About timing care to extend summer blooms

For many gardens here in the Niagara region, late July and early August is peak bloom time. It’s when many people say their garden looks the best.

This year has been especially lush. We’ve alternated very hot days with very wet days, so there’s been no lack of moisture in the soil. It’s even caused some flooding in the region, which is still recovering in places.

The cicadas have started buzzing, and August has a different kind of heat than July. July always feels like it’s rushing toward hotter and hotter days. By August, it feels like the ground itself has absorbed that heat. It’s not only the sun warming you anymore. The earth radiates it back as well. Everything feels warm.

These are the slow summer days we’ve been waiting for.

For me, deadheading happens toward the end of hedge trimming season. Once the big hurdle of trimming hedges is over, or nearly over, deadheading becomes a pleasant task. It’s a chance to visit the whole garden with very few tools, slow down a little, and tidy things up one flower at a time.

What is deadheading?

Deadheading is simply removing spent flowers before they begin fully setting seed.

The name is actually a little bit of a misnomer because you don’t necessarily remove only the flower head. Quite often you’ll remove the entire flowering stem back to the first leaf or the first branching point, depending on the plant.

The goal is to remove everything that’s no longer contributing to the plant while keeping everything that is still happening.

Why deadhead?

There are three main reasons I deadhead.

The first is to encourage continued blooming.

Once a flower begins putting energy into producing seed, the plant slowly begins transitioning into its next phase. By removing the spent flowers before they fully set seed, many plants respond by producing more flowers. It’s a way of extending the bloom period a little longer and gently delaying the next phase of the plant’s growth.

The second reason is to prevent unwanted self seeding.

Some plants readily spread by seed. Removing the flowers before they mature means fewer seedlings next year and often less weeding. This is also why, if I don’t have time to fully remove a weed, I’ll sometimes simply remove the flower head. The root can wait for another day. Preventing seeds from forming immediately limits future work.

The third reason is aesthetic.

Removing spent flowers makes the garden appear fresh for longer. But this is also where personal preference begins.

Some gardeners enjoy seeing only fresh flowers.

Others enjoy the seed heads, the changing textures, and the gradual transition toward autumn. Neither approach is right or wrong.

First walk through the garden

Before I cut anything, I usually walk through the entire garden without doing any work.

I have a look at what’s blooming, what pollinators are active, which flowers are fading, and generally warm up to the garden before I begin.

Only then do I grab my tools.

Usually that’s a pair of secateurs, a bucket, and a yard waste bag. If I’m collecting a lot of material, I might use a leaf chute to hold the bag open.

That’s really all you need. Something to cut with, and somewhere to put what you’ve removed.

How to deadhead

Let’s use Echinacea or daisies as an example.

I hold the spent flower in my non dominant hand and follow the stem downward with my secateurs until I reach either the first large leaf or, more commonly, the first branching point.

Very often another flower is already developing from that junction.

That’s where I make the cut.

If you just remove the flower head itself, you’re often left with an empty stem sticking up through the plant. By cutting the entire flowering stem back to where new growth begins, the stem disappears and it looks like it was never there.

Most plants bloom in stages.

The first flower usually opens first, followed by smaller side flowers. Butterfly bush is a good example. The centre flower finishes first while the side flowers are only beginning.

The key is to remove only what is truly finished and leave everything that is still blooming or still to come.

Recognizing senescence

This is probably the trickiest part of deadheading.

Sometimes it’s obvious.

Other times it isn’t immediately clear whether a flower is finished or simply hasn’t opened yet.

If I’m not sure, I usually just take a second look.

The flowers that are finished often have dried brown petals and feel finished.

The flowers that haven’t opened yet usually still have some vibrancy to them. Even if they’re not colourful yet, they don’t feel dead. They still feel like something is happening.

Over time you begin recognizing the difference.

One of the nice things about perennial gardening is that you begin learning the different phases each plant goes through.

Plants aren’t static.

They change throughout the growing season, and deadheading is simply one way of interacting with one particular phase of that cycle.

Some examples

Peonies are one of the earliest plants I deadhead.

Once the flowers finish, I usually prune back to the first large outward facing leaf. That preserves the vase shape of the plant while leaving all of that dark glossy foliage behind. Especially on mildew resistant varieties, that foliage becomes a beautiful green backdrop for everything now coming into bloom through midsummer.

