Do It Now


I usually write about hydrangeas in the late summer, when they are gracing most every garden in my zone with their armloads of marvelously frothy flowers. Ha. Hopefully that written description sounds just as extravagant as they appear in full bloom. This shrub, and all of its many iterations and cultivars, energizes and endows our late season landscape with an unparalleled and succinct representation of summer. Who doesn’t swoon over hydrangeas in bloom? I do. Each properly placed and well grown shrub is covered in flowers for weeks at summer’s end. It is indeed the super nova stage of the summer landscape. A brass band playing loudly in perfectly brassy unison, if you will. Hydrangeas representing in all their glory define what it means to be robust. They are so willing, and eminently worth cultivating. They give so much more than they need or demand. They are not wall flowers, or delicate ephemerals, or  gracefully weedy perennials-nor are they on that tough to grow list. They are like a freight train pulling in to the station with steam billowing up from the tracks and a horn blaring. Are you ready? If the leaf buds have broken dormancy and are swollen all along the stems of the shrubs  – and if those swelling buds are greening up  – it is time to prune.

Let me get what not to do out of the way first. My opinion on the matter is all I have to offer. Do not prune in the fall. Pruning is a call to grow.  Encouraging a shrub that is facing the winter to get up and grow is just not a good idea. Your best move is to encourage the long sleep. Movement towards winter dormancy in woody plants starts in my zone in August.  Once the leaves turn color, mature, and drop, leave all of the rest of the shrub intact. The most important thing to do to hydrangeas in the fall is nothing. Do not cut the flower heads off.  They look lovely with snow on them, and they wave in the winter winds. That cinnamon brown color is beautiful with evergreens. If you must remove the flower heads, OK, but do not cut these shrubs down to the ground in the fall.  That will force them to sprout from below ground in the spring. Be merciful. Leave at least 3 or 4 buds above ground when you prune-in the spring. If you are growing big leaf hydrangeas-as in hydrangeas that bloom on the previous year’s wood/growth, do not prune in the fall or the spring. Prune them promptly and only after they finish blooming. If you don’t know which type of hydrangeas you are growing, find out before you prune.

Hydrangeas do not respond very well to a formal shearing. Few plants do. Shearing hydrangeas  encourages multiple breaks below the cut, which result in a dense thicket of stems and leaves at the top. The bottom half of the shrub gets shaded.  I am amazed at how many hydrangeas I see pruned like this, but it is not good for the health of the plant, or the flowers.  I give my hydrangeas a shag haircut, keeping the stems at the top shorter and the stems nearer the bottom longer. The idea is to provide a sunny and airy space for each branch to live free. You can see this arrangement in the location of the flower heads in the photo above. Each branch has its own address.

What might not be so obvious is that these last 2 pictures show two different types in hydrangeas.  On the far left and far right of a center block of Limelight hydrangeas, as in Hydrangea paniculata “Limelight”, are rows of Incrediballs – Hydrangea arborescens “Incrediball.   They add flowers at a lower level, and they bloom earlier than Limelight. Their upright plant habit and carriage is vastly superior to their predecessor, the storied “Annabelle”.  You can see the Incrediball flowers are fairly round, and the Limelights are broadly cone shaped.  A certain amount of legginess is inevitable with Limelight. That mess of twigs is what you get over the winter with them. The Incrediballs help cover up those bare legs. These cultivars have different parentage, but they are pruned the same way.  They bloom on new growth. On what will be the current years growth.

So if it’s not appropriate to prune hydrangeas by shearing, what is the purpose of setting stakes and string? My yard, where these photographs were taken, slopes dramatically from one end to the other. The blocks of hydrangeas are a good distance apart. I would want those blocks to loosely resemble one another. The only way to tell if they approximately occupy the same spot in the landscape composition on both the north and south is to set up a level line. It’s easy to do with a bamboo stake or metal fence post, and a ball of spring. A tiny level can be clipped on to the string.

