Yes, folks, here we are again with yet another landscaping makeover! We’ve done flower beds and hardscaping, and this week we are exploring some of the things we can do with shrubs in our landscape: Extreme Makeover: Shrub Edition!
So get those clippers and mulch handy, and be ready for anything!
Start at the beginning.
A word of caution. You may be anxious to start your pruning as soon as the last frost has disappeared. So go ahead and do your everyday spring garden chores, but you may need to wait for many trees and shrubs to do the first trim of the year.
Trimming or pruning too early can discourage them from flowering or even cause enough damage that they might stop flowering altogether. So if you have doubts about pruning a flowering shrub or tree, don’t.
Or better yet, let your landscape team take on the job of pruning, trimming, and shaping your trees and shrubs. You already have a relationship with your Custom Acres landscaping team, and they make your lawn and big trees look amazing. Ask for information about working with your smaller trees, bushes, and shrubs and what they can do to make them unique as the rest of the landscape.
Where to go from there
If you are determined to work with your shrubs, learning a new creative art of trimming, then let’s go at it sensibly. Sometimes our shrubs seem to have a fabulous thick growth of green leaves, with few problems with leaves dropping. Then, one day, we accidentally lop off a branch that’s become a little unruly, and we are facing … nothing! It seems like the leaves in the middle of our shrub have given up the ghost and left bare branches and twigs with almost no green growth.
Making a tree, shrub, bush, or hedge thicker and healthier isn’t hard, but you will have to cut away parts of the plant. We are starting with something simple: trying to stimulate growth in the middle of a woody plant.
The cause of the bare leaves in the middle is lack of light, lack of nutrients, and maybe even lack of water. So let’s start by exposing that middle part to more light. Tools you will need: Gloves, pruning shears, fine-toothed pruning saw, loppers. Make sure your tools are sharp and clean.
- Look for the terminal bud on each branch. These are located at the very tip of each branch, and we will trim those away. Use your pruning shears, and cut at a 45° angle to the branch just above the next highest bud.
- Cut branches taller than most of the rest of the shrub to form an even shape.
- Choose two or three branches with heavy top growth. These are blocking the sunlight from reaching the interior of the shrub. These will be removed completely, again cutting at a 45° angle, just above their bases. You might have to use your fine-tooth pruning saw or the loppers.
- Now the waiting starts. Let the new growth continue for about three to five weeks. Then remove about half of the growth that has reached 6-12 inches. This will make room for more new branches.
- Cut back some of the remaining new shoots to varying heights to encourage thicker growth.
Good job!
Are you ready to try something more challenging?
Topiaries
Anyone who has been to a theme park, a garden show, or a specialized garden like those in big parks has seen a topiary. The examples pictured here take time, skill, and patience, but there is a vast variety of what can be done with a living shrub or bush.
One example of a topiary is a dragon that’s 150 feet long and has been in process for more than 13 years. Here’s an example of a smaller, simpler topiary dragon.
We aren’t going to try to do that just yet. However, it’s certainly possible to create other, simpler shapes. For instance, you are creating a ball of flowers from a hanging plant dangling from the ceiling of your front porch. Trimming buds and branches will thicken the parts of the plant enough that it will just take a little trimming every week or so to keep the shape you selected.
Talking with your landscaping team at Custom Acres might be very illuminating.