Daisies behave a little differently. They bloom quickly and fade fairly quickly too. If I’m visiting the garden regularly, I’ll remove the first flowers as they finish and allow the side flowers to continue.

Eventually, once the flowering stems begin fading, I’ll often cut the entire plant back to the basal rosette. That leaves a lush green groundcover through the fall instead of a patch of fading stems.

If I’m maintaining a more relaxed cottage garden or simply don’t have the time, I might leave them much longer and do one cut instead of several.

Both approaches work.

It depends how formal you want your garden to look, how much time you have, and what kind of aesthetic you’re after.

Butterfly bush is another good example. Some varieties readily self seed. Deadheading them can dramatically reduce unwanted seedlings the following year. Again, remove only the flowers that have finished and leave the younger flowers that are still opening along the same stem.

Echinacea often becomes a choice. You can deadhead for a tidier look and a few more flowers. Or you can leave the seed heads for winter.

Crocosmia and roses simply benefit from regular tidying through the season as flowers finish.

Every plant asks for something slightly different.

When to not deadhead

Sometimes the best decision is not to deadhead at all.

You might leave Echinacea seed heads standing through winter for the birds.

You might leave the seed heads because you enjoy their architectural quality once the snow arrives.

Or you might actively want a plant to spread.

Larkspur is one I intentionally allow to self seed. Once the seed pods dry and begin opening, I’ll often shake the seeds into areas where I’d like more larkspur next year.

The same idea applies to plants like lamb’s ear if you’re hoping they naturalize through the garden.

Again, there isn’t one correct answer.

It depends where you want your garden to go.

Containers and edible gardens

Container gardens are often small enough that deadheading simply becomes something you do as you walk by.

A small bucket nearby is often enough. As flowers finish, pinch them off and keep enjoying the display.

Edible gardens introduce another variation.

Sometimes you’re harvesting flowers rather than deadheading them.

Zucchini flowers and nasturtiums are both edible.

With herbs like chives and basil, removing the flowers encourages the plants to continue producing the foliage you’re actually growing them for. By delaying flowering, you often extend your harvest season.

A little bit of timing goes a long way.

A conversation with your garden

Even though deadheading is an umbrella term for removing spent flowers, there’s an incredible amount of flexibility within it.

Some plants benefit from being deadheaded as soon as possible because they readily self seed.

Others are sterile.

Some mainly spread through their roots, making deadheading almost entirely an aesthetic decision.

Your available time matters.

The look you’re after matters.

Wildlife matters.

The plants themselves matter.

As long as you understand why you’re deadheading, your own preferences can come into play.

If you enjoy a relaxed cottage garden, you may leave seed heads standing.

If you want a very tidy formal garden, you may remove spent flowers every day.

If you’d like birds visiting in January, you may make completely different decisions than someone who prefers a very clean autumn garden.

Deadheading isn’t really one practice.

It’s an ongoing conversation with your garden.

A way of encouraging growth where you want it, allowing the garden to move naturally through its seasons, and tidying things up when you have the time.

About water, plants and time

Across Grimsby and much of the Niagara Region, the last couple of weeks brought significant rainfall.

Flash flooding damaged roads, overwhelmed creeks, and left many gardens with washed away soil, displaced stone, and debris carried in by fast moving water.

In one garden I work in, the force of the water was enough to move large potato stones. Seeing rocks that size carried away by water is a reminder that landscapes are not nearly as static as they often appear.

We often think of land as something permanent. Our homes stay in the same place. The furniture inside rarely moves. At the pace of everyday life, it is easy to assume the landscape is equally still.

It isn’t.

Waterways shift. Slopes slowly change. Wind moves sand. Streams carve valleys. Floods happen, and as our climate changes, many places are experiencing them more often.

As gardeners, we often think of erosion as something to repair after it happens. Replace the soil, put the stones back, tidy the garden, and move on.

But storms ask a different question.

Not How do we repair this?

Instead:

How do we prepare for the next one?

That is where erosion control really begins.

Or perhaps more accurately, where we begin designing with water instead of against it.

Water is always moving

Water has always shaped the landscape.

