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.
Watch The Video Below For More Tips
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.
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