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The Complete Guide to Landscape Design, Renovation,
and Maintenance
by Cass Turnbull
SORTING OUT
A good starving gardener could renovate your yard in the opposite
order to the one I'm about to give you, but his or her eyes have
been trained for years to see what's wrong. The order you get here
is the one that will give you the best chance of not removing any
great plants and will give you the best possible yard.
The first thing you want to do is get the garden uncluttered by
weeds. Weeds dull your judgment and make perfectly good plants look
awful. Cleaning out an overgrown shrub bed full of turf can be back-breaking
work. Let it be a lesson to you never, never to let it get this
far out of control again. While you're at it, prune out the dead
wood and rake out the dead leaves. Start forming judgments about
individual plants, and start seeing where plants are running into
each other. Your choice with each plant will be whether to get rid
of it, move it, or prune it. If you run across any plants that have
never been mistreated, prune them according to Section 1.
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The concept of "too big" is meaningless
in itself. The two biggest shrubs in this illustration are the
same size, but only one seems "too big". |
The Gardener as Referee
When I go into an overgrown garden I don't see plants that are too
big. I see plants that are too thick or too crowded. The concept
of "too big" is meaningless by itself. A sweater cannot
be too big in and of itself. It must be too big for, say, "my
body." The same sweater may be too small for yours.
Since you can't simply make all your plants younger and smaller
again, you will need to use different solutions for the different
"too crowded" situations you find.
When you are pruning a garden, you are rarely working on just one
tree or shrub, you are more commonly working on two or three, trying
to get them to fit together nicely again.
But, first you need to identify your problem areas. Walk around
the yard and look at the interfaces between what I call the "top,"
"middle," and "lower" story of your garden.
Also look at the areas where plants meet structures like houses
and walkways.
By "top," "middle," and "lower" story
of your garden I mean the trees, the shrubs and the ground covers.
When these layers become too enmeshed with one another, homeowners
start to complain that their plants are too big.
Spend most of your pruning effort on redefining interface areas.
Get the weeds and ground covers out of the shrubs. Get the shrubs
out of the trees. Redefining the areas between the three stories
is a lot like creating shadows, by making more space between plants.
Sometimes this space is a foot; sometimes sufficient definition
is created by getting plants a little more out of each other, though
not totally untouching. Suddenly you can tell that a deciduous azalea
is nestled inside two large rhododendrons.
Work at areas where plants and hardscape interface. If a limb is
headed into the pathway, cut just that limb off. You needn't reduce
the entire side of the plant. You don't need to keep trees under
the roof, either, but do keep space between the roof and the tree's
lowest limb. It isn't essential to keep shrubs totally off your
house walls, but spend the time to keep it looking less crowded
there. And, if you can, make the plants round down to the wall.
No branches should touch windows.
You've Identified Problems, Now Attack Them
Now that you have identified the major problem interface areas,
you know the goal of your pruning and renovation choices. Go out
there and start clipping and yanking the ground covers out of the
shrubs and ferns (remove whole patches if need be). Your taste may
be compulsive, in which case you want all the ground cover trimmed
straight with the edge of the shrub beds or walkway, and ivy sheared
tidily around the bases of trees. Or, your taste may run to the
wild, like mine, where I let my ivy run up the trunk for a year
because I like the way it looks, and then I rip it back.
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| Round down shrubs to the house and to where they meet each
other. It is often useful to prune up slightly the limbs touching
the ground. This will make plants seem well-adjusted to their
sites and not overgrown. |
You can also selectively prune ivy, kinnikinnick, and many other
ground covers so that they look natural. You do this by reaching
under the top layer, perhaps lifting it up like a rug, and cutting
the longest strands of ivy or whatever, way back. Then let the shorter
top strands fall back down so that it looks as if it just hasn't
grown clear out to the edge yet. It makes a softer, more natural-looking
border. If your hypericum (St. Johnswort) is long and leggy, overcoming
your small shrubs--fear not--you can, and should, cut (with hedge
shears) or mow it back in the early spring to two inches. Really!
Looks like a mess for a month, but it comes back low, even, and
tidy looking. It likes to be pruned back hard, like a lawn.
Cut the strands of ivy or other ground covers that criss-cross in
the crown or base of your shrubs. Pull the cut strands back and
either tug them out or, if they are rooted, shove them away from
the base and push them flat to the ground. Otherwise ivy or other
vigorous ground covers will slowly submerge your shrubs and meanwhile
cause you great esthetic discomfort.
