To prune or not to prune, that is every gardener’s question. And is fall really a good time to give your shrubs a new look? Listen to Jayme Jenkins and guest host Robin Haglund (Teresa’s vacationing in Bologna, Italy!) discuss the answer to this very question and more.
On the other hand, some people take their creative pruning skills to a whole new level. Later in the episode, Jayme interviews Billy Goodnick about the environmental and ugly dont’s of pruning. You better watch out, or your front yard masterpiece may end up on Billy’s Crimes Against Horticulture list.
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Scroll down to see the pruning specimens Billy and Jayme discuss during the interview. Scroll a bit further to catch Nest In Style’s fall giveaway details! And if you get a chance, send my lovely podcast co-host a Buon divertimento tweet at @SeasonalWisdom. Grazie!
Nest In Style Guests
Billy Goodnick, a landscape architect, educator and writer, shares the wisdom he has gathered from thirty-five years of retail nursery sales, landscaping, designing and teaching. He’ll challenge your assumptions while putting a smile on your face with his off-the-wall humor.
Find Billy on Twitter at @GardenWiseGuy or on Fine Gardening Magazine’s blog Cool Green Gardens.
Robin Haglund is a professional garden coach and award-winning garden designer with a passion for cultivating beautiful, functional, sustainable outdoor spaces. She’s gardened, ranched, and farmed all over California, in Virginia and most recently put down her roots in Seattle.
Find Robin on Twitter at @GardenMentor or on her website GardenHelp.org.
A Case Study: Crimes Against Horticulture
Disks in Spaaaaacccceee. Indian Laurel Fig (Ficus retusa nitida)
The beginnings of a new alphabet.Pyracantha
No, just plain NO. This is an olive tree!
Someday this ground cover will be 6′ tall. Lantana montevidensis ‘White’
NEST IN STYLE FALL GIVEAWAY
Hopefully you feel a bit more confident about pruning and understand that Edward Scissorshands should not be a source of inspiration. Don’t miss our Nest In Style fall giveaway contest. There’s still time to plant spring flowering bulbs and trim back summer’s fading beauty. Click to see the details and enter to win a $50 gift certificate from Brent & Becky’s Bulbs and a Fiskars pruning kit!
What’s coming: Stay tuned for Robin Haglund’s Top 5 Pruning Tips and Favorite Fiskars Tools, holiday entertaining and decorating ideas. Meanwhile, click on over to our NIS Fall Giveaway for details on how to win and listen to Robin’s favorite Fiskars pruning tools … go grow something!
Love all your blogs! I love prunning and find it a way to show your artistic gardening style. I prune weekly it seems as I have lots of bushes and vines.
Happy Gardening!
Thanks for stopping by the blog and the nice comment Debbie! Sounds like you have tons of pruning experience. Have you always loved pruning or did you have to learn to love it with all the trees and shrubs you have? Happy Gardening back atcha!
You’ve received 3 entries into our fall giveaway for this comment. Good luck!
Thanks for inviting me to be a part of your fantastic program. There’s nothing this robin likes better than to nest in style!
Having worked, studied at and completed two horticultural internships at The Arnold Arboretum of Harvard University and The Filoli Gardens in Woodside California I can say with confidence that there is need to know how to properly prune but there also is a greater need to be open minded and understand the many various ways to keep a tree or shrub in an altered natural shape.
For example the disk shaped Ficus in your first photo is a classic form seen in many formal gardens across the world. This homeowner may not be a world class gardener but they are emulating a world class type of pruning and all the while keeping the tree’s foliage out of their rain gutters, allowing light to filter into their home, curtailing canopy competition with the adjacent tree and adding an artistic statement to their landscape.
It may not be the artistic statement that you like, but it is obvious that they enjoy it and shows that they take the time to care about their landscape.
Holy cow Michelle, you have some impressive credentials. I agree that homeowners are the finally judges of aesthetics when it comes to their landscapes. Although, I can’t help but think they look so ridiculous. Who am I to judge, right? What are your thoughts about Billy’s comments on the environmental impact of pruning a very large ficus tree into a disc that’s a fraction of it’s natural size?
You’ve received 3 entries into our fall giveaway for this comment. Good luck!
Absolutely Robin! We’d love to have you back as a guest interviewee in the future, or if Teresa tromps off to Italy again, you can be my co-pilot.
I love the tip about alcohol, Lysol, or PineSol rather than bleach! I had been taught recently to use bleach, and didn’t realize it would be corrosive. Thanks!
Billy Goodnick would love to see the “whack-job” my husband did on a rather over-grown flowering bush of ours at the corner of our 2-story home (when I was not around to stop him!) Hopefully it will flower next year . . . I’ll try to “fix” it late next spring, as we live in northern Illinois. Personally, I prefer plants in their natural state, and only prune out winter-killed and crossing branches.
I’m with you Diane, keep it natural. I certainly don’t want to work that hard in the garden. Cutting out crossing branches is how I learned to prune, then slowly became comfortable in opening up tree canopies from the inside. Thanks for your comments!
You’ve been awarded 3 entries into our Fall Giveaway for this blog comment. Good luck!
Enjoyed listening to this interesting podcast as an ordinary person this time. Special thanks to Robin for being such a terrific guest host, while I was in Italy. And to Billy for sharing his opinions about crimes to horticulture. All best, Teresa O’Connor
What are your thoughts about Billy’s comments on the environmental impact of pruning a very large ficus tree into a disc that’s a fraction of it’s natural size?
You can assess the environmental impact from a variety of perspectives.
If the person is using a two stroke engine machine to prune then there is unwanted carbon monoxide entering into the atmosphere. If they are hand pruning it is excellent exercise and little air pollution.
If the homeowner is composting the cut leaves on site it is a benefit to home composting vs. filling the landfill with green waste.
If the tree is located on the S/ SW side of the house it is facilitating shade and assisting in heat gain.
By limiting the size of the canopy overhanging the house gutters the home owner is protecting their house value ( there are several reasons for this such as vermin control and branches scraping off the roofing materials that end up in the storm water drains )
There is also the individuality of an artistic statement that should be taken into account. As I mentioned it may not speak to your aesthetics but it does to the homeowners.
These are all great points Michelle. Thank you for your professional opinion!