Pruning by eye can be incredibly inaccurate. I see a lot of that too. Pruning that matches uneven terrain, or follows a sloping driveway. Or pruning just to prune, with no thought to the horizon. I see that too. Sometimes it is hard to believe a level attached to a string line is accurate, but it is. I would never trust my eye to see a level line for pruning. It is terrible to wade through a big pruning project only to discover your vision for them is lopsided. And what is required to set it to right is not possible until the mistake grows out. I shudder to think of that. Happily most plants are very tolerant of off the cuff pruning. The recovery just takes time.

My level line set up is an approximation of the horizon. In the ballpark, as it were, or within shouting distance. It is not exact. It does not represent or enforce a rule. Nor does it rule the pruning process. It provides orientation. As in up and down, and left and right. It provides a framework from which to work. Taking the time to set up 2 poles and a level line is a way to walk away from the the noise of the day, and study on this first foray into the new garden season. It is a way to get ready for the job at hand. But in spite of all this, should you decide to prune your hydrangeas from the hip, Mother Nature will treat you just the same as any other gardener. Indifferently. But indeed you will notice the difference.

The pruning of my hydrangeas is underway.

A Pruning Strategy

The best time to prune deciduous shrubs is whenever you have the time available to prune. But no doubt some pruning dates are better than others. Late March is the perfect time time in my zone, provided the ground is dry enough be walked on. The bare branches make it easy to spot what is dead or weak. Or which cuts would result in a better looking or more graceful shape. In general, the shag haircut theory of pruning promotes good shrub health. Big at the bottom, and narrower at the top. Pruning such that no two branches are the same height or forced to  occupy the same space helps to insure that every bud ready to leaf out will have its own light and air space. A place to grow without interference is an ideal place for a branch to be. I like to leave the branches near the ground long, and the branches on the top shorter. Visualizing what has to be cut back on the top so the lower branches get the light they need will result in a shrub that is green and growing from top to bottom. If you think the Limelight hydrangeas above do not look like I took my own advice, you are right.

There is a story behind these leggy Limelights.  Planted as a 5 plant by 5 plant block of 25 some 12 years ago, they had overgrown their space. The lesson here? A shrub that will grow 6 feet tall by 6 feet wide probably will top out at 8′ by 8′ left to its own devices. Keeping a plant smaller than its genetically determined size is, over time, a losing battle. My 25 plants had become a single organism. Removing any of them from the mix would expose a not so lovely look at a dark and bare interior. It was time to take out the outer front and side rows. Once I reduced the size of the block to a four plant by 4 plant block, I could see what I had left over was a mass of hydrangeas on 3′ tall bare stalks. As in, a block of multi-trunked hydrangeas on standard.

Of course these hydrangeas had gotten leggy in the interior. I am sure no light reached the ground during the summer. The outside rows has been pruned to facilitate growth from top to bottom. The interior shrubs has been pruned to encourage growth on the tops. All very predictable, this. Last spring I planted Little Lime hydrangeas in from of those Limelight legs, thinking this shorter version would create a coverup.

That strategy left more that a little to be desired. Little Lime is by no means a smaller growing version of Limelight. The flowers are a different shape and color. I was not crazy about the two plants side by side. Hydrangea Bobo might have been a better choice. That said, I knew my only real option with the limelights was to take a renovation strategy. Hard pruning old hydrangeas hard is only shocking if you do not take into account how fast and much they grow between April and the late July bloom time. A single branch may grow 3 or 4 feet in one season.

This is a radical and grim look, but I suspect they will be full of flowers by the beginning of August. How so? The renovation plan calls for a second pruning in June. I am not interested in long single branches with few and hugely ungainly flowers. Cutting back a long branch midway to the bloom time will result in side branching at the cut. This may result in a delayed flowering, but there will be flowers nonetheless. Next year they will regain their fulsome look.

Hydrangeas respond much more quickly to renovation pruning than other less vigorous shrubs. It won’t be long before they start growing out of this.

Knowing the best time to prune doesn’t necessarily result in action. I should have pruned these hydrangeas harder last spring, when the extra rows of plants came out. If you are like me, what I need to do in the garden routinely gets away from me. How indulgent hydrangeas are of less than stellar care is just one of the reasons to like them. Pruning times depend on whether they bloom on new or old wood. Since the Limelights bloom on new, or the current season’s growth, no matter how much or how little you prune, you are not removing flower buds. Just buds which will become leaves. So prune away.