Niagara Falls exists because of erosion. Over thousands of years, the falls have slowly carved their way upstream through the Niagara Escarpment. Smaller waterfalls, like Beamer Falls here in Grimsby, continue the same process today, only on a different scale.

Erosion is not unusual.

It is one of the ways landscapes change.

The goal is not to stop that change entirely. The goal is to understand how water moves through a landscape, and to work with those patterns.

Thinking in functions

When water moves across a landscape, it usually removes the lightest material first.

Sand moves before gravel.

Loose soil moves before larger stones.

Even clay can be washed away when the flow is strong enough.

When thinking about erosion, I find it helpful to think less about specific materials and more about the jobs they perform.

Some elements are obstacles.

Large boulders, mature trees, berms, and well placed hardscape slow or redirect water. They absorb energy and protect what lies behind them.

Other elements are facilitators of flow.

A smooth stone surface, or a stand of grasses, allows water to move through. Some surfaces accelarating water, some reducing its energy. Either way, rather than forcing water to stop, they guide it where we want it to go.

Good erosion control usually combines both.

Some elements redirect.

Others allow movement.

Together they shape how water travels through the landscape.

The real work happens below the surface

Most of the important, influential, and reliable work often happens below the surface.

What holds a landscape together is not simply what we see above ground, but the relationships beneath it.

Roots connect individual particles of soil into something much more difficult for water to move.

Different plants do this in different ways.

Trees and shrubs anchor the deeper layers of soil.

Grasses and sedges create dense fibrous networks that hold the surface together.

A healthy landscape uses both.

It is a multi layered system where different root depths and different root textures work together. The deeper anchors stabilize the slope, while the finer roots knit the surface together.

The real work is happening below the surface.

Small decisions, long consequences

One of the best known examples of this is the Dust Bowl of the 1930s.

Large areas of native prairie were converted to farmland, removing the deep rooted grasses that had held the soil together for thousands of years. When drought and strong winds arrived, enormous amounts of topsoil were carried away.

Closer to home, a similar story unfolded at Sandbanks Provincial Park. Trees were cleared and cattle grazed the dunes, removing the vegetation that stabilized the sand. Over time, the dunes began to move, burying roads, orchards, and even buildings before restoration efforts eventually began.

Different places.

The same principle.

Small decisions made upstream often have consequences that appear much later.

Designing for the next storm

When clients ask me how to control erosion, I understand the question.

But I often find myself asking a slightly different one.

How do we design for the next storm?

Sometimes the answer is immediate.

Large boulders, retaining walls, or reshaping the land can quickly redirect water and protect vulnerable areas.

Those are important tools.

What interests me most, however, is what plants quietly accomplish over time.

A native grass like big bluestem (Andropogon gerardii) or switchgrass (Panicum virgatum) may not look like much in its first year. Give it three years, and it has developed an extensive root system that is quietly holding the landscape together beneath the surface.

In shaded areas, various native Carex species perform a similar role, weaving dense fibrous roots through the upper layers of soil.

For structure, especially in frequently flooded sites, red osier dogwood provides both strong roots and resilient growth.

These are upstream decisions.

A relatively small action, taken at the right time, whose effects may not become obvious until years later.

That is one of the things I enjoy most about gardening.

The best solutions are often the small, simple ones, that evolve over time.

Good erosion control is less about fighting water than it is about helping the land hold itself together. It continues working long after we’ve gone home.

About techniques, tools and timing

The heat finally broke in Grimsby after Tuesday’s downpour. It also cleared the smoke from the northern Ontario wildfires that had been hanging over the area. Today seemed like a good day to weed. The temperatures were cooler, the soil was still moist from the rain, and the garden was ready for a little attention.

Last week we looked at a simple question.

What is a weed?

If you missed it, I recommend reading that post first. Once you consider what a weed is, the next question is how to remove it.

People often ask me when the best time to weed is.

The best time to weed is when you have time to weed.

That said, there are certainly times that make the job easier. After rain is one of my favourites because the moist soil lets go of weeds much more easily. During the hottest parts of summer, I’ll often weed in the shade or save it for days that are simply too hot for heavier garden work.

If you’re maintaining a mature garden, you’ll often find yourself pulling tiny weed seedlings as they emerge. At that point, there are very few surprises. You’re simply keeping up with them before they become established.

