Video: How to Prune Forsythia Bushes

Horticulture Tips from Wareham Garden Club

PRUNING RHODYS AND FORSYTHIA

This is perfect timing for pruning those early flowering azaleas, rhododendrons and forsythia.   Water your shrubs before pruning to relieve stress.  Spend time looking at your shrub.  All shrubs should have damaged or diseased wood or rubbing, crossing branches removed.

Azaleas differ from rhododendrons in being generally smaller and having one blossom per stem rather than blossom clusters.  Azaleas can bud out all along the stem.  Early flowering varieties form next year’s buds over 8-10 weeks once the temperature is over 65 degrees, so now is a great time to prune.   First, remove damaged wood and branches that rub against another branch.  Next remove a few old branches every year to rejuvenate the shrub.  Choose branches that, when removed, will let in more light or bring your shrub to a better height.

Video - How to Prune Black Currants

Pruning Tomatoes

In today's Fine Gardening newsletter, it points to an article and video on how to properly prune and train tomatoes to increase yields. Rather than letting tomato plants spread, the suggestion is to properly prune and stake the tomato plants as a single stalk. This approach suggests that the plant will produce larger and earlier crops than when left in a prostrate form. By staking and growing the tomato plants vertically, this allows for more plants in the the same space. Article and video can be found at the Fine Gardening site>

August is fruit-tree pruning time

Ciscoe Morris writes, in the Seattle Times, that "August is the best time to prune fruit trees. Thinning out shoots and crossing branches this time of year allows more air and light into the tree, which reduces disease and promotes earlier ripening of the fruit. Pruning fruit trees this month can also help prevent rampant sprout growth next spring. That's because pruning removes many of the little food factories (leaves) that transfer energy in fall to be used by the tree for growth in the spring."

The garden writer also covers the following topics in his article: selecting Scleranthus uniflorus to give your garden a mossy look; and heading out to the 10th Annual Fronderosa Frolic! at Fancy Fronds Nursery in Gold Bar.

Read article from the Seattle Times>

Fact Sheet: The Vegie Patch

By Tino Carnevale
It's a typical winter in Tasmania, with frosty mornings, sleet, snow, rain and really cold nights. The deciduous fruit trees are dormant, so it's the perfect time to plant them, transplant them, or give them a good prune.Tino is planting varieties of pear and quince. Most fruit trees need a pollinator. That is, they need a tree of the same type but different variety to pollinate their flowers. Tino has a William 'Bon Chretine' pear to pollinate the Beurre Bosc pear and vice versa. If you have a smaller sized yard, a quince tree is good because they're self-fertile, so you'll only need one tree. Another important thing to consider when selecting a fruit tree is shape or form. The Beurre Bosc Tino's chosen has excellent form and doesn't require much pruning. It's a good goblet shape with three to five laterals, evenly spaced around the main stem. Read more>

Video: Gardening Tips : How to Prune a Passion Flower

Prune a passion flower by cutting out the wild or dead vines and trimming the plant down one-third at a time. Avoid pruning passion flower plants until the vines have reached a significant length with tips from a sustainable gardener in this free video on gardening.

Learn the basics of pruning in workshop

SEBASTOPOL -- Learn how, when and why to prune fruit trees and other perennials and shrubs in summer during a workshop Aug. 1 in Sebastopol. Garden educator and designer Maile Arnold teams up with Dr. Gail Dubinsky for the lecture, demonstration and hands-on learning opportunity to practice pruning cuts. Woven into the workshop will be philosophical ideas and healthy gardening tips and moves demonstrated by Dubinksy, a physician who also teaches yoga and has produced a DVD, “Yoga for Gardeners.” “Pruning can bring out the worst of overambitious attitudes and poor body mechanics, with painful and disabling results,” she said. Participants are urged to bring a yoga mat, water, sun protection and pruning shears and clippers. Cost is $20 in advance or $25 at the garden gate. For information call 829-7596 or e-mail dubinsky@rxyoga.com.

