Annabelle Hydrangea – Pruned vs Unpruned

My garden suffers from ‘cobblers child’ syndrome – that is I’m so busy pruning other people’s gardens that I neglect my own. I do generally get around to the pruning chores (though often a bit late) but this year I missed doing my Annabelle Hydrangea completely. Humber Nurseries politely refer to these hydrangeas as “colonizing” which is to say that if you don’t keep them in check they will take over your garden. They not only spread out, but up; so not surprisingly my unpruned Annabelle is close to six feet tall this year, and nearly eight feet wide.  It’s even threatening to overtake the birch sapling next to it; although that is partly because a squirrel tried to use the sapling for climbing practice and snapped off the top third of the tree.

This isn’t so much a case of “Should Annabelle hydrangeas be pruned?”, as “Do you have the room to leave them unpruned?”

For contrast, here is an Annabelle that I did prune. Now to be fair it isn’t as old a plant and/or it has been pruned regularly, but you can see the difference even without anyone standing there for scale. This one is closer to three-and-a-half feet tall. It also isn’t nearly as wide, as part of my spring pruning includes removing canes around the edge of the plant. 

Annabelle’s send out underground runners that then send up shoots; hence the ‘colonizer’ epithet.  I keep this one in especially tight because it’s on a laneway and if I let it go it would obstruct a drivers view, especially when backing down the lane.  On the other hand it does a great job of hiding the utility box.

To be fair to Annabelle’s they can grow in just about any soil – clay or sand – as long as it’s not too dry, and the bloom is attractive while still green, when fully white, and even makes a lovely dried flower. (One year my sister cut some early for a dried arrangement and put them in a vase that had copper in it and the flowers dried to a gorgeous deep bronze colour.)

Missed Deadline – Clematis

Like the cobbler’s children who didn’t have any shoes, my own garden is often neglected while I work on other people’s plants. The vine in question was planted by a previous resident. It could probably do with more sun, but it seems happy here and I am reluctant to move it, having lost other clematis’ (clematii?) in sunnier spots that should have been more ideal.

The best time to prune clematis is around the same time you prune the roses: when the forsythia is blooming. (The one exception to this would be any clematis that blooms in the spring.)

Before

After

As soon as you can see where healthy buds are, that is the time to prune, because the new buds are notoriously easy to knock off, if you wait until they start to send out shoots; nevertheless, that is when I finally got around to pruning this one.

 

Before, close-up

After, close-up

A few years ago I put four eyelet screws in the fence and wove picture wire through in a sort of butterfly shape, so that the clematis would have something to grow up.  Since the vine is still fairly small, pruning primarily consists of taking out the dead growth and ensuring the new growth is reaching the wires.

I think my favourite thing about this vine is that in late June it likes to peak through the fence to try and get the afternoon sun, and ends up creating a lovely semi-Zen minimalist look.

“Lavender’s blue . . .”

“Lavender’s blue, dilly-dilly, lavender’s green . . .”  Cute ditty, but I strongly suspect whoever wrote it was slightly colour-blind.  Lavender is not blue.  It’s . . . well . . . it’s lavender.  But perhaps I am being too prosaic, or literal, or something.

Lavender needs regular cutting back, because if you don’t, the base becomes all woody and gnarled and you can’t get any new growth from it.  The poor thing is endlessly reaching for the bright sunshine of Provence and not succeeding.

I know some people like to cut lavender back hard at the end of summer, but I generally give a light hair cut after bloom, and end up having sporadic bloom for the rest of the summer.  By fall I’m reluctant to cut back hard and encourage new, tender growth.  Also, with the unpredictable temperatures in winter, I prefer to leave all that excess growth as protection for the growth I’m going to cut back to in the spring.

Before

After

Case in point.  Here we are before and after with a small lavender.

It look drastic, I know, but it works.  I find the fastest way is to hold all the stems up and cut across, like doing a bad bowl cut on someones hair.  Then I fine tune.

The best time to do this is as soon as you can see where the new growth is, and therefore how far back it is safe to cut.  Generally a few weeks after I do the roses in spring I can see enough green to make the cuts, although some years I end up doing them at around the same time.  It is very tempting to cut out long leggy growths, but unless you see some green low down – don’t do it. If you miss this deadline, you can cut out deadwood in late spring (or even later), but you will miss the chance to cut back long leggy growths, as they will have lots of green on the ends just getting ready to bloom.

Dead, deceased, etc.

Of course, this year Mother Nature made the whole exercise a moot point by doing in all my lavender!  The bits of green showing through, are not lavender, but a rather aggressive aster cultivar.

Quick Tidy

Being part of a community garden, this little yellow variegated euonymus doesn’t get regular attention, but this winter left it with a rather unsightly bare patch on one side, which I figured deserved cleaning up. That was easy, I just cut out anything dead or nearly dead.  Euonymus can be pruned just about any time, and I didn’t get around to this one until late May, but then we had a very late Spring this year, so I am filing this under early spring as well as late spring pruning.

