Date: Fri 21-Mar-1997

Publication: Bee

Author: SUEZ

Illustration: C

Location: A13

Quick Words:

Gardener-pruning-spring-Bleach

Full Text:

(`Burban Gardener column on spring pruning, 3/21/97)

Suburban Gardener-

The Favorite - And Only! - Job For March

"Shine out, Shine out - fair sun with all your heat.

Show all your thousand-colored lights."

- Anon, 16th Century

By Anthony C. Bleach

March brings the first bird song at sunrise, the first fragrant smell of the

wet earth and the first weather to make you itch to get outside and start

digging.

I feel this, too. But it must be fought off until the ground has dried enough

to make a footprint without sticking. If the soil is worked too soon it

becomes compacted and so dense that air and water are pushed out and plant

growth becomes impossible.

The favorite job in March is pruning shrubs. There is nothing else you can do;

you can make a big splash in a short time.

There are two kinds of pruning: heading back and thinning out. In the first,

the tops of twigs are cut off; in the second, the entire cane is removed.

Heading back stimulates the development of more growing points than does

thinning out. It gives a bushier plant. Thinning out improves the health and

look of the plant, too. Cutting out old, diseased, cross-over canes from the

base will open the center for light and air and help new ones develop.

How does heading back stimulate more growing points? In the terminal, or top,

buds are hormones that prevent the development of the lateral, or side, buds.

When the terminals are cut off, the flow of growth-inhibiting hormone ceases,

and one or more lateral buds are produced further down the stem.

It is vital you hold back on pruning some shrubs. Spring flowering ones like

forsythia, azalea, lilac and viburnum have already formed their flower buds.

Pruning now will eliminate flowers for this year. Wait until after blooming.

June and other summer flowers like rose of Sharon and hydrangea can be pruned

safely.

Evergreens may not need much done, except to take out branches broken or

damaged by winter.

Firs, hemlock, pine and spruce can have the terminal buds of side branches

trimmed off. They look like creamy little candles. You snap off two-thirds of

their length with your fingers. This will keep them growing bushy.

Junipers, yews, arbovitaes can be pruned in two ways. Overgrown ones can be

sheared back severely to keep their formal shape. If you prefer the more

natural look just take off the ends of the largest terminal branches but reach

inside the bush so that the cut ends are hidden by the foliage. This will keep

it looking graceful and avoids a stubby, clipped look.

If you want to rejuvenate a lanky rhododendron, you can cut to ground level.

Shoots will grow out from the base and eventually, flowers will come again. A

more conservative way is to remove one-third of the oldest wood from ground

level, distributing the pruning over the plant as a whole. This will maintain

some color and mass.

Some shrubs have to be treated as individuals. For example, red-twig dogwood

is prettiest when branches are kept young by annual pruning, but winged

euonymus will look more interesting and ridge banked by holding off.

If you want to transform the mountain laurel on your property, prune out

shrubs which may be crowding them from sunshine. Also thin out lower branches

of trees.

The vernal witch hazel is the earliest flowering shrub, and its flowers are

like large honey-yellow bees, often encased in a diamond of ice. You can bring

branches inside and, in a vase of warm water, they will bloom in 7-10 days.

You can also do this with forsythia, pussy willow, weeping cherry, white

shadblow or any fruit tree. However, central heating can dry the buds out, so

plunge newly cut stems in a vase of hot water, plus a cap of a product called

RVB. And the desert will bloom like the rose.

(Anthony C. Bleach coordinates and teaches the horticulture degree program at

Naugatuck Valley Community-Technical College in Waterbury.)