Gardening: For help with trees, it's best to call a professional arborist

By Tony Tomeo
for Saratoga News

Trees are the most substantial plants in our gardens. They can provide shade, privacy or aesthetic appeal. Some provide showy flowers. Others provide fruit. Some have colorful foliage in autumn. Others have colorful foliage through summer. When they get old and finish their careers in our gardens, most make good firewood. Even trees that do not seem to do much for us are very important to the insects, birds, animals, fungi and all sorts of wildlife that live with them.

Trees have all sorts of personalities. Evergreen trees hold their foliage throughout the year. Deciduous trees drop their foliage in autumn, and replace it in spring. Small trees are no larger than large shrubbery. Large trees may be massive and affect several gardens around them. Some trees have thick canopies that make deep shade, while others cast light shade.

Read more>

Video: How To Prune a Princess Flower or Tibouchina

How to prune your Princess Flower or Tibouchina urvilleana for an upright shape. Check out www.northcoastgardening.com for more pruning videos and gardening insights!

Deadhead flowers to encourage more blooms

Barbara Raskauskas
Go to Barbara's Home Page
Wilmington Gardening Examiner

You plant perennial flowers and annual flowers in your garden for their beauty. Once the blossoms live their short life, the plant switches its energy to seed production unless that blossom, which is now the dead head of the stem, is removed. However you see it, dead head, deadhead, deadheading, the action represents removing the expired flower from the stem of the plant.

Read more:

Push edible plants for productivity

Posted by The Oregonian

July 16, 2009 05:27AM

There's a twist on the cut-and-come-again method that is usually used with greens. When carefully cut (not too low) greens can be harvested four or five times instead of once.

The twist -- pruning back a plant whose older edible parts look dry -- has advantages. First, you extend harvest. The pruning causes a flush of new edibles.

Second, this new growth not only is more tender, it also looks better on your plate and in your garden.

Read more:

Growing roses: Part 6 Rose garden pruning and cutting flowers

By Patti Winters
Go to Patti's Home Page
Orlando Gardening Scene Examiner

(photo by Matthias Engel)

Proper pruning and keeping flowers cut will ensure frequent blooming in your new rose garden. Keep in mind that in Central Florida, you will often see fewer petals on your roses and they may be paler in color in the hottest months of the summer.

Read more:

Pruning Japanese Gardens in Autumn

Learn aesthetics and pruning techniques for pruning woody plants used in Japanese-style gardens. Learn species-specific pruning techniques, when and where to use them in contemporary Japanese-style garden designs: dry gardens, stroll gardens, hill & pond gardens, tea gardens, courtyard gardens. Learn about Japanese garden design through the lens of aesthetic pruning. Peter Bowyer, peterthomasbowyer.com, specializes in scenic creations for people who want to bring nature into their dwelling.

Saturday, Sep 12 10:00a to 1:00p
at Hakone Gardens,
21000 Big Basin Way
Saratoga, CA 95070
(408) 741-4994

Price: $40. Advance discount: mail a $35 check 5 days in advance, payable to Peter Bowyer, P.O. Box 8031, Emeryville, CA 94662.
Phone: (510) 658-4941
Age Suitability: None Specified

The Hungry Gardener: To prune or not to prune - JSOnline

Q&A article on Gardening. Read more:
The Hungry Gardener: To prune or not to prune - JSOnline Source: jsonline.com

lhc sent this using ShareThis.

Keep your crape myrtles in shape

The crape myrtles have just started blooming around the Chattanooga area. Crape myrtle (Lagerstroemia indica x L. fauriei) was introduced to the Southern United States more than 150 years ago. It is sometimes called the "lilac of the South." They had their geographic origins in China, Japan and other parts of Southeast Asia. It has been cultivated as an ornamental for centuries.

Few trees compare with the flower color and quality of the crape myrtle at a time of year when it's scorching hot in the South. Even if a severe winter kills most of the top growth -- like it did two years ago in our area -- the crape myrtle is capable of growing back in a short time.