Before

After

As with many low-growing euonymus, this one often sends up the odd shoot that grows so much higher than anything else that it looks a little out of place. With shoots like that I usually try to cut back to below where I want the branch to end; that way the new growth will then have somewhere to grow to before it too needs heading back. (OK that was an awkward sentence.)

The yellow Dwarf Iris were added some years after the euonymus and placed there to high-light the yellow in the leaves, just for a few weeks in spring.  Later in the year there are Black-eyed Susans, but I don’t think the yellow is quite as good a match.  There are, however, lots of other colours (mostly pink) to relieve all that yellow.

Minuet in Yellow

Magnolia – Maintaining Magnificence

Magnolias have a magnificent burst of bloom in spring, and then settle in for quiet elegance for the rest of the year.  That means that the best time to prune them is just after they have finished blooming.  As bloom time varies somewhat depending on where you live that could be anytime from mid- to late-spring.  This particular beauty is in Ottawa, so not surprisingly it was not quite finished blooming when I came up from Toronto for a visit, despite the fact that all the Magnolias in Toronto were well past their bloom time.  Toronto and Ottawa are a whole hardiness zone apart, which makes approximately two weeks difference in the start and end times for just about everything, which meant pruning a little early – but sometimes you just have to prune when you can.  As you can see, this Magnolia has a lovely overall shape, it’s just getting a little big for the space – particularly with regards to the garden shed.  Neither the shed nor the tree are going to get moved anytime soon, so it’s a matter of bringing the tree in a bit while still retaining its natural shape.                              There is a bit of a gap on the right (which you can sort of see ↑) that is the result of branch having been damaged sometime in the past, but that area will hopefully fill in again over time.

Here is the requisite close-up of the base.  For once you will not notice much of a difference between the before and after shots, except for the fact that I forgot to go for the vertical shot after.  There was very little that needed to be taken down to the base – so the structure is essentially the same.

The main difference only really shows in the overall shots.  With a tree (or shrub) like this where I am not dealing with a great deal of excess growth or damage, I tend to go for a two pronged strategy.  I take out any damaged or crossing branches, and thin branches to keep the naturally open structure of the Magnolia.  But I also balance off the thinning cuts with heading back cuts – cuts designed to encourage the plant to thicken out a bit.  This way, I make the tree a bit smaller, but once the new growth starts it should be just as lush as it was before, and not a shadow of its former self.  I also took the opportunity to discourage the tree from growing too close to the shed, but hopefully in a balanced way so it looks comfortable in the space, and not cramped on one side.  Unfortunately, most of the bloom that got taken off in the pruning went the way of all flesh.  Flowers that were already open just up and dropped their petals.  I did manage to save a few buds to take indoors as a small reminder of how beautiful this tree was when it was at its peak.

Climbing Hydrangea – Spring and Summer

So here we have a vine that is very small and demure when you first get it (and often for many years after), and then one day it decides to go for the eavestrough.   (WordPress doesn’t like my spelling of that word, but I checked the dictionary and I didn’t find any alternative – so it stays.)    It not only goes for the eavestrough it goes for the porch as well.  A close up of the attack on the eavestrough.  Both before and afterwards.  It looks fairly straight- forward, and to some extent it is, but once stems start doing exploratory growing into cracks it can take some winkling to get them out.  Here is the after photo of the porch, where you can see that I have somewhat liberated the porch railing.  You can also now see the robins nest in the corner (not necessarily a good thing for the robins, but I needed to get the vine away from the roof, and I didn’t want to take out the nest, so it did end up getting rather exposed).   The hydrangea as a whole I made a lot narrower, not just to reduce the weight on the house, but also to keep it from intruding on the garden and the driveway.  This is a thumbnail → of the before from the front.  And here is the after shot of the front.  And here is the after shot from behind.  The sun had moved by the time I finished (Tempus fugit), which of course makes it difficult to compare, but if you look above (“look up, look way up”) you’ll see that you can see more of the wall at the base, which makes a good reference.

Now all this was in August, after the plant had finished blooming (more or less).  August is rather late for pruning, but still early enough for any new growth to harden off before winter.  In fact, I had to give this another hair cut this spring.  You can see where it’s making for the eavestrough again.  Spring also makes the overall structure of the plant more apparent.  So here are the after photos.  This time I didn’t have to do so much to rescue the porch.  Mostly I worked to ensure that the plant stayed in tight to the house, and didn’t go for the roof.

