Henry Homeyer: Pruning, a late fall garden chore

By Henry Homeyer
©2019 Telegraph Publishing LLC

Fall is here, and winter is not far behind. I’ve seen some snow and scraped frost from my windshield. The sun is slow to get above the hills in the morning and quick to disappear in the afternoon. The sky is often gray and gloomy. These things take their toll on the spirits of gardeners like me. As an antidote, I plant bulbs and prune. Both lift my spirits. I’ve finished planting bulbs, but I’m still pruning.

First, there are things you should prune now, and things that should wait until spring or summer. Anything that blooms in spring or early summer has already formed the buds that will flower next year. Lilacs, forsythia, crabapples, magnolias, rhododendrons, viburnums and many more are ready to bloom when the weather and length of day dictate blooming.

Many gardeners refuse to prune spring blooming woody plants now. It’s true that if you prune then now you lose blossoms – but that does not stop me. Trees and shrubs get messy fast. Ignore them for a few years and they are as untidy as an unmade bed.

In my opinion, it’s better to lose a few blossoms than put off a job that needs to be done. When the lilacs are blooming I am planting veggies and flowers and fixing the mess moles made of my lawn. I have no time to prune them then.

On the other hand, I do not prune evergreens now. Pines, hemlocks and spruce I prune right after they finish their new growth in July. If you remove it each year, you can keep evergreens roughly the same size, if you wish.

I like to be sure that the lowest branches of a tree are high enough off the ground so that mowing is easy. That said, I have a huge Merrill magnolia that blooms with a thousand huge white blossom each year in late April. It has two low branches that make it difficult to mow there, and I have been considering removing them for at least five years.

Finally I have decided to remove those two low culprits, but I will wait until after blooming next spring. And who knows, I may change my mind before I get out the saw.

I like to prune when trees are bare of leaves because I can see the bones of the tree. I can see branches that reach through the middle of the tree to grab some sunshine on the other side. I can see branches rubbing up against other branches, or branches that have died and have not yet fallen. All those I will take out.

My late sister, Ruth Anne Mitchell, loved to prune. Her trademark move was to sit down under a tree or shrub and look up through the branches, preferably when they were bare of leaves. She claimed she could see the clutter in the middle of the tree that way, and decide what to take out. Personally, I like to circle a tree or shrub several times, looking at it from every direction.

Where you cut a branch is very important. There is a swollen area at the base of each branch called the branch collar. The bark there is often wrinkled. Cut the branch just past the branch collar, leaving the collar on the tree.

This is important because the collar is where the tree naturally heals itself. If you leave a long stub past the collar, the tree will have to wait for the wood to rot back to the branch collar before healing, potentially leaving an open wound for years. Conversely, if you remove the branch collar and cut the branch flush to the tree, you leave a much bigger wound than if you do it properly.

A properly pruned tree gets sunshine on each one of its leaves every day. Pruning opens up the canopy to sunshine and allows breezes to dry the leaves of dew or rain. For trees like lilacs and apples that are susceptible to fungal diseases, it’s important that leaves dry out quickly before fungal hyphae (root-like structures) penetrate the leaves.

One last chore: if you planted a new tree this year, you may wish to protect the bark from rodents that chew the bark under the snow. Meadow voles living under the snow can girdle a tree and kill it. Surround the tree with metal mesh called “hardware cloth”. Get the kind with just quarter-inch spaces, not chicken wire. Surround the trunk from the ground to 24 inches.

Many gardeners avoid pruning the way children avoid the dentist. The way your dog views visiting the vet. But instead, think of pruning as going to a really, really good hair stylist. You are giving your tree or shrub a fancy haircut, not performing surgery – even though there are such things as “tree surgeons”.

Henry can be reached by e-mail at henry.homeyer@comcast.net or by mail at PO Box 364, Cornish Flat, NH 03746