If you’re maintaining a more typical home garden, the important thing is to catch weeds before they flower and especially before they set seed. Different weeds also have their own seasons. Crabgrass, for example, is much easier to remove when it first begins to emerge than later in the summer after it has spread through a planting bed.

When I head out to weed, my setup is always the same.

I keep a sturdy construction bucket packed and ready to go. Inside are my Hori Hori knife, my Ho Mi hand hoe, my secateurs, a kneeling pad, and a good pair of gloves. I also bring along a larger yard waste bag or bin to empty the bucket into as I work.

I like construction buckets because they’re almost indestructible. They carry weeds, tools, and water, and in a pinch they make a perfectly good seat. But any bucket will do, even a spare empty pot.

My gloves usually have a latex coated palm. They offer a little extra protection against prickly weeds like thistles while staying usable when working with damp plant material.

Keeping everything together means it’s very easy to simply pick up the bucket and begin.

The key here is that different weeds require different strategies.

No matter what you’re removing, the goal of weeding is usually the same. You’re trying to remove the entire plant, including the root.

When starting out weeding, many people often begin by trying to pull the weed out by force.

Instead, loosen the soil first.

If the soil lets go of the weed, the whole plant usually comes out very easily.

The first group of weeds have deep taproots.

Dandelions, Queen Anne’s lace, and many thistles all grow a long, carrot shaped root straight down into the soil.

For these, I almost always reach for my Hori Hori knife.

I place the blade about half an inch away from the root and push it straight down into the soil. Then I lever the handle gently towards myself and down, lifting the surrounding soil just enough to loosen it.

I’m not trying to cut the root.

I’m trying to loosen the soil around it.

Once the soil lets go of the weed, the whole plant usually comes out very easily.

The second group are weeds with spreading or fibrous root systems.

Crabgrass and creeping Charlie are good examples.

For these, I use my Ho Mi hand hoe.

The pointed tip lets me work into very small spaces, whether that’s between flagstones or around other plants. The pointed tip can just kind of grab at the roots. I work it into the soil before pulling it back towards myself to loosen everything.

The ho-mi cand very fine detail work. It can also act as a miniature pick-axe and do some heavier digging. Most helpful is that it’s comfortable enough to use for long periods, the down and pull action is naturally ergonomic.

Again, the goal while weeding isn’t to fight the weed.

It’s simply to loosen the soil so the plant can be removed.

There are a few weeds where removing the entire root system simply isn’t possible.

Field bindweed and many thistles spread through underground rhizomes. Unless you’re excavating the entire area, some of that root system will remain.

In those cases, the strategy changes.

Instead of removing every root, you’re trying to exhaust the plant.

Whenever new growth appears, pull it again. Each time the plant sends up new shoots, it uses stored energy from the remaining root system. If you remove that growth before it can replenish itself, eventually the root system weakens.

I worked on one garden with a heavy thistle infestation. It took about three years, but simply removing the new shoots every time they appeared eventually exhausted the plants. This year, none grew back.

So, while weeding, there are two things to remember.

Don’t let weeds go to seed.

And if they regrow from underground roots, keep removing the new growth until the plant runs out of energy.

Once the weeds are out, most of them can simply go into the compost.

If you have a compost pile, there’s very little reason to throw weeds into the garbage. They’ve gathered nutrients from your own garden, and compost simply returns those nutrients back to the soil.

If you don’t compost at home, municipal yard waste collection is usually the next best option. Many municipalities turn that material into compost that can later be used in parks, gardens, and landscaping. In some places you can even bring that compost back home to use in your own garden. It may not be quite as clean as homemade compost, so it’s better suited for ornamental rather than edible garden beds, but it’s a good way to keep those nutrients cycling.

There are a few exceptions.

Very invasive weeds or weeds that spread particularly easily are sometimes better handled separately, depending on how your municipality processes yard waste. Japanese knotweed is one example. Cleavers are another that some gardeners prefer not to compost.

Sometimes I’ll leave those weeds in a yard waste bag, or even a black garbage bag, for a few weeks so they completely die before disposing of them. During the summer, the heat inside the bag often does the work for you. You just want to make sure they’re really dead, and their seeds no longer viable, before adding them to any compost, at home or otherwise. Truly invasive weeds can destroy entire gardens, and even ecosystems, so caution is essential.