Don't let ferns and other plants grow up in the base of your plant.
The same fern six inches to two feet away is great, but inside a
low, compact shrub, it's a weed. Under a tree or tall, leggy shrub,
it provides good visual contrast, not competition.
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Often plants are too crowded, not too big.
Getting some space around them, but not too much, will help
the yard look tame again. |
Crowded Shrubs
Now that we have the ground covers out of the shrubs, let's look
at the shrubs themselves. Are they too crowded?
It's good, even desirable, to have your shrubs run into each other
a little, especially similar types such as three rhodies of the
same type. We don't want to make the mistake of having a tombstone
yard or a row of soldiers where no two shrubs touch each other.
But sometimes they are too, too crowded and tangled, and if you
reduce both a little, they'll look much better. Locate the most
interfering, longest reaching limbs on each of the two crowding
shrubs. Thin those off and see if that just does the trick.
However, sometimes you may have to pick one shrub to stay and simply
move or get rid of the other. As noted before, a good thing to do
while you are in taking out dead wood is to take off branches that
actually touch the dirt, sometimes back to a side branch hanging
a quarter inch above the dirt. This small definition will improve
the looks of your yard more than you might imagine.
Pruning Lower Tree Limbs
Now you want to redefine the area between shrubs and the next level
up, either taller shrubs or the trees. You will have to make some
value judgments, so stand back and imagine. Gradually you train
your eye. It may be appropriate to take a few limbs off the lower
part of a tree, if a tree is crowding some shrubs. There is some
magic that gardeners do. It's actually common sense but easy to
forget. If a big old limb is hanging down into your shrubs, first
try selectively pruning only a portion of it. Take off a few lower
side branches or (less desirably) cut back the end (selectively,
of course). The branch, with less weight to drag it down, may now
rise above the shrubs. If this doesn't work, you may have to take
the branch off entirely, cutting back to the branch collar at the
trunk. This removal of lower branches is called "limbing up"
a tree. Trees naturally shed their lower limbs in the forest and
are well adapted to having them pruned off.
The other alternative is to lower your shrubs, depending on their
type. Mound types (those with small leaves and supple limbs) are
easiest to reduce. Others, like stiff-branched tree-likes are not.
But, remember you don't have to have a three-foot space between
trees and shrubs. Start by taking things down (or limbing up) a
little and see if it looks better. If you have a large shrub planted
under a small tree (say a camellia under a plum tree), you should
remove the shrub and plant a smaller one or a groundcover.
Leaning and Crowded Shrubs
Another common problem occurs when the top, middle, and lower layers
in your yard are all leaning and pushing each other over. Competent
pruning will make them stand straight again.
You can do this by cutting the lower limbs off the tallest plants,
and you can head back the branches, starting with the worst oppressor.
More effective, however, is picking out the one, two, or three longest
and/or most leaning branches in each plant and cutting them out
completely. Here again, this technique does not make sense to the
logical mind, so you must just follow the recipe and cut out these
most leaning branches, then you'll see the difference. You stand
back and suddenly, while it doesn't even look as if you touched
the plants, they stand upright again. Don't expect to make everything
perfect this year, though. The increased sunlight will help the
plant to round out over the next year. Just make it better for now.
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| Reduce the width
of junipers and other plants by removing only the lowest, broadest
branches. Let the top fall back down. This is a useful way to
control heathers and groundcovers, too. |
After pruning, the juipers
look natural and you can walk by on the sidewalk easily. |
Juniper Reduction
Another bit of advice. What about those junipers or evergreen azaleas
hanging over your walkway? You may wish to prune them selectively
by taking branches back to inside the shrub, using the grab-'n-snip
method. But you can achieve your goal more effectively by reaching
under the base and cutting some of the lowest branches off back
to the main trunk. I don't really understand it myself, because
it won't look any smaller to you, except that now you will be able
to walk by it.
Stripping
Stripping is a term I use to describe taking off all the inside
branches or all the lower branches of a tree or shrub. It is one
of the three major forms of bad pruning. Whereas tree topping and
shrub shearing are the result of non-selective, wholesale heading
cuts, stripping results from the misuse of the thinning cut. For
example, some people often strip out their ornamental cherry trees.
