking forward to August.

As the shrubs fade and the perennials grow, you may also notice that hedges have really filled in.

Specifically, yew hedges are now wearing a bright lime green coat.

That lime green is the new growth.

Yews usually have one strong flush of growth per season, and it happens right about now.

I could hedge them now.

But I’ve noticed that if I jump the gun and hedge too early, there is still quite a bit of energy left in the plant and it feeds another flush of growth.

That means touch-ups later.

A good rule of thumb is to watch for the lime green to begin turning darker.

It does not have to fully transition before you start hedging, but that colour shift is an indicator.

If you hedge as soon as the lime green starts looking scraggly, that is fine, especially in a small garden where a second trim is easy.

If you enjoy that bright green, you can leave it until it disappears and prune later.

I usually prefer the middle ground.

One cut, but before the hedge looks untidy for too long.

It depends on the style of your garden.

Formal gardens benefit from earlier hedging.

Wilder gardens tolerate later hedging.

Weather matters too.

Hedging, like any pruning, is mildly stressful for the plant.

If conditions are dry and hot, it may be worth waiting until after rainfall.

If the hedge is healthy and irrigated, sometimes the practical reality of your schedule wins.

There is usually an in-between.

In this in-between period where spring turns into summer and many plants are in transition, the timing of your actions can change your garden significantly.

But it is not difficult.

The plants will tell you when they are ready.

And remember there is flexibility as well.

We all lead busy lives and sometimes the available moment is not the exact right one.

But it often is not the wrong one either.

It may simply create a slightly different effect.

About seasonal planters, re-potting and life after death.

Hot temperatures have rolled into Grimsby, along with the frequent downpours we’ve been getting. Even though the solstice is still a few days away, summer is firmly here.

It’s a great time to switch over, if you haven’t already, your spring planters for summer ones. These warm temperatures can support tropical plants and other experiments that don’t survive colder weather. It’s time for endless blooms, colour, and tropical vibes.

Last week, I was changing over a spring planter for a summer one. As expected, the planter was just at the end of its life cycle. However, some of the plants I had used are perennial. There were some bulbs, some candytuft, even some heather for a pop of colour, and of course the lovely primroses.

Many of these plants don’t support summer heat particularly well, and towards the end of their seasonal life cycle they also don’t necessarily get frequent watering as the time to change approaches. Many of these plants were struggling, but I noticed their foliage was still somewhat green. Some of their root systems, even though parched, still seemed intact.

So some of these plants were definitely still alive.

The plants whose foliage had completely died off and whose root ball held no signs of life, those I composted. But the ones that even had a slight tinge of green in their foliage, I thought perhaps they stood a chance for a second life beyond the planter.

So it was time for a little plant resurrection.

Some cases were obviously very green still. Some were just on the fringe. But anything that had any remote signs of life, I took with me and began the process.

I set myself up a small station.

All of the plants ended up in a yard waste bag, haphazardly piled onto each other. Next to it, I had a fresh yard waste bag for all of the debris destined for compost. I also set myself up with a regular bucket filled with water and a bucket of fresh soil.

Since these are secondhand resurrection plants, I just used whatever soil I had left over from previous plantings, a regular potting mix that had already been used once or twice.

Then I had a stack of pots of various sizes, mostly one gallons and nine centimetre square pots, with a few other different sizes for larger plants.

If you have everything on hand, it saves time later. It also helps to have a watering can filled with water and possibly a water source nearby.

The process itself was very simple.

I took the plants one by one out of the yard waste bag and had a look to see whether there were any signs of life. If there were signs of life, some greenery, a root system still attached to the crown of the plant, I dunked them into the bucket of water and left them there for a good ten to fifteen minutes.

As I sorted through the plants, the bucket got fuller and fuller until it was just a sea of wilted plants floating in what looked like mud.

That was exactly what I wanted.

Once the root balls were soaked thoroughly, I took one of the pots and filled the bottom gently with soil to provide a little cushion. Then I placed one plant per pot and filled around it loosely with more soil. Full, but not densely packed.

Once the plants were surrounded in fresh soil, I took my watering can and gave them a secondary good dowsing.
This packed the soil and ensured the plants were in a happy, moist environment that would give them as much chance as possible of being revived.

These plants had many dead bits and damaged bits. However, because they were in such a fragile state, I actually didn’t do any initial pruning.

I’m going to give them a couple of days and see whether this resurrection takes, whether the roots begin doing things, whether there are signs of new growth.

For now, the dead foliage stays.

Plant resurrection doesn’t necessarily have to happen in such dire circumstances, and it’s not necessarily only reserved for potted plants.

Recently I relocated a few hydrangea shrubs into slightly better conditions. Their root systems were still healthy and there was no major dieback, so they didn’t need this sort of intensive rescue. They simply needed a better chance. A little soil improvement, plenty of water, and a better location.

I wrote more in detail previously about shrub transplanting, so I won’t go too deep into that here.

But the principle is similar.