Some dry weeds can also be burned if you have a fire pit.

One important exception is poison ivy. Never burn poison ivy. The oils responsible for the rash become airborne in the smoke and can cause a much more serious pulmonary reaction.

Some weeds deserve an entirely different conversation.

Plants like Japanese knotweed and phragmites are true invasive species. Managing them often involves repeated mowing, solarization, grazing, or in some situations even systemic herbicides. There are good discussions to be had about all of those approaches, and about when they may or may not be appropriate, but they’re beyond the scope of this post.

Here, we’re simply talking about the regular maintenance of an average home garden.

For many people, weeding is one of the jobs they dread most.

For me, it’s often one of the most enjoyable.

Usually it means I have a quiet hour to myself. I’ll put on a podcast, start in one corner of the garden, and simply follow the line.

Sometimes the line is the edge of a planting bed.

Sometimes it’s the edge of the lawn.

Whatever line the garden gives me, I simply keep following it until the garden is weeded, or I run out of time for the day.

There’s something deeply meditative about it. Almost like walking a preset labyrinth.

I keep my weeding bucket packed and ready to go. It makes it very easy to pick it up, step into the garden, and simply begin.

About names, plant strategies and the benefits of rain.

It’s the third day of wildfire smoke from the northern Ontario fires. The air quality isn’t good, and it’s currently not recommended to spend much time outdoors.

I still found myself thinking about weeding.

Not necessarily today. If we’re lucky, perhaps it’ll rain over the weekend. Rain makes pulling weeds much easier. Moist soil releases roots more readily, and many weeds come out with far less effort than they do after a stretch of dry weather.

Besides, weeding is one of those jobs that’s always waiting. It doesn’t really belong to a single week or even a single season. Every garden has weeds, and every gardener eventually develops their own relationship with them.

I enjoy weeding for many reasons.

One of them is that it lets me touch the entire garden. When I’m weeding, I end up in every corner, noticing details that I would never see by simply walking through. It slows gardening down to every square foot.

I also enjoy it because having an afternoon to weed usually means the other seasonal jobs are either finished or postponed because of the weather. If it’s especially hot, I can work in the shade. If it’s raining lightly, I can put on a raincoat, grab a bucket, and continue. It becomes a quiet task, one you can do alone, or alongside someone else while carrying on a small conversation.

Weeding asks for attention, but not urgency.

Over time I’ve also come to see that weeds tell you something about a garden. Different gardens produce different weeds. Soil, moisture, sunlight, disturbance, and even neighbourhood all influence what appears. Learning your weeds is another way of learning your garden.

That naturally raises another question.

What is a weed?

The word itself carries a negative meaning, but that meaning is largely a human one. A weed is not a particular kind of plant. It is a judgment.

To me, a weed is simply a plant that is not wanted in a particular spot.

That makes weeds entirely dependent on the gardener.

The same plant can be a weed in one place and welcome in another.

If a lavender seeds itself into an empty sunny bed where I wanted another lavender anyway, I consider it a volunteer. It arrived on its own, but I am happy to keep it.

If that same seedling appears in the middle of a carefully spaced geometric planting where there is no room for another plant, then it has become a weed.

The plant hasn’t changed.

The location has.

Sometimes I transplant that volunteer elsewhere. Sometimes, if there are twenty of them and nowhere to put them, they go into the compost. We often first ask, “What plant is this?”

When weeding however, the first question often is, “Do I want this plant here?”

There are, however, plants that are genuinely weedy.

To me, those are plants whose growth strategy is so aggressive that they begin overwhelming everything around them. Some spread rapidly by seed. Others spread by rhizomes, making them difficult to remove completely.

Phragmites and Japanese knotweed are good examples. Their extensive root systems allow them to spread quickly while displacing nearly everything else growing nearby. If you’ve driven along Ontario highways, you’ve probably seen large stands of tall bluish grass with feathery plumes towering above everything around them. That is often non-native phragmites. Notice that very little else grows within those patches.

Other weeds, like creeping bellflower, may not be nearly as tall, but they spread readily and return from even small pieces of root left behind.

On the other hand, not every weed is difficult. Some self seed freely but pull out with almost no effort. They create regular work, but they don’t wage a long term battle against the gardener.

Even weeds have different strategies.