Wild Rose/Cane Rose – Deadwood (not the series, or the town)

I know that in the entry on Tea Roses that I said to prune roses when the Forsythia is blooming – however – sometimes people miss that deadline.  And in the case of wild &/or cane roses it’s a little hard to meet as they leaf out very, very early and waiting for the forsythia means you miss the moment.  These roses don’t generally need a lot of pruning.  For the little one I have in the back (in a spot that’s way too shady for a rose), I mostly just remove the tiny bit of winter kill and anything the squirrels have damaged (at least I think it’s squirrels – could be something two legged, but I don’t like to accuse anyone).  This is not mine, but a beautiful, big one belonging to a gardening client.  It hadn’t been pruned for a while, and although it wasn’t on the priority list, when I looked at those canes shooting straight up the middle I figured it warranted a closer look and some pruning. 

Once I got started, of course, one thing just led to another.  In order to prune from the bottom up (see General Principles) I had to get there, which meant getting into the corner behind the shrub.  This is the before shot → of the base.  Turned out there was a lot of dead wood hidden under those beautiful arching canes.  (←) So my main work turned out to be removing dead wood.  This after shot → is a little closer in than the one above, but you can definitely see that the dead wood is gone.   Below is another close up of the base.  Much airier as you can see – always important with roses. The next job was to shorten those rogue canes and encourage them to branch out instead (and hopefully arch like the rest of the shrub ↓).  So here is the whole shrub after I finished.  The photo doesn’t really show it, but the whole bush was much lighter and airier after I was done.  No dead wood now to choke new growth or as an unattractive background to blossoms – when they come.

Three Little Maids – Rose of Sharon

I wasn’t sure whether to put this under Spring Pruning, or Late Spring Pruning, so I put it under both.  Rose of Sharon blooms very late in the year, it also leafs out very late in spring, and I kind of like to wait until I can see those hints of green before I start pruning.   Mostly, I’m removing dead tips, old seed pods, and shortening a little, but sometimes there is more to do.  These ‘three little maids’ are actually in good shape, but the garden bed is small, and they are very close together so a little pruning on a regular basis is a good idea to keep them in proportion with the bed and with one another.  So here are the individual before pictures.  I did think of naming them after the ‘three little maids’ in the title, but I realize gardeners are not necessarily Gilbert & Sullivan fans, so I’ve desisted.        The middle one of the three I photographed from the side, so you could get a better sense of what it looked like both before and after, as it’s slightly behind it’s sisters and a little obscured by them.  However, it did make a good subject for some before and after closeups to demonstrate another General Principle:  removing growth that is growing inwards and/or rubbing against other  branches.  Before →, After ↓.   Just wish I’d been the same distance away when I photographed.  However, I think it illustrates the point.  Rose of Sharon has a naturally open structure, and I like to encourage that.    So here are the three after shots.  This was the first year giving these three a trim so I was a bit more drastic than I usually am with Rose of Sharon.     I probably did the most work with the one ↑ that is on the far right of the group as it is leaning a lot due to competing with its sisters and in consequence having a bit of a contretemps with the sandcherry to its right.  It’s like trying to keep down the bullying in a schoolyard.  You have to keep everyone far enough apart that they don’t fight.  So here we are, the Three Little Maids from School (OK so I got my G&S reference in anyway).

Red Osier Dogwod – To Hard Prune or Not to Hard Prune?

Red osier dogwood, or tag alder, or if we are being proper Cornus stolonifera: most people grow this for it’s beautiful red bark, which really stands out against the winter snow.  In the wild it gets nibbled by deer and keeps a nice mid-sized profile with lots of bright red bark.  In gardens it tends to take off without the deer to prune it, and the older bark looses much of the intense red colour that was the reason for buying it in the first place.  That’s where pruning comes in.

Here’s one that hasn’t been pruned hard for a long time.  You can really see the loss of colour at the base.  It’s also leaning forward towards the light; in fact, the previous year I had removed some growth that was so low and long as to be almost horizontal and it was starting to root and form a thicket.  This is the afterwards.  I haven’t cut it back hard as the owner likes the privacy screening that it provides for the porch.  However, I am gradually taking out older stems and encouraging new growth so that the whole thing will be lower and bushier overall.           So, on the left is the same shrub a year later, just before pruning.  As you can see I like to prune these very early, just as they are about to leaf out.  The new buds come in so tightly to the stem that the only time you can cut without having to leave a large stub, is if you get in there before they have really leafed out.  Since pruning from the bottom up is one of the General Principles I like to take close ups of the base for before and after as well as an overall photo.   So here is the before close up on the right and below is the after closeup.  As you can see I got a lot more drastic this year with regards to removing older stems.

Below  is an overall look at the after pruning for this particular shrub.

It’s so low now that you can get a really good look at the climbing hydrangea that is next to/behind it – but I’m saving that one for another entry.