Some plants are finished. Some need replacing. Some just need a little more time, a little more water, or a slightly better place to grow.

And sometimes, before composting, it’s worth having one more look.

About decision processes, empty spaces and seeing what’s underground.

Last week’s post was about shrub transplanting. This week, I found myself thinking about the opposite movement.

Earlier this week, or rather last week, there was a large scale lavender removal. The lavenders had been left to overgrow and the inner portions of the shrubs had become woody. Looking at them, we found it easier to remove the shrubs and start fresh instead of trying to fix a situation that had become a little dire.

That raised a question.

When should a shrub be removed?

When you remove a shrub, unlike transplanting, you are not concerned about ensuring that the shrub is alive at the end of the process. However, that does not mean there are not steps to consider for a successful shrub removal.

One example that comes to mind right now in Niagara is boxwood.

The boxwood moth has established itself in the area and changed many gardens. What was once a lower maintenance shrub is now, in some places, a high maintenance shrub requiring multiple sprays a year to maintain its health.

There are many reasons someone might remove a boxwood.

The shrub may be damaged. Boxwood moth damages and severely defoliates boxwoods. Some shrubs are in the early stages and losing only a few leaves. Some are severely damaged and barely alive. Some are already dead.

These are all reasons to remove a shrub.

But there is another category that I find interesting.

Some people have kept their boxwoods healthy by spraying them and maintaining them carefully. The shrubs are alive. Yet maintenance has become too high. The shrubs are, in a sense, on life support and without human intervention they would no longer be alive.

That too is a valid reason to remove a shrub.

Sometimes a shrub no longer fits the maintenance needs of the garden.

Before removing a shrub, I think there are two pauses worth taking.

First, why is the shrub being removed?

Second, what happens to the space afterwards?

If the shrub is healthy but simply in the wrong place, sometimes it is acting as a placeholder while you ponder your next garden move.

Before removing it, consider what you want to do with that space.

You may already have another plant in mind.

Or you may be comfortable leaving the space empty for a little while.

I sometimes do that. I remove a shrub first and then have a look at the space and see what calls out to me or what resonates.

Empty space is also an option.

Once you have decided to proceed, preparation helps.

Like transplanting, it is useful to gather your tools before beginning. It saves time and allows you to work more fluidly in the moment.

My basic set would be a shovel, necessary, and a fork, optional.

I also like having pruners and a large pair of loppers available for larger stems and roots. Since this is shrub removal, it is fine to use an older pair for soil work.

For tougher situations, I sometimes bring a Sawzall or reciprocating saw to help cut through severe root systems.

And if the space will be reused afterwards, a hard rake is useful for tidying the area.

Before starting, there is one final thing to consider.

What are you doing with the shrub afterwards?

Will it go to home compost?

Onto a log pile to create habitat?

Is it heavily diseased and destined for a burn pile?

Or are you breaking it down into yard waste bags for city pickup?

Once you begin removing the shrub, size and location matter.

If I am not sure what I am dealing with, especially in a difficult location, I sometimes start with the fork.

I shuffle it around a little, lever gently, and see whether the shrub pops out readily or does not move at all.

This step is optional, but it gives a sense of how much work needs to be done.

Then I take a shovel and dig around the shrub.

Since the shrub is being removed, it does not matter too much whether some roots are sliced. Depending on the shrub, I might give it six inches, a foot, or a foot and a half of breath and dig around once.

On the second pass I start levering.

Sometimes the shrub comes out.

If it does, great.

If it does not, this is where it becomes useful to actually look at the root system.

Now that the soil is open, you can often see some of the points of attachment.

This is where smaller tools become useful.

A hand hoe or hori hori can help clear soil and expose what you are actually looking at.

I want a clear visual of the roots I am considering cutting.

If I find one very large root, I dig along it from the centre of the shrub until I reach a point where I feel comfortable cutting, where I feel I have removed enough of the root to clear the area for future planting.

At that point I simply prune the root as though I were pruning a branch.

Because roots are underground, it can be difficult to see where the shrub is still attached.

So after each cut, I push and pull the shrub.

I see where it still holds strongest and where it has loosened and gained free range of motion.

That tells me where the next attachment point is.

For larger shrubs and small trees, this is where the Sawzall becomes useful.

Eventually the shrub comes free.

At that point, you are left with the root ball and a hole.

You can break the shrub down beforehand or afterwards. I often keep some branches while digging because they act as holds or levers while lifting and wiggling the shrub free.

Once the shrub is removed, it is time to break it down and send it where it needs to go.

Then you are left with empty space.

If you already know what comes next, you can prepare the hole and place the next plant.

If not, rake the area out, tidy the edges, fill the hole if needed, and leave it for a while.

There is one final opportunity here.

Now that the shrub is gone, this is also a chance to reconsider the soil.

If future planting is coming, adding compost, loosening compacted soil, and rehabilitating the area can refresh the space for whatever comes next.

Removing a shrub is not the opposite of gardening.

Sometimes it is simply making room for the next garden.