Portfolio: Pointers on pruning

Posted: May 21, 2010

Pruning is one of the scariest tasks in any garden. Most of us fly blind and do terrible things to our plants, shrubs, and trees.

But as Lee Reich explains in The Pruning Book (Taunton Press, $21.95), proper pruning is critical. It keeps plants healthy, prevents them from growing too large, enhances their beauty, and improves the quality and quantity of their flowers, leaves and fruits.

Not only that, but pruning can be fun, he says.

Really?

The oblivious among us know that nothing feels better than to whack away at an overgrown anything, but that's not the kind of fun Reich is talking about. He means that when done correctly, pruning produces happy plants that we can fully enjoy; pruning also lets us experience our own creativity. (See fish topiary on Page 11.)

Reich starts with the basics: reasons for pruning, best tools, and how different plants respond. Part 2 parses pruning by category: plants, bushes, trees, evergreens, vines, fruits, and houseplants. Part 3 explores the specialized techniques of bonsai, pollarding, topiary, and espalier.

The Pruning Book contains 250 photographs and 135 drawings, all helpful. You can look up when and how to trim up your climbing hydrangea, what to do about fast-growing tree shoots known as "water sprouts," how to get the most from your blackberries and how to root-prune your potted kumquat.

There's a hefty section on how each of four clematis groups should be pruned. It was news to me that there's a fourth group.

Reich could retire early if he'd just rent himself out for tutorials on this topic, which, despite his explanation, continues to confound. This is why a lot of us just don't prune clematis. We wait till it's a tangled knot, then cry for help.

In The Pruning Book, Reich does his best to save our clematis and other living things from such a fate. May he also save us from ourselves.

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