Now, of course, you are wondering about the title of this entry and wondering where the hard pruning comes in.  Right about now, in fact.  Like the shrub above, this one had gone virtually unpruned for many years, and was trying to form a thicket and push out its neighbours.  For some inexplicable reason I don’t have the original before photo for this, so you will just have to take my work for it that it was around 8 feet tall.  This is in fact the follow-up photo a few weeks after pruning, and as you can see it has started to leaf out.  When you cut a shrub back this hard you are usually cutting back to dormant buds that are not showing any particular signs of life other than the slight markings that show where they are.  Other than that you sort of have to take it on faith that they will break dormancy.    Here it is the next spring, and as you can see, despite the hard pruning it is back to reaching for the top of the fence, although this time it is not competing as much with it’s neighbours.  (Mind, I had to do something similar to the neighbours as they too were getting too big for the space they were in.)     The requisite close-up of the base.  (Before on the left, and after below on the right.) As you can see, one of the stems I shortened the year before, never really branched out – just sort of went into shock and died – so it will have to go.  As you can see, I was not quite as drastic as last year with this one.  Since I cut it back hard last year, it needs a chance to branch out; although there are some people who like to cut their osiers down hard each year, rather like willows, in order to get lots of little stems with intense colour.  In this case I’m going for something in between that and having it turn into an oversized mess.  So here we are all happily pruned for the year and raring to go.  These dogwoods do bloom in summer, which is another reason to prune them early in the year, but the blooms are not what most people notice, and if for whatever reason you find yourself needing to prune this later in the year, go for it.  (Which is why this entry is under Late Spring Pruning as well as Spring Pruning.) Just be aware that the earlier you prune it, the more time it has to produce intensely coloured stems to brighten your garden in the winter.

Butterfly Bush

I got called in to help out a gardener who had been gifted with many shrubs by gardening friends who felt her garden needed help, and who was now in danger of being over-run by shrubs that had been planted a little to close to each other for comfort.  What looks like good proportions in a garden when plants are young, is rarely that case five or more years down the line.  In fact, the more I garden, the more aware I am that the ‘mature’ size listed on the label of a plant in the garden center is some sort of mythical ‘mature’ size.  This is particularly true with shrubs and evergreens.  The ‘mature’ size listed seems to be reached within five to ten years of purchase, but the plant in question has not received that memo and just keeps on growing.  Just something to keep in mind when you are placing shrubs in the garden – they need space.

However, back to the butterfly bush of the title.  This was one shrub the client had been diligently pruning, but it was still out of hand, and in particular it was starting to grow over the stairs from the deck down to the garden, blocking both view and passage.  This is what is looked like when I first met it, and below is what it looked like shortly afterwards.

I left the branch on the right somewhat taller than the others, because that’s where there was the most obvious sign of healthy new growth coming.  I should have trusted the plant more, and the miniscule spots of green lower down.  A shrub that’s been around for years has lots of reserves and this one did not disappoint.  Although they don’t show in the photo, there were also the beginning of shoots at the base and in many other placed on the stems.  These tend to come in clusters and a little judicious thinning is often in order.  The nice thing is that in early spring this is easy to do by just using a thumb or finger to rub them out.   (So to speak)  I also rubbed out any stems that were aiming to grow towards the stairwell.  Although the bush had been cut back hard in the past, it was this secondary pruning – specifically targeting branches that would be a problem down the road – that was missing.

Well this spring the bush was at it again – trying to take over the world – and with our early warm spell, leafing out at a ridiculously early time.  This is late March, whereas the photos above were taken in very early May.  As you can see, it’s been going for the stairwell again, although not as much as in previous years.  Nevertheless, time for a severe pruning.  This time, I was not fooled into leaving the right hand branch longer than the rest.

This closer shot gives you an idea of how much growth there was that originated well below the cuts I made the year before.  That’s where I started thinning.  With shrubs, in particular, the rule to prune from the bottom up really applies.  Or at least it applies in the decision making process.  Once you’ve decided that an entire stem has to go, it’s best to work from the top down.  Taking down a huge branch in sections is much more manageable, and you greatly reduce the risk of the whole thing toppling over as you are cutting and ripping the bark past the cutting point.  As you can see, I took advantage of some of the new stems that were coming from the base to remove (as much as possible) the stem that was on the extreme left and was the one producing all the foliage that was blocking the stairway. The owner wanted to keep up her pruning skills, so I left markings on the younger stems as the best spots to cut. Because the bush had leafed out so early, I wanted to cheat a little in case there was a cold snap and we lost the top growth, and I place the marks rather higher than I would have normally.

As it turned out, there was a cold spell, and the early leaves all got singed, but they were promptly replaced by new growth.  I expect that once again I’m going to wonder if I shouldn’t have trusted the shrub a bit more and cut lower down.  However, I’m quite pleased with my effort to gradually replace the older thick stems with younger ones, especially ones that don’t lean out so much over the steps and the garden.    I will be seeing this shrub again shortly, and may just do a judicious snip or two, just to keep it in line.