Some appear only during certain parts of the season. Right now, for example, we’re in the middle of crabgrass season. A month ago there was almost none to be found.

Perhaps that’s one of the reasons I enjoy weeding so much.

It isn’t simply removing unwanted plants.

It’s a quiet process of observation and selection.

Looking at everything growing in the garden, one plant at a time, and deciding what stays.

About different tools for different outcomes, heat waves, and how to add some silence into your gardening.

This past weekend in Grimsby, the catalpas have been in bloom. In the long series of spring flowers, trees may be the most majestic, and at the end of the spring season, after the lilacs, the horse chestnuts, and the maples have all bloomed, the catalpas are always a spectacular surprise.

It’s also been a few weeks of mixed weather. Last week we had lower temperatures alongside very heavy showers. This week we’re in a heat wave, some of the hottest temperatures of the year so far.

Because of that, this exploration of hedge trimming is a preemptive one. While the heat wave is ongoing, it’s a stressful time for both humans and plants, especially for gardeners who enjoy spending time outside. The actual hedge trimming can wait until the heat breaks.

The way I approach heat waves while gardening is twofold.

First, I take care of myself. I mostly work in the shade when possible, choose the cooler parts of the day, drink plenty of water, and pay attention to symptoms such as confusion, dizziness, or even just general lack of energy. It’s okay to work a little slower and be more intentional with the work you do if you absolutely have to be outside.

The other consideration is for the gardens. During a heat wave, it’s best to avoid things that stress plants, such as significant pruning or hedge trimming. Those can wait for cooler weather. I often prefer smaller tasks, such as weeding, especially in shaded areas. It’s a good time to step back and simply observe the garden.

Hot days call for stillness.

It’s also the time of year when many hedge shrubs have just flushed out their new growth. For some shrubs, such as the flowering shrubs discussed in the previous pruning post, all the blooms are finished and they’re ready for pruning. For others, such as boxwoods and yews, the new growth has flushed out and they’re approaching the right time for their seasonal trim.

Just like flowering shrubs, timing your cut is important.

Take the yew as an example. Their new growth is very obvious. The old growth is a lush dark forest green, while the new growth is a bright lime green. If you touch it, you’ll notice that the new growth is softer than the older needles, and if you look closely at the tips you may even find needles that are still developing.

If you trim your yew too early, it still has the energy to produce more growth, which often means another trim later in the season. If you wait until the lime green growth has fully flushed out and begins to darken, that usually indicates the shrub has finished growing for the year. One trim is often enough.

Other shrubs have similar signals. Boxwoods also produce lighter, softer new growth. Privets, which usually need more than one trim each season, simply begin looking scraggly. Since they bloom around this time, you can either trim them now and sacrifice some flowers, or enjoy the blooms first and give them a tighter trim afterwards. Sometimes I’ll trim only up to the blooms, then remove the final inch or two once flowering has finished.

Once you’ve decided that the timing is right, have a look at the weather.

If it’s been raining, it may be worth waiting until the foliage dries. Wet foliage can encourage rust on tools, and the cuts may not be quite as clean. If you’re coming out of a heat wave, giving your shrubs a deep watering the evening before trimming helps them recover from the stress and increases their resilience before a significant haircut.

When you’re trimming a hedge, like with any other gardening task, the tool shapes the outcome. Choosing the right tool is as important as the trimming itself.

The hedge trimmer

The most obvious tool for hedge trimming is, of course, the hedge trimmer.

The best hedge trimmer is the one you have.

Whether yours is battery powered, corded, or gas powered, take what you have and have a look at it. I personally use a medium-sized battery-powered hedge trimmer. I previously used a corded one and found the extension cord made the work slower and required constant attention to avoid cutting through it. I generally don’t use gas-powered tools, especially in residential gardens. A battery-powered hedge trimmer is more than sufficient, and I find hedge trimmers use surprisingly little battery compared to tools such as blowers.

Before starting, I like to oil the blades and briefly run the trimmer. If the blades move smoothly without squeaking or binding, the tool is ready. The smoother the tool, the cleaner the cut.

A hedge trimmer works exactly where you place it. Lay the blade flat against the surface you want to trim and move steadily along it.

If I’m trimming a rectangular yew hedge, I usually do the sides first and then the top. There’s no right or wrong order. I simply find that trimming the sides first gives me a clearer picture of the final height before I trim the top.