I assume that they are trying to imitate the gaunt, artistic look
of some fruit trees. Perhaps they were inspired by Japanese style
pruning, which highlights the beauty of branch structures. A great
deal of bad pruning is an unsuccessful attempt to imitate highly
specialized forms of pruning art. What our would-be artistic cherry-tree
pruners fail to realize is that the next spring their trees will
respond by exploding into a forest of ugly suckers which will bloom
little, if at all, thus defeating the major purpose of this ornamental
tree. Re-removal of the suckers every year is a maintenance nightmare
and will eventually kill the tree.
Arborizing Shrubs
Other people strip up all the lower limbs of shrubs they consider
too big, making them somewhat reminiscent of lollipops or ostriches.
I hesitate to mention stripping because of these common abuses.
However, there are some instances where removing the lower limbs
of a shrub is a good option. It will depend on the type of plant
and its location. Don't strip up plants just because they seem too
big. Good candidates are ones that are actually impeding foot traffic
or totally obscuring windows. The best subjects are non-suckering
tree-like shrubs. Usually they are broad-leafed evergreens, such
as rhododendrons, pieris, camellias, or strawberry trees (Arbutus
unedo). Stripping up works best on very old shrubs. By cutting off
the lower branches you are "arborizing" them. "Arbor"
means tree, and you are turning your big shrub into a small tree.
English laurel is a good subject. Instead of a giant oppressive
blob, you can have an open, sort of oriental-looking, small tree.
In fact, one could say that most of these plants are trees in their
native habitats. They start out as shrubs and grow into understory
trees in their adulthood. We just expect them to stay in the shrub-like
juvenile stage forever.
| Some shrubs
can be auborized, meaning that they can be pruned into small
trees. |
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Pause before you strip, though. It's a major step. Look inside
your shrub and evaluate how the trunk will look when it's exposed.
Is it fat? Good! Does it lean and curve gracefully? Great! If possible,
endeavor to leave some branches lower down and inside to avoid the
stripped or gutted appearance. To alleviate the lollipop effect,
thin out the upper canopy of leaves, too. It should look a bit lacy
and like a tree, not like a solid ball. Don't arborize more than
a few plants in your landscape, it begins to look silly if you do
too many.
Be sure to leave enough leaves to collect sunshine in order to feed
the plant. Shrubs and trees vary from species to species in the
degree to which they will let you put them on a diet. Trees and
shrubs which have been starved by over thinning usually succumb
to death in a drought or freeze. Be sure to help heavily thinned,
non-suckering plants by supplying sufficient water and fertilizer.
Layering Conifer Trees, Camellias
Some trees, such as needled evergreens, lend themselves to fairly
dramatic thinning. This is called layering or windowing. Deodar
cedars, Atlas cedars and pines are examples. Pines particularly
can withstand heavy thinning. Take care to avoid stripping each
limb out to a puff of green on the end. Instead, remove entire limbs
alternately up the trunk. Then follow each scaffold branch and cut
off the laterals (side branches) that hang too far down and those
that go too far up.
Follow the same system for thinning out an oppressive camellia ball.
You can either turn it into a small tree or thin it entirely top
to bottom so that it looks like a veil of leaves. Through the shell
you can see glimpses of the fine, clean branches inside. Here again,
one removes dead wood and prunes from the inside out and the bottom
up.
Rehabilitating Shrubs and Trees--So You Made Some Mistakes
What if your plants have all been stripped and sheared before? What
can you do to restore them to their former beauty? Well, first of
all, you can start by letting them grow out. Plants naturally go
back to their own habit if left alone. You can help, though.
To Restore Sheared Shrubs: On your sheared cane growers you
already know what to do. Fight your way in there and saw out one-third
of the canes at the base. Do this for three years in a row and you
will have a nice, natural-looking shrub. You can and should always
thin the tangled tops, too, by cutting some of them back to simpler
side branches.
See how it's done here.
On your sheared tree-likes you will find a situation somewhat like
the one shown below. Each cut branch has forked, causing a twiggy
outer shell.
You can start to reestablish a more natural look by taking out the
middle fork, or sometimes by cutting the whole forked end back to
a simpler side branch. If your tree-like is a solid ball, you need
to open it up and thin it somewhat, so that light can get to those
inside branches and dormant buds can begin to grow out and make
inside branches.
If your tree-like is a small solid ball like some sheared Zabel
laurels I know, reach your gloved hand in and start shaking and
tugging, pulling them apart, looking for the biggest, worst tangled
forked branches, then cut them out, back to side branches. Right
away these balls will ease up and look better. You can almost breathe
easier yourself. Come back next year and do some more. It will take
several years to restore them to their natural shape. Spend a majority
of time thinning at the base of sheared balls and boxes.