 Pruning is a paradox. We sometimes prune back shrubs to limit their size, not realizing that a pruning cut, from a shrub’s point of view, is a call to grow. To branch out. A single pruning cut on a large sized branch results in lots of buds breaking in every direction below that cut. This late winter photograph of a hedge in my neighborhood tells the story. A hedge of substantial size was cut back for a number of years-at the height this gardener could reach. The result was lots of branching at the top, which eventually shaded out the branches at the bottom. Once the hedge became too tall to prune without a good sized ladder, the pruning stopped. The result is a rather interesting mix of bare sticks at the bottom,  dense branching at the mid level, and long unbranched growth at the top. Add to that mix, some weed trees that got a foothold in the hedge, and have grown to a large size. In this location, a very tall vase shaped hedge is probably a good idea. The traffic on both sides can come in and out the driveways under the umbrella shaped part of the hedge. I will be interested to see the summer look.To prune or not to prune-now is a good time to decide.

Pruning With A Purpose

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Pruning woody shrubs, when done properly, is good for the plants.  Cutting out dead or diseased branches helps to preserve the overall health of the plant. Branches that cross over one another may damage the bark of both branches.  Damage to the bark of a woody shrub is an invitation to insects and disease.  Thinning out a woody shrub can help to maintain it at a desired size for many years.  That thinning allows light and air to penetrate the interior spaces, keeping the interior of the shrub well foliated.  In the hydrangea hedge above, the upper branches were kept long, a practice which eventually shaded the lower branches.  The lower branches have leaves that are smaller, and fewer flowers. Once we started pruning these hydrangeas, we shortened the top branches considerably and unequally, and pruned the lower branches with the idea of encouraging lateral growth.  Ideally, a hydrangea should be wider at the bottom than the top.

limelights 2013 (7)As an experiment, I did not prune my limelights at home at all last spring, but for removing the spent flower heads. My reason?  I have a yew hedge in front of them.  I wanted my hydangeas to grow tall, and have lots of blooms in the top third of the plant. On the inside of this hedge is a boxwood hedge, planted fairly close to the hydrangeas.  For the health of the boxwood, I did not want a lot of foliage shading them.  For hydrangeas blooming from top to bottom, the boxwood would have needed to be planted much further away.  I did not have the luxury of that kind of space. This is what I mean by pruning with a purpose.  Good pruning encourages the plant to grow in a way and direction that works with the natural habit of the plant-and the intended design.
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This limelight hedge was planted with the specific intent of providing dense screening from top to bottom.  The branches at the bottom are slightly longer and wider than the branches at the top.  Hydrangeas, like most other deciduous shrub, cannot be pruned with a hedge trimmer.  Cutting every branch at exactly the same height produces a proliferation of growth all at the same level.  A single cut may produce 3 or 4 breaks, or new buds.  This denies light and air to the branches below.  Deciduous shrubs pruned for years in this in this manner have a thin green outer layer, and a dead twiggy interior.

pruned-limelight-hydrangeas.jpgThink shag hair cut.  Shorter on the top, longer on the sides, with each cut an alternate length and direction. Each branch has to be pruned individually, one at a time-each at its own level.  Every branch needs a home of its own, uncrowded by the leaves of a neighboring branch.  Clusters of leaves that pester one another and compete for light eventually leads to overall decline.  Lots of deciduous shrubs grow large.  A big shrub planted in a tight space that always needs downsizing will never look or be happy and healthy.  If you don’t have room for a limelight hydrangea, which will mature at 6-8 feet tall, plant Little Limes.  They can comfortably be kept at 4 t0 5 feet tall and wide.

