Pruning is the only gardening chore you can do in mud season, because your plants (and the weeds!) are still frozen in the ground. It's a great excuse to get outside and do something--actual gardening! The weather is very unsettled during mud season, so it's best to be strategic about what gets pruned when.
pruning
Why Won’t My Forsythia Bloom?
May 25, 2014 – Posted in: ForsythiaThe forsythias bloomed later than usual this year, sometimes overlapping with the earliest lilacs--but they did bloom. If yours didn't bloom, here are some things to consider: The flowers for forsythia are set the year before they bloom. That means if you prune your shrub too late in the season, you will cut off the [...]
Pruning with a Reciprocating Saw
May 12, 2009 – Posted in: Garden chores, Tools and EquipmentCarol's done it. Mary Ann, the Idaho Gardener's done it. So has Mr. McGregor's Daughter and Cindy from My Corner of Katy and M Sinclair Stevens from Zanthan Gardens. They've all used a reciprocating saw to prune woody plants. Not only have they pruned with a recip saw, they raved about how easy it made [...]
Mud Season Chores: Pruning
March 22, 2009 – Posted in: Garden chores, Mud SeasonMud season, despite its fickle weather, not only has color, but its own set of gardening chores. For those of us living in cold climates, these chores anticipate the growth that will soon come as so many plants emerge from dormancy. Growth is so slow at the beginning of mud season that it is easy [...]
Forsythia Pruning: Before and After
July 10, 2007 – Posted in: ForsythiaForsythia before pruning beganBack in April, I discussed my upcoming plans to prune my forsythia bush. It wasn't flowering very much, and my commenters agreed with me that it needed a heavy pruning. Some even suggested cutting the whole thing down to the ground. But I felt a little too nervous to do that. On [...]
Pruning strategy for forsythia
April 27, 2007 – Posted in: Forsythia, How-to, Plant infoRemember the forsythia I pruned so that I could force some branches? It doesn't look so floriferous out in the open, does it? (For comparison, check out the forsythias here.) When I'm faced with a plant that's not doing as well as expected, I try to analyze the situation before taking action. In the case [...]
Pruning forsythia in mud season
April 10, 2007 – Posted in: Forsythia, Mud Season, Plant infoThe standard advice for pruning spring-blooming shrubs is to prune them no later than two weeks after they're done blooming. This is because most spring-flowering shrubs, at least, all those commonly grown, develop their flower buds on the previous year's wood. So if you prune them in high summer, or autumn, you are cutting off [...]
Early Pruning
March 18, 2007 – Posted in: Garden choresPruning the apple trees is a rite of spring. In past years I had a tendency to get started late and finish in a somewhat hurried splurge of activity—tinged with a bit of panic that perhaps I wouldn't get it done in time. This year I had to take a different approach. Since I'm no [...]
Signs of Spring
April 11, 2006 – Posted in: Garden chores, What's up/bloomingThe Gardener in her Garden Here I am this past Sunday transplanting Lemon Lilies (Hemerocallis flava) from the back of the Birthday Garden to the front of it. They are a very old-fashioned daylily, but not as vigorous as the Tawny Daylily (H. fulva). Although they bloom early for a daylily, they are shorter than [...]
Gardening in February
February 21, 2006 – Posted in: Garden chores, WeatherForget the weeding. That was an anomaly. Back, sort of, to the real February. I say "sort of" because yesterday and today the temperature is hovering a bit above freezing, which is on the warm side for February around here. (Average high for the month is 30F, and my outdoor thermometer registers 35F right now.) [...]
Recent Comments