On the sides, you can work from the bottom up, from the top down, or even side to side. Each has a slightly different effect. Bottom to top gives a lighter skim and is less likely to snag branches. Top to bottom pushes against the natural direction of growth and reaches a little deeper into the hedge. Side to side often falls somewhere in between.

I often use all three during the same hedge. A light pass from the bottom up, another from the top down where needed, and finally a side-to-side pass to even everything out.

There’s no one right way. It’s all situation dependent.

When trimming the top, I place the blade at the final height I want and work from left to right or right to left. On larger hedges such as privets, the clippings quickly accumulate on top, so I often stop, clear them away, and make a second pass in the opposite direction. The branches move while you’re trimming, and a second pass usually catches the growth that escaped the first.

One small adjustment I’ve found useful is the angle of the blade. Keeping it perfectly flat gives you a good enough cut. If you angle the blade slightly, perhaps ten degrees, towards the direction you’re moving, the teeth of the hedge trimmer naturally pick up the new growth a little more easily, almost as if you’re combing the hedge. The important part is that your movement remains parallel to the hedge. The blade is angled slightly, but your path is still straight.

Hand shears

Even though hedge trimmers are the obvious choice, they’re far from the only one.

I often use hand shears. They’re lighter, quieter, and give me a different kind of control. I especially like them for smaller shrubs, such as individual dwarf Korean lilacs, boxwood balls, or cedar topiary.

When you’re using shears, every cut gathers only a small amount of growth. It takes a little longer to develop a smooth finish, but once you become comfortable with them they offer remarkable precision.

One advantage of shears is that changing the way you hold them changes the angle of the blades. Held one way they’re better suited to shorter shrubs. Turn them over and they become much easier to use on taller, rounded forms.

If you’re new to using shears, think of them as a very large pair of scissors.

When shaping a globe, I usually begin by creating a small flat area on the very top. That establishes the final height. From there, I follow one continuous curve from the top all the way to the bottom. I repeat the same curve on the opposite side, creating a band around the shrub. Then I repeat the process at ninety degrees to the first. Once those four curves are established, the remaining sections naturally fall into place.

If you have a small shrub, I highly recommend trying shears at least once.

For me, one of their biggest advantages is actually the silence. If I’m working in a quiet garden or on a quiet Sunday afternoon, there may be no reason to start the hedge trimmer. I can work with shears, listen to a podcast without noise-cancelling headphones, and still hear what’s going on around me.

It’s a good tool for silent gardening.

Hand pruners

Both hedge trimmers and shears are efficient tools. The trade-off is that they create a very small amount of damage as leaves are sliced through. On small-leaved shrubs such as yews and boxwoods, this is negligible, especially if your blades are sharp and clean. There is no better way to achieve a crisp, even surface.

Sometimes, however, preserving texture matters more than creating a perfectly flat finish.

This is where hand pruners come in.

Every cut with hand pruners is intentional.

If I’m reducing the size of a shrub, I’ll often identify one dominant branch and remove it back to its origin while leaving the surrounding branches untouched. In many cases, that reduces the size without needing to shorten every branch around it.

Hand pruners also let you place each cut exactly where you want future growth. Wherever you prune, most shrubs respond by producing denser growth below the cut. If I want a shrub to fill in a thin area, recover from winter damage, or simply grow in a particular direction, I’ll usually reach for my pruners.

That’s why I carry them with me even when I’m hedge trimming.

They’re useful for the stubborn branch that refuses to catch in the hedge trimmer, the small correction that improves the overall shape, or the stray tree seedling growing through the hedge that needs to be removed cleanly at its base.

When you’re trimming a hedge, like with any other gardening task, the tool shapes the outcome.

If you have a small rounded shrub where every branch matters, or perhaps one where you prefer a looser, wilder look, hand pruners may be what works best for you.

If you have a very large hedge that you want trimmed cleanly and neatly, a hedge trimmer is a great tool for large areas.

And if you’re somewhere in the middle, enjoying a quiet Sunday afternoon after the heat wave breaks, and you simply want to spend some time with your shrub without bringing out the hedge trimmer, a pair of shears rewards the time spent learning them with added flexibility.

The tool shapes the outcome.

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.