Look out the window.\u00a0 Does the outdoor landscape make you want to go outside and tackle some garden work?\u00a0 As February ends, the weather can be anything from a blizzard to a sixty degree humidity-fest.\u00a0 It is hard to know what to do.\u00a0 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.<\/p>\n
This is a good time to think about your shrubs.\u00a0 You remember your shrubs\u2014those bedraggled looking things that you didn\u2019t get a chance to prune last fall, or possibly any time last year.\u00a0 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.<\/p>\n
In my own yard I have lilacs that are sorely in need of pruning, an oakleaf hydrangea\u2014Hydrangea quercifolia\u2014that has outgrown its allotted space, a shaggy yew, unpruned butterfly bushes, \u201cAnnabelle\u201d hydrangeas\u2014Hydrangea macrophylla\u2014that have been a bit too fruitful and multiplied outrageously, not to mention assorted other wayward species.<\/p>\n
I will get started with the lilacs, because they bloom first. \u00a0I am loath to do the radical restoration pruning that would probably benefit them the most, because I would lose all of this season\u2019s blooms.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 This will allow the plants to put their energies into producing a good crop of blooms this spring.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 That is perfect for a not-so-pleasant day.<\/p>\n
The yew, which I cloud-pruned several years ago to reduce its bulk, looks like an adolescent in need of a good haircut.\u00a0 It will get one\u2014with the electric hedge clippers\u2014the next time we have a day with no precipitation.\u00a0 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.<\/p>\n
Annabelle hydrangeas are beautiful, with blue-flowered branches billowing luxuriously through the late spring and early summer.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 Liberating the baby hydrangeas and getting them to new homes is not really a pruning job, as it requires digging and transplanting.\u00a0 When the ground thaws I will take care of that.\u00a0 Between then and now, I will find adoptive homes for my little Annabelles, because I have run out of space for additional hydrangeas.<\/p>\n
The oakleaf hydrangea is so overgrown that it could audition for The Biggest Loser.<\/em>\u00a0 Oakleaf types form thickets in the wild when root suckers sprout leaves and begin branching out.\u00a0 The shrubs also grow quite tall if left to their own devices.\u00a0 Again, I don\u2019t want to lose all of this spring\u2019s blooms, so I\u2019ll start by thinning out the stems.\u00a0 Some stems on the outer edges of the plants will also go to the compost pile as I reduce the hydrangea\u2019s overall girth.\u00a0 When I am down on my knees doing girth reduction, I will eliminate pesky root suckers.<\/p>\n 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.<\/p>\n Though I did my best at time management last fall, I didn\u2019t cut back the many roses of Sharon or the butterfly bushes.\u00a0 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\u2019t cut the butterfly bushes back to eighteen inches tall, they will be leggy and sulky this summer, producing fewer flowers.\u00a0 The prospect of sulking butterfly bushes and profligate roses of Sharon is too much for me.\u00a0 My fingers are already itching to get themselves around the clippers and go to work.<\/p>\n But before I get to those wild and crazy roses of Sharon, I will stop by the three winter blooming jasmines\u2014Jasminum nudiflorum\u2014that I standardized last year.\u00a0 Their long branches are starting to sweep the ground, which means that they will root very soon.\u00a0 I\u2019ll nip that in the bud, literally and figuratively, and bring the cut branches into the house.\u00a0 They are just about ready to produce lovely little yellow flowers.\u00a0 Catching up on the neglected fall chores is much easier if you reap the promise of spring at the same time.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Look out the window.\u00a0 Does the outdoor landscape make you want to go outside and tackle some garden work?\u00a0 As February ends, the weather can be anything from a blizzard to a sixty degree humidity-fest.\u00a0 It is hard to know what to do.\u00a0 However, if you are like me and have advanced cabin fever, there … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,2,5],"tags":[491,529,530,457,527,531,528],"class_list":["post-756","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general-interest","category-spring","category-winter","tag-flowering-shrubs","tag-hydrangea","tag-jasminum-nudiflorum","tag-rose-of-sharon","tag-shrubs","tag-winter-blooming-jasmine","tag-yew"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/756","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=756"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/756\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":757,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/756\/revisions\/757"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=756"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=756"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=756"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}