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Once light
reaches the interior, you may get new growth down inside. This
will give you something to cut back to if you need to reduce
the size of your shrub. |
As for your sheared mounds, let them grow out a while. Also, rummage
around in the twiggy outer shell and look for the worst snarls or
birds nests. Cut some out back to a branch or bud deep down farther
inside. Also, if you are enthusiastic, crawl inside the base, and
if it's semi-cane like, cut out some of the worst canes to the base--and
voila! What a difference! They're really fun to tug out! Some, like
barberries, are especially challenging. Be sure to wear gloves and
long sleeves.
Mal-Pruned Trees and Tree-Likes
The question of what to do with tree-likes that have been stripped
and topped is a harder and sadder one. Wherever certain types of
trees have been stripped and topped, they will send back a host
of suckers. Sometimes, like a car that's been in a car crash, the
plant can be considered a total loss. This is then a case for removal.
Others can be patiently restored. If the heading cuts were made
on thick branches and the sucker regrowth is excessive and floppy,
not stiff, you are in trouble. In less severe cases, you will choose
some of these suckers to become the new branches.
You can restore your plant only over years--sometimes as long as
ten years. If you try to remove all the unwanted suckers at once,
they will simply regrow. The suckers will eventually branch out
and begin to curve again, but not until the plant reaches close
to its previous height. This is bad news, I realize, for people
who find themselves staring at the monsters of their own creation.
But you must be patient. Let the suckers grow for awhile to see
which ones become the fatter, stiffer dominants. After, say, three
years, start taking off only a few of the skinniest, ugliest, wrong-way,
crossing suckers every year (the submissives), and let the others
grow and get bigger. Leave several unwanted suckers in each cluster
for this year; thin out some more next year. Slowly narrow down
the number of suckers, to the last one that is your new branch.
Remember, summer is the best time to prune old suckers. In the spring
you can just rub out brand new ones. On all previously badly pruned
shrubs and trees you will find a lot of dead wood, especially dead
stubs. Meticulously remove all dead wood. It will help the most
in making your tree or shrub look better now.
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| Previously malpruned rhododendrons will have daunting unruly
regrowth. Cut off some of the lowest in each series of "goosenecks"
to improve the looks of your shrub. Leave anything that is headed
up and out. |
Mal-Pruned Rhododendrons
The very hardest plants I have to deal with are previously badly
pruned rhododendrons. Often I go to a house where someone has chain-sawed
off a very old rhododendron to about five feet. These plants sometimes
reestablish quite well and look all right from the outside. Most,
however, look scraggly. By the time I get there they are about the
same size as before they were cut, but now, when I step inside to
check things out, I find masses of skinny branches rambling and
dipping down and heading all over the place. It's enough to turn
your hair white. There's nothing worth keeping, it seems. It is
possible to help these plants look better, but hardly ever good.
This is where the "look for the worst first rule" comes
in very handy. Be sure to keep the fattest branches and any that
head mainly up and out, no matter how awful. Cut off a few of the
worst, skinniest branches that go long distances, whipping around
other branches. These are the never-will-amount-to-anything branches.
Also, you will find what I refer to as "multiple goosenecks."
With branches like these, try cutting off the lowest gooseneck.
You will probably still be discouraged and dissatisfied until you
step back outside. See, it looks better, not good, but better. An
angry plantsman's curse on the first person who said, "You
can keep on top of it." What he has done!
SUMMARY
Get the groundcovers out of the shrubs and the shrubs out of the
trees.
Renovation choices for each shrub are: prune it, move it, or get
rid of it.
Deciding how much and whether or not to thin will depend on three
criteria:
1. Does it sucker easily?
2. Will it starve? and
3. Will it look good (i.e. fat trunk)?
I visited a house where the gentleman had grossly over thinned his
camellia. He had been told to prune it so that "a bird could
fly through it." His wife commented, "They meant a sparrow,
not a goose!" Take care that thinning doesn't turn into stripping,
even on plants that don't sucker back.
The four steps to rehabilitating previously badly pruned plants
are (1) wait, (2) thin, (3) wait, and (4) thin.
Remove suckers gradually over years, narrowing the number down to
the one or two you want to become new branches. Do it in the summer.
Forward to Adding the Lower Story
Back to Begin to Bring Order Out of
Chaos
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