MÉLANIe'S GARDENS

About habitual tension, pruning roses, and the value of a neutral state.

This week in Grimsby, the forsythias are still in bloom.

It’s been another week of pruning shrubs,  especially roses. Over the last two weeks, I’ve been working on a large bed of carpet roses, which have matured over the past couple of years and were ready for their first deep structural prune. Carpet roses tend to really grow into each other, and there was a lot of squatting and hunching involved.

While pruning short shrubs that require you to hover above them, balance becomes not only useful, but essential. Even the slightest miscalculated action can create painful reminders for weeks to come.

Over the past few years, since beginning gardening full time, I’ve taken to starting my days with some brief yoga. Nothing complex. I tend to do a couple of sun salutations in the Ashtanga tradition, which warm up my back muscles and stretch out some of the larger leg muscles as well.

This yoga practice has helped me over the years to become more confident in balancing above thorny rose shrubs and other adversarial plant material.

However, over the years, a second, unexpected benefit has appeared. The steady returning to the same set of postures, and especially the beginning posture – equal standing, Tadasana, Samasthiti, whatever you want to call it – has taught me what that posture feels like. And that means that now, every time I drift away from that posture, for example, if I go swimming, rowing, or if I do a week of pruning roses hunched over, I notice that certain changes have occurred in my habitual tension patterns and muscular holding patterns.

In my morning yoga warm-ups following last week’s rose pruning, I noticed that my chest felt particularly tight. When I raised my arms above my head, they tended to be forward and ahead of my center line.

Realizing this, I thought about that rose pruning and what could have led to such a strong effect. The hunching over and the pruning seemed to have relied heavily on my back muscles, and perhaps because of the position of my body, often hunched over standing or on a kneeling pad, I may have neglected to engage my core and balance out the strain on my back muscles. Sometimes when you’re working, the habitual default is the easiest, whether or not it provides structural support.

Over the course of a couple of days, the repetition of the morning yoga warm-up allowed me to regain a more equal sense of balance in my body, bringing my hunched shoulders back behind my heart for support, strengthening my core while relaxing my overexerted back.

When I came back to the roses this week, as I started pruning, I immediately noticed what I had failed to notice before: a tendency to hunch forward and to rely on my back muscles to support my entire frame while working hunched. Through the small but repetitive work done over the course of the week, all it took was that bit of awareness to engage the core.

After a day of pruning roses, once again, I found that I had worked my back, but I felt less unbalanced, and my body required less work to rebalance.

You may not be a gardener full-time, or even part-time. You may do yoga, or you may not. This exploration is about neither of those things, although they do apply.

The idea here – yoga, even though it is a brief fifteen-minute warm-up in the morning – takes the place of a point of stability to return to, an exploration of balance. It could even be summarized by just the standing pose, equal standing, which is a simple, neutral posture from which you can observe what is going on.

When I stand in equal standing at the beginning and end of every warm-up session, which I have engaged with daily for years, I now have a neutral baseline to which I can compare my state. I know this week my hamstrings feel tighter, and another week my shoulders are more hunched than usual. I’m establishing what a neutral, balanced state feels like.

Having that balanced state is key. It allows me to respond to imbalances with a rebalancing action. It gives my awareness a context.

Yours may be something completely different, and it may even be a non-physical practice, such as reading, that allows you to gauge your state of mind. Or you may walk every day. The key is a small action repeated many times.

That becomes a baseline that allows you to not maintain balance at all times, but to notice quicker what feels out of balance, and to return to balance quicker and more easily than you would otherwise.

Finding your balance quickly after exertion will prevent habitual imbalances leading to health issues and injury over the long term. Also, clearing your mind by revisiting a familiar state can do the same for your ideas. In some ways, it’s similar to our four seasons of gardening, where during winter, I let ideas and gardens lie fallow so I can see them with fresh eyes the next spring. That cycle allows me to create balance on a large scale.

But on a small, day-to-day scale, equal standing is, will remain being, and will increase being invaluable.

About spring pruning, hydrangeas and taking a step back

Early spring, before woody plants leaf out, is a time for preparatory garden work.

Pruning woody shrubs, like hydrangeas, can seem daunting at first. Before beginning anything, take a step back and have a look. What is the shrub you’re looking to prune?

With your full shrub in sight, perhaps at a distance, take a moment to observe it. Is it old or young? Has it been pruned recently, or is it a tangled mass of years of undisturbed growth?

There is no need to rush in. Taking a moment, perhaps even with a cup of tea in hand. Simply seeing what the shrub tells you is a way to begin.

If nothing is obvious, that’s perfectly normal. Without knowing where you’re headed, you can still explore.

After considering the shrub, take your pruners and step closer. Even if nothing obvious comes to mind, first reduce the decisions you’ll have to make. The three Ds of pruning: dead, diseased, and damaged.

Dead branches can often be identified easily. Their bark is shriveled, they are paler than surrounding branches, and if gently bent, they snap with a hollow sound. If unsure, prune off an inch at the tip. If the core shows green, it may still be alive. If not, it is clearly dead. Remove it.

Is anything diseased? Obvious cankers, blemishes, or signs of fungal growth should be treated with care. If a branch is diseased, disinfect your shears after each cut to prevent spreading it.

Finally, remove any damaged branches. This includes obvious breaks from winter or ice, but also branches that rub or cross. Over time, these will damage each other. Removing future points of damage is just as important as addressing present ones.

What this achieves is a reduction in choices. With fewer decisions to make, you can begin to see more clearly.