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There are a few plants that are tolerant of shearing. Boxwood and yews are tolerant. Lindens have been pleached and formally grown into overhead hedges for centuries.  A hydrangea is not a member of this group.  They have a loose and shaggy natural shape.  Pruning them needs to work with this natural  habit.  Landscapes where every deciduous shrub is pruned into ball, mushroom or cube shapes is a look that is heavy handed, and not good for the plants. Proper pruning takes a lot of time, but that time is well spent.

pruned-limelights.jpgThe effect of just one year not pruning my limelight hydrangeas is obvious.  The shrubs have developed long bare legs  Pruned down to 36″ tall will encourage lateral buds to break, and some branching at the bottom.  From a distance, the boxwood disguises this legginess. In fact, I prune my hydrangeas differently every year.  I like trying out different approaches and observing the results.  Shrubs are quite tolerant of gardeners.

hydrangea-branching.jpgIf you do have a shrub that is had become overgrown, or is suffering from long standing poor pruning, it is possible to renovate.  An overgrown lilac might benefit from having a couple of old thick branches cut to the ground.  This will encourage growth from the base.  A privet that has been cut into a ball shape for too many years might be a good candidate for the swiss cheese treatment.  Cut holes in the exterior thicket of branches so light can penetrate.  The light is coming from overhead, so treating the top surface of the shrub is the most effective way.

hydrangea-budding.jpgI would say my hydrangeas have been cut hard this year.  I see I have buds breaking here well below the cut.  The trick is to cut close enough to a bud so no time and energy is wasted on a stub that will eventually die back.  Cut too close to a bud, and you may damage it.  For this reason, I may prune my hydrangeas again in a month of so.  To encourage more branching.  Very hard pruning can result in just a few stems, with overly large flowers that droop over.  A sturdily branched hydrangea properly pruned will be a joy come bloom time.

 

 

Spring Pruning

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The day you put a plant in the ground is the first day of a relationship.  If you plant cosmos, that relationship constitutes one season.  If you plant a tree, that relationship might survive for generations.  If you plant shrubs, you could have a good many years of pleasure ahead of you-provided you prune.  Woody shrubs, left to their own devices, go to rack and ruin.   They spend no end of effort piling on enough wood to send the tips of their branches to the sky.  What is the big attraction of the sky?  No competition for light, air, and rain. No shrub feels any inclination to bloom where you want to see blooms-at eye level, that is.  Plants grow with survival in mind.  Should you have another idea in mind, wade in.  Participate.

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Shrubs will grow sideways, around an obstacle.  They will sprout back, if cut to the ground.  They will survive the indignity of a homeowner with a hedge trimmer gone amok.  They will survive, even though the overall shape may be ungainly, or sheared to within an inch of its life.  The instinct to live is strong.  Lucky for me, and every other gardener who has learned on the job.  Pruning a hydrangea is not hard-it just requires the patience to consider every branch, before you cut.  I prune each branch, one at a time.

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A well pruned hydrangea looks like it has had a shag haircut. Every branch has its our airspace. This means some branches get last year’s flowers cut off-only. Other branches get 8″ removed. Others get 16″ removed. Some old and thick branches in the middle get cut even harder, so air and light can reach down in to as many branches as possible.  Some gardeners prune their Limelight hydrangeas to within 14″ to 24″ of the ground, forcing them to produce basal shoots which originate underground. This method tends to produce a shorter shrub, with fewer and larger flowers.  I dislike cutting this hard-it takes so long for the shrub to regain a natural and airy shape.  I would rather have lots of flowers, than a few gigantic flowers.  I would rather plant the shorter growing version of Limelight- “Little Lime” – than prune a Limelight too hard.

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I like my Limelight hydrangeas tall, and I like lots of flowers. My yews are 48″ tall at this end of the garden, and the arborvitae are 14′ tall.  The hydrangeas grown 6′ to 8′ tall-perfect for this spot. For good flowering from top to bottom, the lower branches need to be left long, and the top branches need to be shorter. The finished shape should be very loosely pyramidal, or like an egg on its side.  Step back frequently, to see how things are shaping up.  This hydrangea blooms on new wood, so no matter how you prune, you will get flowers.  Shearing a branch will encourage that branch to produce multiple shoots below the cut.  Thicken up, and out.  As long as the exterior shape is loosely described, the shrub will prosper.  Shearing deciduous flowering shrubs may take less time, but produces less than desirable results.  Renovating shrubs that have been sheared takes a long time.  One cut at a time-this is my advice.  Invest in a great pair of pruners-this makes the work easier.  The moment that all I can hear is the birds, and the action of the pruner blades bypassing each other, is a spring gardening moment I treasure.

