The Golden State: Where & How to Live, Secure, Visit, Enjoy and Thrive in California

Shrubs And Trees

Pruning

It is not our intention in this chapter to go exhaustively into details of pruning operations but rather to bring out certain principles in the matter which may be helpful toward a full enjoyment of deciduous shrubs.

Except in the case of the-back shrubs and those employed for hedges and other artificial uses, we shall do well to adopt the general principle that good shrubs show forth their best beauty when permitted to develop their characteristic proportions and habits, and to reduce interference with their normal ways, by means of pruning, to the minimum.

At its best, then, pruning aims to develop, not to repress, the peculiar beauty of the subject.

Repressive Pruning, the stark reduction of shrubs, amounts commonly to an admission of misjudgment of their characters in the original planning of the grounds, and an attempt to correct it with knife and saw.

The need of it can be largely obviated by a careful original selection of materials.

If we plant, for instance, the Japanese Quince (Chaenomeles lagenaria) where only the Dwarf Flowering Quince (C. japonica) can be accommodated, we shall have to keep hacking it back. Where only the Sargent Crab (Malus Sargenth) can be fitted into the picture, Malus floribunda will outgrow its place.

While the occasional rejuvenation of certain kinds of overgrown shrubs (see under Syringa vulgaris) is quite feasible, the stubby appearance of the subjects is always disturbing, particularly in the small landscape. The need of the operation ought to, and can, be largely prevented by a careful selection of materials.

When in the renovation of an old place it becomes necessary to adapt existing shrubbery to a new plan, then one may look upon it as an inevitable, drastic, initial operation; but in the well ordered small landscape all materials ought to be selected at the start with a view to their ultimate proportions. When an occasional correction is in order, removal of the subject or the transplanting of it into a happier location is preferable to periodic hacking back.

But, besides repression, pruning may be aimed at other objectives, more nearly in line with the main principle laid downat the beginning of this chapter. Let us review some of them.

Pruning at the time of Transplanting. In the case of the general run of the more common kinds of shrubs in the usual small, commercial grades (excepting all precious, slow-growing items) it is best, in newly planted borders, to trim them all back to quite near their base in the spring. This will result in a sturdier growth during the first summer than would come from less drastically pruned shrubs. This may go against the natural impatience of the owner, but he will, nevertheless, come out ahead the following year.