Look out the window. Does the outdoor landscape make you want to go outside and tackle some garden work? As February ends, the weather can be anything from a blizzard to a sixty degree humidity-fest. It is hard to know what to do. However, if you are like me and have advanced cabin fever, there is always something you can do in the garden, if only for a few minutes.
This is a good time to think about your shrubs. You remember your shrubs—those bedraggled looking things that you didn’t get a chance to prune last fall, or possibly any time last year. Their branches have been blowing around in the freezing breezes; buffeted by rain, snow, sleet and wintery mix and left to fend for themselves through the cold sinter days. Now is the time to give them some TLC.
In my own yard I have lilacs that are sorely in need of pruning, an oakleaf hydrangea—Hydrangea quercifolia—that has outgrown its allotted space, a shaggy yew, unpruned butterfly bushes, “Annabelle” hydrangeas—Hydrangea macrophylla—that have been a bit too fruitful and multiplied outrageously, not to mention assorted other wayward species.
I will get started with the lilacs, because they bloom first. I am loath to do the radical restoration pruning that would probably benefit them the most, because I would lose all of this season’s blooms. Instead I will do the next best thing, pruning out one third of the thickest, oldest stems by cutting them right down to the ground. This will allow the plants to put their energies into producing a good crop of blooms this spring. If I follow the same procedure for the next two years, the lilacs will be completely rejuvenated after three years. Pruning lilacs is easy and can be done in twenty minute increments. That is perfect for a not-so-pleasant day.
The yew, which I cloud-pruned several years ago to reduce its bulk, looks like an adolescent in need of a good haircut. It will get one—with the electric hedge clippers—the next time we have a day with no precipitation. The yew takes special perseverance, since it is just wide and tall enough that I have to stand on the very top of the stepladder to prune its middle branches.
Annabelle hydrangeas are beautiful, with blue-flowered branches billowing luxuriously through the late spring and early summer. Those branches have a propensity to root wherever they touch down, and a couple of branches of my biggest hydrangea have don so. The offspring have established themselves and my single bush is now beginning to look like a thicket. Liberating the baby hydrangeas and getting them to new homes is not really a pruning job, as it requires digging and transplanting. When the ground thaws I will take care of that. Between then and now, I will find adoptive homes for my little Annabelles, because I have run out of space for additional hydrangeas.
The oakleaf hydrangea is so overgrown that it could audition for The Biggest Loser. Oakleaf types form thickets in the wild when root suckers sprout leaves and begin branching out. The shrubs also grow quite tall if left to their own devices. Again, I don’t want to lose all of this spring’s blooms, so I’ll start by thinning out the stems. Some stems on the outer edges of the plants will also go to the compost pile as I reduce the hydrangea’s overall girth. When I am down on my knees doing girth reduction, I will eliminate pesky root suckers.
The hydrangea has grown so much that it has completely obscured the plaque with the house number on it. After the taming the plant, I will also rehang the plaque. That way both the hydrangea and the pizza delivery man will be on the right path.
Though I did my best at time management last fall, I didn’t cut back the many roses of Sharon or the butterfly bushes. As I write this, the roses of Sharon continue to fling their seeds all over the garden in an attempt to create a rose of Sharon forest. If I don’t cut the butterfly bushes back to eighteen inches tall, they will be leggy and sulky this summer, producing fewer flowers. The prospect of sulking butterfly bushes and profligate roses of Sharon is too much for me. My fingers are already itching to get themselves around the clippers and go to work.
But before I get to those wild and crazy roses of Sharon, I will stop by the three winter blooming jasmines—Jasminum nudiflorum—that I standardized last year. Their long branches are starting to sweep the ground, which means that they will root very soon. I’ll nip that in the bud, literally and figuratively, and bring the cut branches into the house. They are just about ready to produce lovely little yellow flowers. Catching up on the neglected fall chores is much easier if you reap the promise of spring at the same time.