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There are two kinds of winter gardening. The first method usually starts in
January as the gardening catalogs begin to arrive in the mail. This type of
gardening is as easy as sitting in your favorite chair, browsing the catalogs, and
either dreaming about what you're going to do this spring, or actually drawing
designs for the gardens you intend to work on.
The second type of winter gardening is to actually get out in the yard and do a
little work. Of course if it's bitter cold, you'd be better off waiting for a good
day. Winter is a good time to do some pruning if the temperatures are around
30 degrees or so. I don't recommend pruning if it's considerably below freezing
because the wood is brittle and will shatter when you make a cut.
One of the advantages of pruning during the winter is that you can see much
better what needs to be cut out and what should stay. At least that's true with
deciduous plants. The other advantage is that the plants are dormant, and won't
mind you doing a little work on them.
Ornamental trees should be pruned to remove competing branches. Weeping
Cherries, Flowering Dogwoods, Flowering Crabapples etc. have a tendency to
send branches in many different directions. It is your job to decide how you
want the plant to look, and then start pruning to achieve that look.
But first stick your head inside the tree and see what you can eliminate
from there. This is like looking under the hood, and when you do you'll see a lot of
small branches that have been starved of sunlight, that certainly don't add
anything to the plant, they are just there, and should be cut out.
Any branch that is growing toward the center of the tree where it will get little
sunlight should be cut out. Where there are two branches that are crossing, one
of them should be eliminated. Once you get the inside of the plant cleaned up,
you can start shaping the outside.
Shaping the outside is actually quite easy. Just picture how you want the plant
to look, and picture imaginary lines of the finished outline of the plant. Cut off
anything that is outside of these imaginary lines. It is also important to cut the
tips of branches that have not yet reached these imaginary lines in order to
force the plant to fill out.
For the most part plants have two kinds of growth. Terminal branches and
lateral branches. Each branch has one terminal bud at the very end, and many
lateral branches along the sides. The terminal buds grow in an outward
direction away from the plant. Left uncut they just keep growing in the same
direction, and the plant grows tall and very thin. That's why the trees in the
woods are so thin and not very attractive.
When you cut a branch on a plant, the plant sets new buds just below where
you cut. When you remove the terminal bud, the plant will set multiple buds.
This is how you make a plant nice and full. Don't be afraid to trim your plants,
they will be much nicer because of it. The more you trim them, the fuller they
become.
Lots of people have a real problem with this. They just can't bring themselves
to prune. Especially when it comes to plants like Japanese Red Maples. It kills
them to even think about pruning a plant like this. Just do it! You'll have a
beautiful plant because of it.
Look at the plant objectively. If you see a branch that looks like it's growing
too far in the wrong direction, cut it. If you make a mistake it will grow back.
Not pruning is the only mistake you can make. I hope this helps and doesn't get
you in trouble with your significant other. Many a family feud has started over
pruning.
Michael J. McGroarty is the author of this article. Visit his most interesting
website, http://www.freeplants.com and sign up for his excellent gardening
newsletter. Article provided by, http://gardening-articles.com