pruning-roses.jpgI do grow a few shrub roses.  Sally Holmes, Carefree Beauty and Earthsong.  I have read lots of articles about pruning roses, none of which I have paid much mind to.  I stop dead heading my roses in mid-August.  I actually love the rose hips in the fall and winter.  In the spring, when the buds swell, I prune. The swelling of the buds?  You will recognize swelling buds when you see them.  My roses bloom on the new shoots.  I never cut a branch back by more than 1/3rd.  I prune the entire collection of roses as if they were a single plant.  I leave them loose. Last fall I secured the summer’s growth of the climbing roses to the wall-not much needs to be done to them now.

rose-hips.jpgOccasionally I will hard prune an old climbing rose cane low to the ground.  This keeps new growth coming from the bottom. Pruning stimulates growth.  Pruning a climbing rose cane 6 feet off the ground will result in a rash of shoots.  A long stalk with a tuft of shoots on the top-not the best look. Any cane which you can train to grow horizontally will flower more heavily.  If you think about the where the sun and rain comes from, this makes sense.  Is the afore mentioned a guide to pruning roses-not really.  Every gardener has to deal with their roses one to one.  Look at them, and decide how to prune. I prune my roses so they have the best possible overall shape.  Most roses are very ungainly growers, so pruning for a good shape is not always so easy.  That’s why I grow asparagus with my roses.  The  ferny fronds conceal those awkward and ungainly branches.  Do I prune my asparagus over the summer-oh yes.  I keep them at a height which conceals those legs.  Does this affect my asparagus crop?  Maybe.  But everything in the garden is about choices.  I want great roses more than I want home grown asparagus.

beech-ferns.jpgI do not cut back my beech ferns in the fall.  The dead fronds mulch and protect the European ginger over the winter.  By April 1st, those fronds have cut loose from the crown.  I do not need to prune.  I rake them off.  A rubber rake does a great job.  My fingers do the best job.

european-ginger.jpgThe European ginger has already been busy, sending out new shoots.  A steel rake, or a size 8 boot can damage these tender new shoots.  One of the pleasures of the spring-the new growth.  Friable soil.  My housekeeping inside-rather rude and abrupt.  I just want to get the job done.  When I am cleaning the garden in the spring, I take my time.  I do it-gently.  I have a relationship with this garden that I intend to nurture.

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Lifting a lower branch of a spruce, I see icy snow. The transition from winter to spring has been incredibly slow this year. Really shady spots in my garden are still frozen. The night temperatures are still below freezing.  Frozen ground, frozen branches-my advice is to let them be.

April 2 2013 (40)The hellebores are awake.  Last years foliage has collapsed in a heap on the ground.  Every day I think about cutting that old foliage away.  Clean and bare is not always the best situation.  The newly emerging flowers benefit from all that fluff. The transition from winter to spring can be a rocky journey.   Sometimes, the best thing to do is to do nothing.

hellebore-flowers.jpgLast year’s foliage protects those flowering stalks, ready to emerge.  A warm spell in March proved to be damaging.  The buds sensed it was time to grow.  Nature had a different idea in mind.  We have had a run of really cold weather, the past 3 weeks.  Some of the exposed buds on this plant are black with the rot produced by freezing temperatures.

uncovered-hellebore.jpgCutting away last years foliage  exposes new flower buds.  Very tender flower buds.  Just to look at them, you would know they are not armed against the cold.  I cut the dead leaves away, and put them back over the top of these buds.  It is too soon to clean here.  What constitutes better days?  Warmer nights.  The ground is still very cold.  It will be 2 months before the soil really warms up in my zone. Hellebores do not require warm soil, but the flowers will be damaged by night air temperatures in the mid to low 20’s.  They need all that litter on the ground over them.  It’s not time yet to wash and put away the blanket.

hellebore-seedlings.jpgI am shocked and pleased to see that I have hellebore seedlings sprouting.  I spent a few moments taking this in, before I covered them up.  I am not sure how long it will be, before I expose them to the light of the new season.  The pruning and the cleaning-all in good time.  A slow spring-this is what we have now.