Wednesday, March 5, 2008

The Urge to Prune

It's like spring cleaning--only outside. That's what pruning is. A few days ago it was actually 67 degrees. I sat on the deck for awhile and soaked up a little sun, and then I went out in front and started to prune our white althea tree. It's a gorgeous tree when it blooms and it really isn't very big, but I made a mistake when I planted it in front of our picture window. Yes, we have a nice view of the tree, but last year we couldn't see out the front window.

For instance, I like to be able to look out the window and see if the flag is down on the mailbox. Last year the tree made that impossible, so I decided to rectify that situation this year. The nice thing about altheas is that they don't bloom until July, so it's OK to prune them now. This is not the time to prune dogwoods, magnolias, lilacs or anything else that blooms in the early spring because the flowers would be cut off. Althea hasn't formed flowers yet, so hack away. This is also a good time to prune burning bushes.

Easy Clean Up

I rather detest cleaning up after a pruning job, so for me it works great to cut one branch at a time and put it into a brown paper sack. The branches I whacked were about 30 inches long, so I hope I didn't take too much off. I didn't get finished because we have rose bushes on either side of the tree and it got to the point where the thorns were grabbing me if I got too close. That kinda takes the fun out of it. It's a bit of a quandary because this is NOT the time to prune roses. Mark Webber usually ways to wait until April 15 in our area, but I usually watch the roses to see when they start to grow. That's when I cut them down to about 4 inches from the ground.

I think I will go out and cut back part of the rose bushes when the weather warms up again, just so I can get to the part of the althea that I can't reach. The poor tree looks really weird right now. It looks kind of like it has a Mohawk haircut on one side instead of in the middle. Very unbalanced--poor thing. I took a picture, but I don't know how to get a picture off the camera and onto the computer yet.

A Fun Experiment

Over the years I've experimented with that althea tree to see if I could get it to bloom more. Putting on fertilizer just makes it bloom sooner, but doesn't affect the number of flowers. Can you guess what makes it bloom more? I've actually figured out a way to make it have 3 times as many blossoms as it would ordinarily have. The last couple of years it has been COVERED with double, white blossoms. One year it was so covered that it became top heavy and actually fell over because we had a lot of rain which softened the soil. That sure scared me. I thought it was a goner, but with Jim carefully tying it up it has fared well.

What makes it bloom more? One word--pruning. I usually start pruning it in January or February. Then after new branches start to grow I just go out and snip off their ends. (The snippings are so small that I just let them fall to the ground.) This causes each branch to send out several new branches. Then after the second set of new branches starts to grow I snip off the ends again. By doing this we end up with lots more branches and therefore lots more flowers. Sound like work? Well, for me it's really not. It's more like a work of art that I really enjoy. We also have 8 dark pink althea bushes along our fence which Jim prunes now and then (every couple of years) with a regular hedge clippers, and that works fine also.

While I'm working I have a lawn chair near by so I can clip a couple of branches and then sit down and rest. It takes awhile, but it still works. So far I've ended up with 4 bags of clippings, and it's been great Fun.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

It always feels good to get out in the yard and work. Someday, I too will have a yard. Glad you are making good progress.