Colorful crapes

The individual flowers generally have six ruffled petals. They resemble crinkled crepe paper, so many people call them crepe myrtles. There are five basic colors: red, pink, white, lavender and purple. Some cultivars have picotee flowers (pink petals with white borders).

The other outstanding feature is the bark. It is smooth and sinewy. The gray to brown bark peels away gradually and exposes shades of cinnamon brown and green.

The lower branches are often thinned to show off the trunk form and color. The foliage is dark green, changing in fall to yellows, oranges and reds.

Read more:

Gardenmagik , Pruning Crape Myrtles, Back to the Garden

The correct way to prune Crape Myrtles. Open up the center and make the tree look taller.

In the garden

Janet Carson is a horticulture specialist for the University of Arkansas Cooperative Extension Service. Write to her at P.O. Box 391, Little Rock, Ark. 72203; or e-mail her at
jcarson@arkansasonline.com

Q. Does it injure the crape myrtles to cut the suckers that grow around the base of the plant? Ours are just coming into bloom, but whoever pruned them before we bought the house had let a lot grow out at ground level. Is there an office in the area that we could come by and pick up info about the local growing tips? We live in Little Rock.

A. It does not hurt to remove the suckers at the base of the crape myrtle; in fact, it is advisable to do so. We would not recommend trying to use an herbicide to kill them, since many are attached to the mother plant, but clipping them at the soil line is a great idea. If allowed to grow, they would give your tree a more bushy look and take away from its appearance. Some varieties of crape myrtles are more prone to suckers than others, but just pay attention. As to a local source of information, every county has a local county extension office where publications are available. In Pulaski County it is at 2901 W. Roosevelt Road. The county offices are also where you can take soil samples and plant samples to be diagnosed. If you are just looking for printed information, there is plenty of that at our home and garden Web site at www.arhomeandgarden.org , or go to our main Web page www.uaex.edu and click on publications and you can print your own publications at home.

Read more:

Garden chores: pruning tomato plants

All this rain has sure been good for the tomatoes.

Maybe too good.

My plants, heirloom Brandywine, are almost 6 feet tall, and there are more than a dozen tomatoes on each plant, with dozens more blooms.

But the rain has encouraged more than the fruit to grow. The leaves and branches are close to choking the cages around the plants.

I know all about pinching off the "suckers" that appear in the joint between the branch and the trunk. They grow into branches that never produce fruit and only sap the plant of energy.

But for a more detailed look at how to prune your tomatoes - as well as an explanation of why you should - take a look at this article and video on the Fine Gardening mazgazine web site.

The goal is to reduce the leaf surface, which draws energy and sugar from the production of fruit.

Read more:

By Susan Reimer at 10:00 AM in Weekend Chores

Weekend Plantings

Several folks have asked me about the beautiful small trees that covered their wispy stems and green-barked branches with yellow blossoms this spring and summer.

Those plants, once extremely common in our landscapes, are Jerusalem thorn trees, native to Mexico, the American Southwest and South America.

Incredibly graceful due to its tiny leaves, this cold-hardy, deciduous tree flowers heavily in spring, and then intermittently through autumn. Although young trees should be staked, the Jerusalem thorn requires little maintenance because established specimens need no irrigation, fertilizer or mulch.

This lovely tree occasionally grows 30 feet tall but is generally smaller.

Jerusalem thorn's diminutive size and airy branching allow it to be used in small gardens where larger or denser trees would be out of place. Additionally, the light shade it casts is ideal for growing most plants.

Install Jerusalem thorn trees on well-drained, sunny sites. They're not resistant to hurricane-force winds, so choose locations carefully. Propagate by seed. Pruning, if necessary, should be done in late autumn.

Read more:

[ Charles Reynolds, a Winter Haven resident, has an associate's degree in horticulture and is a member of the Garden Writers' Association of America. ]