Step back again. Pause. Have a look at what your shrub looks like now.

This time, consider not only the shrub, but its context. Where is it? What is it doing in the space? Is it near a walkway, or part of a larger composition at a distance?

This is where the fourth D takes shape: design.

The hydrangea I’m considering today is planted close to a walkway, one of two lining the path. Behind it is a garage, and over time it has grown into the facade. It has also begun to push into the walkway.

Here, the goal is a narrower shape, one that rises upward rather than outward. It needs to remain thin between the walkway and the garage.

At this stage, it helps to understand how the plant grows.

This is a hydrangea paniculata. It buds at intervals, often in groups of two or three buds evenly spaced around the stem. From each bud, a new branch may form, and the direction of the bud is the direction of growth.

Pruning above a two-bud node may give you two branches. Above a three-bud node, possibly three. These buds often alternate direction along the stem, allowing you to choose future branch direction; whether growth moves into the walkway or runs parallel to it.

Some branches have grown sideways. Others are strong and upright. The upright ones, often with three buds, will form the main structure of the shrub going forward. These become load-bearing, shaping the plant over time.

These may be cut differently; lower, at a more intentional structural branching point, than smaller, twiggy growth.

When pruning, cut close to the bud. Leaving a longer stub results in dieback, which can invite insects or disease. A clean, close cut helps maintain the plant’s health.

With secateurs or loppers, keep the blade side toward the part of the branch you are keeping. This allows for a cleaner cut.

These design decisions are less obvious than removing dead or damaged wood. It is normal to pause, to step back several times, and reconsider.

Each cut changes the shrub. It changes the context for the next cut.

These decisions cannot be undone easily. A branch does not simply grow back.
Sometimes, there is no clear answer.
Shaping a shrub takes time. Often, it is a process that unfolds over years.

When you’re done, take a step back. Have a look. Notice what remains, and what may come.

You cannot fully predict how the shrub will respond, or which branches it will favor. You can only make a considered guess.
And when the decisions feel heavy, it is fine to stop. Sometimes the next correct move is not another cut, but to leave, and come back the next day.

Next year, in early spring, you will return. You will stand back again, perhaps with a cup of tea in hand, and look.

About forsythias, roses and winter rest

This week in the Niagara region, something changed in the gardens. Bright yellow bushes adorn the streets; forsythias are in bloom.

For gardeners, forsythias are a reminder that it’s a good time to do certain garden tasks, such as pruning rose bushes.

For me, forsythia also signals that we’re moving away from preparatory garden work and into early spring. In other words, it’s the real end of the winter pause.

Winter was a time of rest not only for the gardens, but also for the gardener. A time to break away from routine, from being physically in the garden, into a time of separation, peace, and quiet.

That shift from winter to spring, from non-action to action, is a cyclical one. One that, over the years as a gardener, I’ve had the pleasure of getting to know.

Winter rest can take a few forms.

Sometimes, while I’m away from the gardens, I’m really away. I’m thinking of things that don’t grow and bloom. I’m distracted by perhaps Kusama’s Mirror Room. I am away from the garden physically, but also in mind.

However, sometimes in winter, I find myself thinking of gardens, remembering the past season, or dreaming of what could come next.

But whether I’m away from gardens and thinking about them or not, I am not working in the garden, and so I’m not affecting what grows there.

After a couple of months of time away, being able to be in a garden and change things shifts the mode completely.

Now I am in gardens.

Sometimes, while I’m pruning standard hydrangeas, I’m thinking about the garden and its shape for years to come. Sometimes, while I’m raking, I’m thinking of other things, such as a mirror rooms.

But something has changed.

Now I can affect the garden. Now I’m in spring.

When I come back to gardens in spring, the break has given me fresh eyes and a fresh mind. Something that seemed like a difficult problem at the end of the season in fall now has a clear solution. I may not have thought about it explicitly, but the pause away has given me a chance to look anew.

In garden work, this pause is forced. In winter, I can’t dig and plants don’t grow, and so there is no way I can garden.
However, other creative tasks don’t have this embedded rhythm. I’ve found it beneficial in gardening, but it is helpful in other disciplines to take a step back in one way or another.

In visual arts, a common technique is to look at your work through a mirror, or upside down, or to step away from it. You are not changing the work. You are changing your relationship to it.

When writing this blog post, I jotted down a few ideas earlier last week and came back to it after a few days to fine-tune to edit. The days away made clear what was essential and what could be trimmed.

Short pauses are important and helpful, and relatively approachable to implement. However, longer pauses, such as a full winter, are also helpful.

I’ve taken a few months off of a project and come back to it with a clearer look at what really worked and what needed changing. Some things only become obvious with time.

It can be a little daunting to leave a project, especially one that you’re invested in, for a long period of time. Questions arise. Will I come back to it? Will I still feel motivated? Will this pause prevent me from completing it, or understanding what I meant in the first place?

Taking a break is not easy, and it requires trust.

This trust is not something that appears overnight. But taking small pauses and seeing their benefits compounds over time can lead to knowing that if you take a larger break, you will still be there, and the insights gained will benefit the quality of the work.

Some things will have to be let go of, and some things will rise clearly to the surface. It’s all part of the process.

So here in Grimsby, forsythias are blooming. It’s time to prune the roses.
There is an old, scraggly rose bush that I’ve been wondering about. I planted this rose late last year and didn’t know which way to take it.

With fresh eyes, I can now see which parts are to be kept, and which parts are to be removed. What shape I want this rose to be, and how it might frame the window behind.